Ice Tyrant learns to garden

Gardening. It is a love/hate kind of hobby. So it seemed to me at least. I can honestly say that I have never had much of an interest in gardening in my 40+ years on this planet. Which is kind of interesting since I do love to be outdoors playing sports, hiking, running, etc. One would think that a love of the outside world would extend to participating in the growth of life. Recently I have been exposed to a shared experience that has sparked a latent passion yearning to break free of the chains of neglect that I had imposed upon it. I know that is quite dramatic, but seriously the gardening bug has bitten me. Literally, since I seem to get eaten alive by mosquitoes every time I go outside these days. Anyhow, yes I can honestly say that I have spent a fair amount of time in the last few weeks paying close attention to the little garden that could. It started a year or more ago with the love of my life, J-Bird, going into what was a sparse and barren backyard and planting some pretty simple flowers and herbs. I do not know what they are even called at this point, but that isn't important. I recall that I reluctantly helped her and by helped I mean I was on clean up and weed killing duty. Although these are too important skills that all gardeners must reluctantly utilize, having someone else do it is often preferred. I was the someone else that day. Needless to say this was not the moment of epiphany. At this point I was mainly impressed that I was dating someone who had some real skills in the garden. J-Bird showed some love to the backyard and turned it into a rather comfy sitting area for morning coffee, fire pit sessions or reading on the veranda as I like to call it. It really was quite a lovely transformation. Fast forward to six weeks ago - give or take a couple of weeks because my memory is like an old VHS tape. My son, Lil C, has shown a real interest in J-Bird's gardening and has often participated in her efforts to beautify our backyard. He loves nature and all things in it. He has spent countless hours in the backyard searching for bugs, rocks and critters. Things were slowly aligning. J-Bird, always eager get outside, brought the garden team together to start our annual spring garden renewal. The three of us jumped in the jeep and rode to Greenstreet Gardens of Virginia. As we wandered through the rows of alienesque plant life we started to discuss what kind of plants we would like to add to our quaint veranda. Much to my surprise I actually participated in the conversation. I actually had some ideas. I can't say that any of them were taken seriously by my two gardening compadres, but it was a start. We decided on some snapdragons, which turned out to be an amazing choice.

Lil C wanted to grow a plant of his own and we decided on tomatoes. Perhaps it was all of those zombie apocalypse movies I have seen and played, but growing our own food really appealed to me. It apparently is a good summer season plant, like orchids. See! I just dropped some garden gnome knowledge on ya! We found a perfect little tomato plant and then turned our attention to the best way to grow the little green sucker. It turns out that for some reason tomatoes like to grow upside down. So we bought a hanging container, some potting soil, and pepper plants (for salsa OBVIOUSLY) and off we went. I realize at this point that I may be boring some of you out of your mind.

However, I just cannot adequately describe what the planting of that tomato plant did to me. It was like some unknown part of me grew from that tiny plant hanging upside down in the backyard. I would look out with eager anticipation each morning to see how much the plant grew. I would often discuss any sort of anomaly or even the smallest growth with J-Bird and Lil C. Then the small yellow flowers started to appear. These little flowers apparently portend the arrival of the tomato itself, kind of like the sun showing up to provide warmth. Then one day it happened! A small roundish green bulb appeared where the yellow flower used to exist.

In my mind I now realized that I could grow my own food. I could be self-sustaining. Ok, Ok. That may be going too far. However, there is no denying that seeing that little round bulb really did change my outlook on this whole gardening thing. I was proud. Almost in the same way as watching Lil C hitting his first double in LL baseball. Since these glorious early days, I have spent daily time in the garden. I water, adjust, prune, pick, clean, weed - everything a lover of gardens does. I knew that I was bitten when I looked out one morning and found the tomato plant laying on the ground after the hook it was hanging from broke. I was terrified to even speak of it to Lil C and J-Bird until I saw them peering through the screen door as I carefully performed an emergency planting. The fortunate part was that the plant broke into two distinct pieces. After several days of nervous monitoring I can safely report the tomato plant survived and we now have two healthy plants. I never imagined that I would be able to actually save the darn thing. However, I never even thought for a second that I wouldn't at least try. The glory of that moment, as horrifying as it was, showed me the light. I had the power to do this thing called gardening. There is just something glorious about stepping out into a world that you helped to create. I mean does it get any better than that? I submit that it cannot.