In gardening and homesteading, patience is a virtue

Marigold babies, survivors of the frost that killed the “parent” plant

I thought I’d become a more patient person. After years of doing whatever I could to not wait for things, the past couple of years I have mellowed and learned to wait. Until this year, of course, when I am planning an entire urban homestead scheme. When I have no choice but to be patient, I find myself often chomping at the bit. I want my raised beds done & ready. I want to stop buying organic produce & just go out & harvest my own. I want to stop buying herbs & go out & harvest my own. I want my own compost. IwantIwantIwant…

Uh huh. Anyone who also gardens and/or homesteads probably understands this strong desire, and even if you don’t garden or homestead, you know where this is heading: There ain’t no such thang as “hurry up” when you’re doing things this way.

Yesterday my roommate helped me and we made more progress on the back yard. The laundry lines were moved to their new spot (to make room for the raised beds), stepping stones were moved and put to use (to make way for a planting area), a few more plants were moved/repotted. And after two days of moving around heavy things & bending & pulling, I’m really worn out! It’s going to take time to get myself back into shape for yardwork.

The laundry poles in their new place. You can see to the left in the pic where some raised beds will be. And bonus is that the laundry lines now get an hour or two of more sun each day…yay for longer drying times!

Since both my roommate and myself are on very small budgets, we have to acquire supplies for the gardens as we can. We’ve going to get the borders & soil for one raised bed at a time, and hopefully have all four ready in March. Then we’ll plant, and away we go. Which means, of course, that none of my own food will be ready until summer. Aaaagghhh! Here’s where patience needs to kick in. It’s not like I don’t have many, many other things that need doing and will fill up the time. And I know that once the gardens are in full swing, adding care of them to my other list of “jobs” will be at times frustrating. I know all that, but it’s not denting one whit my wish that I could snap my fingers and have them going.

With regard to the plants themselves, I had planned to buy organic/heirloom seeds from a favorite supplier, including several herb varieties as I plan to start more in-depth study this year of herbalism & herbal healing. Then lo & behold, this weekend I unearthed a box of seeds from the back room that I’d bought perhaps 2-3 years ago…seeds I’d forgotten I still had…and I gleefully pulled the box out of its hiding place. I have a lot of seeds in there:

And I’m going to plant every dang one. Will any of them germinate? I’m betting that at least some of them do. And if a 4,000 year old lentil seed can germinate, then surely a bunch of my “old” seeds will, too. Happily, herb seeds are now one less thing I have to wait for.

Before I end this post, I want to leave you with a couple of cute pics I took yesterday. Just before moving the laundry poles, I found a lizard hanging out in one of them, just checking out the scene from his high perch. He scooted back in when we started moving the pole, and never jumped out. Once the pole was in its new position & in the ground, I waited a bit, and sure enough, he poked his head back out once more:

(Yes, I custom-ordered the sky to be Just That Pretty as a photo background!)

And of course I had to see how close he’d let me get…

A bit later my roommate actually “scratched” his “chin,” and he licked the end of her finger. It was so cute. But after a while of me taking pics, he’d finally had enough, eyed the fence, and made a jump for it. I’m hoping he comes back soon.

Happy Monday…here’s to a productive, and patient, week.