Lessons Learned from a New Gardener

     

When I first signed on to this project I had a vision in my mind of what gardening would be like. I thought we would get a plot of land, throw some seeds into the ground and return the next day ready to harvest. I figured I would be eating salads with my own produce within a week’s time. After Friday's outing I now realize how naive I truly was. 

So many weeds

       Friday started off a bit on the hectic side. After much back and forth communication, a group of three (Sara Snyder, Courtney and myself) were set to venture to our future garden and get a feel for the situation. On Will's direction, we headed in the direction of Carlton Street to the Martin Luther King Community Garden. I put full trust into Sara seeing how I had never even heard of Carlton, let alone knew where it was. After a few confused moments, a chance meeting with a friendly, but unhelpful man on Montclair, and numerous debates whether the garden would be located down or up the road (one problem I feel only someone at Lehigh would understand, we did not want to have to hike up the street if unnecessary) we stumbled upon the community garden. Located in a lot beside a church, the garden is very pleasant. There is plenty of shade, raised beds and decoration contributed from Lehigh art students.

                All the beds contained tall, thin plants that needed to be pulled before the gardening even began.  Enter problem number two.  From talking to Will, we knew that our beds were numbers 5 and 7. However, it turned out the beds were not labeled. After much debate, and finally calling Will, we located our bed and got to weeding. Sara and Courtney took the actual weeding and left me to cutting the roots off of the weeds, something I did not know was necessary until Sara explained if the roots were to be left on the plant then the weeds would continue to grow.  I was surprised at how much fun I was having.  The sun was out but because we were in the shade we were not too hot. We estimated we started this project at around 2:50. 4:30 rolls around and we had not even finished one plot! Usually I am very impatient and want to get the job done as fast as possible. However, I found when I was at our plot I was not in any rush. What I learned that day is that gardening is not something that can be rushed. A true gardener just has to be patient and appreciate the now.  Looking forward to my next venture over to Carlton!

So many weeds...still