The Crappy Foodie Gardener

If it wasn’t for the yearly success of my small strawberry patch I would have abandoned my garden altogether.

Each year I am amazed at how much those little plants give back to me, the reluctant and crappy gardener.

My mom under the giant rhododendrons of Vancouver Island, British Columbia

I wish with all my heart that I had my mom’s talent for gardening. She seems to remember everything naturally, just knows what to do. I look stuff up in books and online and can not retain anything. Physically, gardening is also absolute and utter sheer physical torture for me. My fibromyalgia-ridden body HATES it. I consider it my own personal kryptonite.

Still, I try… The first thing I started to attempt to grow was a raspberry bush. At our home in Toronto, my mom designed a crop of raspberry bushes right near the front door. Every morning we would all go out and get some for our cereal.

I wanted that experience too. So far I have had two raspberries. This will be my fifth summer in Nova Scotia BTW.

I had read that to have a bumper crop of blueberries you need to cross-pollenate with two different plants. So that is what I did. Don’t ask me what kind of blueberry bushes they are, I can’t remember. But it seems to have worked for one of the bushes (on the right) which appears very laden with blossoms for the first time ever! OK, that is seriously exciting.

I know it is way too late to grow tomatoes from seed but we actually had a warm day that heated up the house so I thought I would give it a shot. Heinz sent me their own tomato seeds and I wanted to see if I could get them to grow. I had never grown tomatoes from seed before…

I put the soil in a plastic bowl and moistened with a spray of water.

I had these plant starter containers from the dollar store. I filled them almost all the way with soil. I used a chop stick to make indents, added the seeds and then topped gently bur firstly with more soil.

They are now living in front of the only window that gets light covered in plastic to create a green house effect. I know, pretty futile at this time of year but this might be the last year I can do this kind of thing at all, our lives are so up in the air. Realistically next year at this time I will be trying to sell our house.

And every year I buy some herbs and they quickly die and I promise myself I won’t buy more but I always do. This year? I am starting with thyme. So beautiful and one of my favourite herbs, I could not help it. I had to grab it.

It has always been my dream to grow my own food. It is a huge reason why I have always wanted my own house. Too bad I am really not good at it and my body is apparently allergic to it. Still, while I have my own house, I am trying to do what I can.

With not being allowed to drive thanks to my health and all the medications I am on, I can not get to “local” markets that are far from where I live. I can not get to farms or even Costco. I can get to the supermarkets close by and I carry my groceries home on my injury-proned back and in my sore hands.

I wanted to grow fruit-bearing trees and even tried to grow a pumpkin! This is as big as it got. Perhaps it is the climate or maybe it is me?

It makes me very grateful to those who still have the knowledge of how to grow food because it is clear to me that that part of the foodie world is one I just can not seem to connect to. At least nobody can say I didn’t try!