Gardening – Why I Do It

September 4, 2014 by • gardening • Tags: , , , , , , , , , , • 3 Comments

Gardening – why do I do it?

Gardening – why do I do it?  It’s hard work, dirty, requires regular care throughout the growing season, and can still fail completely if something goes wrong.

So why do I enjoy gardening?  Let me tell you.

garden

Gardens will listen well and never talk back.  Yes, you can talk to the dirt, the flowers, the plants, the shrubs, the trees.  (Just don’t let your neighbors see you, unless you live in a rough neighborhood, and appearing to be crazy is an important part of your security measures!)

You can garden at your own pace, following either the sun or the shade as you like, and no one will bother you.  It’s one of the best ways of multi-tasking anyone can do.  While you garden, you can think about all manner of other things, work out problems without pressure, check on your emotions and let go stress.

Ah, yes.  Stress.  The red light on the dash of life…  Gardening is one of the best ways to let go of stress.  As you feel the dirt in your hands, or pull weeds, or sew seeds, or set bedding plants in, all the stress of life seems to just trickle out through your fingers into the earth.

Gardening is one of the few things almost anyone can do that rewards you over and over again.

As you break and prepare ground, you get great exercise, fresh air and sunlight, and the promise of things to come.

As you plant, each row, each new transplant, is an accomplishment, and when the planting is done, the expectancy of vibrant new green adds an air of mystique and excitement to your life!

Each new day brings a healthy excitement and interest, to see what has happened while you were away at other things.  I enjoy nothing quite as much as taking a cup of coffee out to one of my gardens in the morning.

Out front is my main flower garden.  It is a crazy layout, perhaps matching my mind.  I love colour, and it is definitely colourful!  From the first bulbs that send up grape hyacinth, grape hyacinthmany different colours of tulips, star flowers, crocuses, daffodils and others, to the towering, multicoloured hollyhocks that continue to bloom into the fall, it is crazy with colour, and life.

Fruit trees bloom around both yards in spring, and then there is the bridal veil and mock orange.  In the evening, the fragrance will take your breath away!

Crazy garden

Out back, of course, is the vegetable garden.  I grow in every square inch of ground I can find, and then in the compost bins and in pots, as well.  Kale, cucumber, broccoli, lettuce, beets, turnips, carrots, yellow, white and green onions, tomatoes (heirloom, of course), pole beans on the fence (why not?), zucchini, bell peppers, rhubarb, elderberries, thai berries, sunflowers and potatoes.  I get enough potatoes out of our little plot to last my wife and I (along with giving some away) until the next ones are ready.  All our potatoes are grown from our own waste potatoes and potato scraps.  Black ones, white ones, Yukon gold, red russets… They’re all in there, and what a sea of green it makes when it’s all up!

potatoes

I have a chair in my back garden, too, and like to sit there with a coffee in hand and just let everything fade out until all that’s left is me and the garden, the birds, including the little green hummingbird who like to drink from the hand held sprinkler, and a few bees and wasps (very  helpful for the garden).

Some people wonder why I would even bother to grow potatoes, considering how inexpensive they are to buy.  My answer is, the way they harvest potatoes commercially is… well… you really don’t want to know, if you actually eat them.  Plus, just planting the garden and watching it grow is something you can’t put a price on.

I can’t speak for all the other gardeners, but I bet many would agree with me!  And that, in the smallest nutshell I can use, is why I

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Meet Dave Cottrell

Dave Cottrell has written 5 posts in this blog.

Dave Cottrell is the owner & CEO of ClassifiedAdLand.com & BestRateDigital.com. He has recently finished a short term contract as the affiliate manager for Adlandpro.com, an Internet success story created by visionary Canadian, Bogdan Fiedur in 1998. Dave was tasked with auditing the entire site, taking feedback from members and affiliates, creating mockups of future webpages, rewriting training material and providing a full report with recommendations to the owner. Dave thoroughly enjoyed the experience and is looking forward to seeing the results as Bogdan and his team of programmers go to work. Dave Cottrell lives in Gibsons, BC. He is married with four adult children & four grandchildren. His greatest priority is being the pastor of Sunshine Community Baptist Church, a small, Independent Baptist church started about fifteen years ago. Being involved in online marketing has made it possible for him to do this. Dave & his wife, married in 1978, were introduced to their first experience in network marketing shortly after they were married. He was the one in the group who was very quickly recruited to present the business plan. Many things have changed since 1978. New rules to protect those who get caught up in illegal pyramid & pump-and-dump schemes were legislated, & regulations were tightened up. However, a quantum leap in communication, via the Internet, has been the biggest change. Social media is THE communication platform of the 21st century. Dave was strongly influenced to get involved in social media by Adlandpro, one of the very first companies to achieve success in this arena, even before the title, "social media," had emerged. He has been very much involved in social media ever since, & is now very experienced in social media communication & marketing. He can help you succeed. Also on https://plus.google.com/+Classifiedadland

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