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Because I’d turned 40 and loved the photos in Stephanie Alexander’s Kitchen garden companion, and because I had a backyard, which I’d been weeding, I thought I was ready to take the next step towards my gardening days. So, I joined the Yates Veggie Growing Challenge even though I’d recently read a book that said berating yourself into doing stuff, which is the role I expected the challenge to take on, wasn’t the healthiest way to do things. Poo to that I said. I’d never get off the couch if I didn’t beat myself up occasionally. How hard could veggie gardening be?

So, I registered with Yates, chose four vegetables from their list of vegetables to grow, bought packets of seeds and then the fertilizer suggested on the backs of the packets of seeds. I chose which spaces in the garden would take which vegetables and dug up the dirt until it was less stony, and fertilized those spaces according to the seed packets’ suggestions. I made indents and trenches in the soil and planted the seeds in them. I watered the seeds, crossed my fingers, and hoped for the best.

The snow peas, broad beans and carrots grew fast and that was satisfying. The beetroot seeds didn’t grow as fast, but they weren’t supposed to so I didn’t worry too much. Then the rain came and washed most of the beetroot and carrot seedlings away and that was less satisfying. Then the broad-beans got all covered in ants and squishy little black things, which I found out were aphids that had to be squashed, which I did and that was fun. Then the snow-peas’ leaves turned grey and I couldn’t describe to Google what was wrong with them well enough to find out what was wrong with them. And then I got bored

My snow-peas are two metres high and flowering now.  The broad-bean plant that wasn’t sucked dry by the aphids is flowering too. But, I’m up to day 106 of the challenge and I haven’t written a post on Yates about my garden for a month because I haven’t done anything and because I don’t have anything to write that I haven’t already written except that I’m bored and I can’t write that because it wouldn’t be in the spirit of the challenge.

I’ve decided not to beat myself up about it. Even though I said that’s what the Yates challenge was for. I’ve loved imagining, preparing, and digging my garden, but the real work, the care, the cold hands, and the everydayness of gardening just isn’t for me. Give me a broom and I’ll sweep leaves, give me some weeds and I’ll pull them out, give me a hardy plant already in a pot and stick it in the garden and I’ll empty the dregs from the teapot on it, but give me a proper garden and I’ll cross my fingers and mostly leave it to its own devices.

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