Gardening Without a Green Thumb

I do not have a green thumb.  I don't like gardening.  I know lots of people who love it, and gardening is something that gives them joy and is a favorite pastime.  Not me.  I actually dread it most of the time.

Ironically, my hubby is a grower - that's his profession.  He manages a greenhouse, actually.  Now you might think we have fabulous gardens and plants at our house, but not necessarily.  You see, he kind of expects me and the kids to help out with planting and tending, and so far none of us are very good at it, or get much enjoyment from it.  Maybe Kennady - she is our last hope, I think.  I often feel rather guilty about it too, because we have about an acre and have plenty of room for a huge vegetable garden and potential for some beautiful landscaping and flowerbeds.

I'm going to be perfectly honest - I'd love to have nice landscaping if I didn't have to do any of the work at all.  But I don't have that kind of money.  Really, I'd be just as happy to have wildflowers and leave it be.  I'm all about the low maintenance stuff. ;-)

The landscaping in front of the house has been a dilemma almost since we moved in.  Originally, it was quite nice, but the ground cover really took over and it's just looked rather unkempt ever since.  For the first several years we lived here, we didn't know what we wanted to do with the space, so we just tried to keep it from looking too terribly wild.  We finally came up with some plans to redo the landscaping and change the path from the driveway to the front porch.  But it hasn't been a priority so the work to do this has been pretty slow.  This spring we finally made a bit of progress, by tearing up all the ground cover (in one section, at least), and putting a birdbath and a few small plants there.  It's right outside the window next to our computer desk, and we have a hummingbird feeder on the porch there, so it's something we can enjoy even from inside.  I actually took this picture through the window, right after we finished doing the work, thus the blurry effect of the screen. 8-/

We started on a vegetable garden for the first time in years.  The garden plot was at the very back of our acre, but for someone who doesn't like tending a garden in the first place, it was just too far from the house.  Out of sight, out of mind.  I mentioned to the hubster that maybe if we had container gardens or raised beds close to the house, and started small, maybe I'd do a better job of actually remembering to use what we could grow.  So, several weeks ago, he put my suggestion to the test and quickly put together these two raised beds out of scrap pallet wood (that we would have used for firewood otherwise) and we filled them with soil and got started with a few plants.  I took this picture right after we planted those first ones, so there are tomatoes, peppers, and eggplant.  Since then, Kennady has planted some seeds - sunflowers, carrots, baby pak choi, squash, zucchini - and there are a couple more tomato plants too.

We've added some baskets of flowers on the porches, and it's been my job to remind the kids to water all the plants each morning, and the kids' job to see that everything gets the water it needs.  There might just be some hope for our garden after all.

Not much hope, but a little.  You have to start somewhere.

I hope Kennady reminds me to harvest the tomatoes and squash when they are ready.

Do you enjoy gardening?  Please tell me I'm not the only one that hates it! Add to the comments, and visit the Schoolhouse Review Crew blog (this link will be live on Tuesday, July 3rd) to see what other Crew members have to say about camping.  You can also visit the Schoolhouse Review Crew blog homepage to see the reviews we are working on, past reviews, and past blog cruise topics.