High Elevation Gardening Web Log "Blog"

I have opted to have it all. I have an intense job, friends, kids, dogs. I read, quilt, paint, play my mandolin, and try to stay fit. I can have all this and gardening too; the key is “good enough.”

I garden in small amounts of time, a few hours on a Saturday, an hour after work on a summer evening, a good day in February. I have a big vegetable garden. In the spring it always looks impossible, yet I fill it up, by the seat of my pants. In February I’m starting tomatoes in the house. A good day in March I might turn beds, a few, one or two. In an hour on a day off I put in my onions and garlic, before I sit down to paint, after I’ve done the laundry. Then I’ll look at it all week, satisfied to have one planted bed. And it goes on that way, never knowing until the end if I will get it all in, somehow I always do.

Then there is the challenge of maintenance. I can only do so much. I commit to intense watering that first month, usually in my work cloths, early in the mornings. A lot of things have to be put on the back burner to accomplish that watering, but it has to happen and I manage it. Always there are glitches. This year it was grasshoppers. My green beans came up; the grasshoppers took them down in two days. I couldn’t replant. No time. Once was all I could do. That bed stood empty all summer. I ate Frank’s wonderful beans. I shared my bumper crop of chard and peppers. I can do what I can do. That’s the way the cookie crumbles.

I’m trying to landscape my yard, so I too can have Martha Stewart garden parties. I study Bridgett’s garden, and plant perennials, annuals, and bulbs. But there’s the problem of the dog, digging and chewing. When Bridgett comes over I take her on a tour. There, in the daylilies, is a fresh dog poop, and a new shrub pulled out by its roots and dragged all over the yard. One hopeful bed planted with oranges and yellows has not one successful plant to show for itself. Yet there were Shasta daisies, and Black Eyed Susans mingling with the Salvia just like the magazine picture. For me, it was good enough.

It’s February and I haven’t yet finished closing up last year’s garden. I’m in a demanding painting class, and going to yoga often. It was cold yesterday when I had the time, so I turned the compost and spread some manure on one bed. The seed catalogues are coming in and I’m getting excited over next year’s gardening possibilities. I already know some things about my garden. I will find time for the most important priorities but there will always be weeds unpulled, flowers not deadheaded, and compost not turned. I will choose to be happy with what does work, and not grieve over what doesn’t. I will adore Frank and Bridget’s gardens. And for sure, something incredible will happen and I will get some version of good enough.

Teri Dunn
The author is a Master Gardener volunteer for Coconino County Cooperative Extension. For more information about the Master Gardener Program, call 774-1868 ext. 17 or visit our Web site: highelevationgardening.arizona.edu.