Anarchy

Our garden is a mess. I’ve ignored all convention when it comes to crop rotation, companion planting, and spacing – not intentionally. You know me, I have all the answers thanks to research, but I’m just a little shoddy on my application of it. Every nook and cranny is being stuffed with leftover tomato seedlings and various types of legumes. There are sunflowers popping up wherever the birds have pooped, which essentially is every 12″ on center. This morning I pulled out a clump of corn. There were about seven seedlings all tangled up together, so I loosened the clod and spaced them out among the radishes I forgot to thin and will likely pull up too late.

Strawberries, carrots and soy beans, hibiscus and marigolds. Yeah, that’s all.

When I peruse Pinterest for garden designs and inspiration, I’ve come to the point of snickering whenever I see a picture of a perfectly laid out garden with quaint grids of lettuce heads and onions. WHO ARE THESE PEOPLE? I’ve certainly done diagrams and planting plans, but when it comes time to stick my shovel into the dirt and start the fun work of seeding and transplanting, I just get ridiculously giddy and over-ambitious. How could I possibly toss out the extra tomatoes? Why when the radishes are so small (and I’ll probably not eat them) should I not go ahead and interplant them with corn and squash? Why not stick some veggies in the designated flower corner? Why not put mom’s day lilies in the designated herb bed? All discipline gets tossed aside.

For someone who can be meticulously detailed (just watch me fuss over a bowl on the pottery wheel), I am quite prone to anarchy in the garden. There are still rules I follow (such as weeding), but forcing myself to keep the tomatoes 18″ apart is just about as painful as combing the mystery dreadlocks that have been forming at the nape of my neck. It’s not that I don’t start with even spacing and zones for various crops, and to the untrained eye, my garden might look somewhat orderly.

I’m not sure exactly how I will dig up the potatoes when there is corn growing on top of them. I could be in for massive trouble this summer!