A little about me: I LOATHE gardening.
I know, I know. Folks think because I preserve a lot of different types of food I must have a beautiful garden. I don’t.
Gardening makes me angry and cranky. It always has. I grew up with a HUGE garden, my grandparents had a large garden next door to us and next door to them my aunt and uncle had a big garden as well. (One year my aunt planted an entire ROW of zucchini! She couldn’t sell it to folks and the cows got tired of eating it! Full story for another time….)
I spent a lot of my youth hoeing, raking, planting, harvesting, pulling carrots out of the ground and rubbing the dirt off or a quick rinse from the outside faucet for a fast snack as I am part of the “drink out of a hose” generation. We weren’t allowed in the house after breakfast in the morning during the summer because we would have tracked dirt in on my mother’s freshly mopped floors (she mopped on her hands and knees daily). My dad worked shift work so during graveyard we were really kicked out as he needed to sleep.
So, I have a lot of gardening experience in my past and it did not carry over into adulthood. In fact, we have a landscaper to maintain our yard year round and if we need something done we ask him if he will take care of it, pay the extra fee and he gets it done beautifully! Problem solved. I don’t have to do yard work and my neighbors are happy with a tidy yard to look at.
I just don’t like it. At all. I mean why, why, WHY do I need to plant and grow my own food when I can buy it freshly picked from all the beautiful farms around me and support their lovely businesses. It works for me and for everyone else around me because I am happy and filling my bucket preserving food while others fill their buckets full of weeds. Win WIN!
To all you wonderful folks who like to garden, yay you! You are the bees knees by keeping the bees happy and your soul fulfilled by digging in the dirt. What a special time for folks. As for me, I will continue to purchase all my garden goodies from the local farms and stores for beautiful produce for canning purposes using my pressure canner, water bath canner, dehydrator, blanching for freezing and all the other delicious things I preserve at home.
As you garden away this season, I will honor you with a toast from a delicious beverage shrub I always have on hand whilst sitting in my beautifully maintained backyard that I lovingly pay someone else to do. And we all lived happily ever after!!!