Gardening My Feelings

My ollas are all in the ground now, filled with water, and covered with shells I found in the yard to keep bugs out. I've planted sweet allyssum and dill since they need sun to germinate before I add the straw mulch on top. I am ready for my transplants and other seeds which I will be purchasing this weekend. What a sense of accomplishment.

Gardening seems to be filling the great hole I developed in my world by the changes I've implemented in the last two years. Since, I started I'm no longer browsing for graduate programs to start and quit. I've so far dropped out of two, though I learned a tremendous amount in both. I am so engaged in gardening that I am eating less. I don't miss sugar or being a vegetarian as much. I used to love to cook but somehow it is just not the same anymore after starting to eat meat again. I find cooking meat rather boring. It really is about sustenance where I found that cooking vegetarian/vegan food was exciting and challenging maybe because one really had to be innovative. But I have been really trying to tone down my obsession with food especially sugar. I definitely fit most of the definition of addiction when it came to sugar. I opened a lot of time once I gave it up because so much of my time was spent searching for the perfect dessert. Gardening has also gotten me off the reading for most people reading is good for me it was an escape, a rather consuming one. The hard physical labor in gardening is a great way to channel and deal with some of my intense feelings and it also provides a creative outlet.

Will I stick to gardening? I don't know. I usually tend to hop from hobby to hobby always in search, but already gardening and changing the face of our backyard has absorbed me longer than most things I've done. I have taken breaks from it. It is harder to burn out on because I have to take breaks both because of the seasons and because physically I get worn out. My hands are still sore from moving compost/garden soil to the raised beds and burying my ollas. I'm trying to wait patiently until they feel better to do more in the garden, plus I am waiting for transplants to be available (seed starting too intimidating for this year) for now I am just checking out the daily growth of my cover crop.