Simpler Living
By Fiona Wagner • Bankrate.com

So, the kids and I planted a garden -- just not the one that I'd expected. In a space the size of a small city backyard, I planted 24 different tomato plants, two zucchini transplants, one cucumber plant, beans, five strawberry plants, a row of multicoloured carrots, a row of mixed heirloom beets, a lone red pepper plant, several sugar pumpkins, one watermelon plant and a hill of potatoes.

I bordered the garden with my sad-looking nasturtiums (the flower that's supposed to lure away aphids would surely only attract looks of pity), some store-bought marigolds, loads of basil (no wonder I always crave Italian food after weeding) and a row of mammoth sunflower seeds.

And then I waited for the rain to fall and the sun to shine, bringing the much-needed heat. Even that was a disappointment. After a warm spring, June was cold and wet. There was a lot of greenery but little else: all show and no go, as one of my gardening allies said.

But instead of getting (too) discouraged, I took this as a gentle reminder that while I can control when seeds are started, which organic supplements I add to the soil or  how often I weed, a garden is still a part of nature. The larger forces, such as weather and temperature that determine its success or failure are completely out of my control. Humbling, that.

It seems like such a basic realization, but letting go of that control and expectation of what I'd be harvesting in late summer helped me regain the sense of adventure and wonder that keeps gardeners coming back each season. I started enjoying my time in my first garden, padding around barefoot amongst my young charges, weeding, feeding, pruning and staking and just letting whatever happened happen.

Harvesting knowledge and vegetables
Fast forward to mid-August: the rain came and after it the heat, and today I'm in awe of the explosion of life in my once-stark little patch of greenery. Instead of last season's 5-foot-tall pigweed, my garden now boasts a stunning row of sunflowers. The tomatoes have grown from 12-inch seedlings to 4-foot-tall plants bursting with fruit and toppling over their cages. Sure, my heritage carrot and beet seeds washed out of the careful row they'd been planted in and into an unruly bunch, but they still germinated and matured to gorgeous fruit not seen in grocery stores, ever.

Just yesterday, I harvested my second monster zucchini weighing in at 4.5 pounds (the first was a mere 2.5 pounds) from the same sickly transplant that I thought would never survive its first rainfall. The nasturtiums have swelled to gorgeous robust plants covered in richly coloured flowers. The aphids are taking notice.

The beans quickly outgrew their trellis and are now twinning up the sunflowers, and yesterday, my daughter discovered our first watermelon -- just the size of a billiard ball. Even the compost heap is proving its worth, nurturing last year's pumpkin seeds and boasting dozens of tendrils laden with fruit already the size of bowling balls.

I'll be trying those cool-season crops again in the fall, and next spring, maybe I'll expand the size of the garden. Or maybe not. In the meantime, I'll keep harvesting knowledge along with my vegetables, exercising my green thumb and racing my kids to the garden. Those grape tomatoes are worth it.

Fiona Wagner [www.fionawagner.com] is a freelance writer and new farmer living in Hastings County, Ont.