February 2025
It's been quite a few month's since I last checked in with the garden. Honestly, December was bitingly cold and much busier than I had anticipated while January got swept away to business tax preparations + restocking the online shop and library. But all the while, I found myself gazing out my *sometimes* frosted windows into the back and front gardens lost in a dream of what they might become over the course of this next year. There is so much that needs tending and still so many new projects I hope to add at the same time.
Being in the garden is when I feel most in tune with myself. It is when I find I can shut the circling that tends to happen inside my brain and simply find a state of flow and ease and joy. Oftentimes, my favorite writing scenes will come to me while my arms are covered in soil, sweat dripping down the back of my neck and under my bra.
But. . .
In all the years since I have started "seriously" gardening, I've yet to take it seriously. I've gotten loads of projects done, for sure, including transforming our front yard bit-by-bit into a garden filled with fruit trees, flowers, herbs, and more; building a wildlife pond in the backyard; filling the side yard with so much bee balm and strawberries that still line the freezer; and doing then redoing then redoing some more the back garden. But it's not been a serious focus for me.
Every year, I start with the best intentions. I hit the ground running, dreaming up how this year, everything will be different. How I will finally figure out how to actually grow a decent amount of my own fruit and vegetables and actually eat more seasonally, straight from my yard. How I will finally clean up all the little bits of the garden that aren't working and manage to stay on top of the invasive species threatening to overtake well. . . everything. How I will finally make sustainable living and growing and tending to this tiny plot of land my main goal for the year.
Inevitably, something always seems to come around to knock me off that path.
But not this year.
I'm not sure what the change is, but I feel it in the deepest part of me that this truly is THE YEAR in which things will get done. That my focus will be laser-sharp and unwavering. That tending to this little pocket of land will be my main priority for the entirety of 2025.
And it all started with a greenhouse.
THE BEGINNINGS OF AN IDEA
Way way back, in 2021, I tried my hand at cobbling together a miniature greenhouse out of used windows I happened to have lying around. The intention was to used it as a season extender/ seed starter/ place to store my lemon, lime, and avocado tree's during the cooler months and then *eventually* build an even larger structure using even MORE of the used windows I happen to have lying around the house.
Long story short, none of those ideas really came to fruition. I hardly used the mini greenhouse, primarily because it was too small for my lofty goals and also because it wasn't well ventilated or sealed. And the idea of building another, larger greenhouse from windows of varying sizes, age, and materials felt overwhelming.
In the meantime, I continued to struggle planning my garden from season to season. I found I couldn't direct seed a lot of things because of the unpredictability of the Georgia weather (hello false-Spring and first-Fall and second-Fall and third-Summer!), but I also had no good place to start seeds indoors (hello cats who want to destroy everything).
Purchasing starts was always an option, but it felt cost-prohibitive and also wasteful, what with all the plastic packaging that I had no place to store properly. We had built a little mini-shed that might have stored some of these items, but seeing as 3 of the doors I used were indoor-doors instead of outdoor-doors, that little shed only survived a few years before we had to tear it down. Which was OK as I never intended for the shed to be a permanent structure, more of a temporary place to shelter some of our garden items while I waffled on what I actually wanted out of our little plot of land.
Which circles me right back to this year being THE YEAR in which I buckle down and really give this gardening/ mini-farming thing everything I have to offer.
BUILDING THE GREENHOUSE (Part 1)
Now it is February, and I have done it. I have finally purchased a greenhouse. A real one, with walls and everything. Something that is both really big and likely way too small for the ambitions I have in my head and heart, but if I've learned anything over these past few years of trying to garden/ farm, it's that I need to scale my ideas way, way back. I say this knowing full-well that adding another structure to build on top of the mondo to-do list I already have as the irony of all ironies. But I truly do believe that this particular addition will benefit all other aspects of gardening/ farming for me.
The first task (aside from choosing exactly which greenhouse to purchase, which was a many-days task) was to choose the ideal location for our new structure. There were a few we had in mind, but after walking around on a particularly sunny day, Arlen and I decided that the most optimal, attractive, and convenient location was actually one in which we (Arlen) had already spent dozens of hours creating: our fire-pit platform/ where we had our first dance.
Beginning to remove the blocks in the lower let corner. I plan to repurposed them inside the greenhouse as a floor, both to honor all the hard work Arlen did in building this platform & pouring it by hand AND to help passively store heat for cooler evenings.
Don't let the image fool you--this ground is super unlevel.
The following day, Arlen and I picked up 21 concrete paver blocks to use as the base on which the greenhouse would sit utilizing Deanna's DIY instructions on how she built the base for her own greenhouse.
With the concrete blocks at home, I got to work putting them into place and leveling them off. I'll admit, I was pushing myself a bit too hard and absolutely wiped by the end of the day. Which is likely why, when I looked at everything the following day, I realized how the first two arms of the pavers I laid were super straight, but the final two sort of skewed off and didn't connect together correctly.
It's likely hard to see from a photo, but the right and top "legs" of the concrete base are not super straight, so they fail to connect in the upper right hand corner. I will need to correct this error before we can move on to our next steps.
RAIN, RAIN, ALL THE WAY
Shortly after pushing myself to lay the base of the greenhouse (incorrectly) I came down with a slight fever. . . while on my cycle. Fun times! It also began to rain. Hard. So, all those things put a slight damper on moving forward with the greenhouse building.
But, the extra time did allow us to discuss whether or not we wanted a second level of pavers so that the entire greenhouse was more raised (yes), decide what we wanted to fill the bottom of the greenhouse with (weed-blocking fabric followed by *maybe* sand followed by the former concrete pavers), and to joke that we had built ourselves a second pond.
The tiny greenhouse still stands (it is currently protecting a surprise avocado tree) just beyond our water filled base where the new greenhouse will reside.
And that is where I will leave you for today. Staring at the same puddle that I am currently staring at as the rain continues to pelt.
Hopefully, this weekend will prove fruitful and productive as the rain dries and I make my way back out into the yard to finish this project. I am SO excited to complete this greenhouse in time for the Spring Solstice party I am having next month, but also in time for starting seeds to be sown in the Summer. I am thrilled Arlen suggested this spot for the greenhouse, too, as it really does take center stage in our backyard, which has seen a lot of changes throughout the years. If you've been around, you may remember some of those changes! I personally wish I had documented more because it is so easy to forget what has shifted throughout the day to day. I mean, just look at this treasure I spotted from our 2020 wedding from the opposite side of the platform:
Compared to this same area, once our pond was completed:
And even this space has changed since! I'll have to snag a photo sometime soon so that I can compare them all. My, how things have changed.