I used to joke that I had the Black Thumb of Death.  You hear stories about people who can make things grow, who take plants knocking on Death’s door and nurse them back to health, but to me these people have always been one part astounding and two parts incredible.  If I so much as looked at a houseplant, it died.

This is what corn leaves look like when they are two feet taller than you.

This is my first summer garden and it seems almost magical to me.  I have tomatoes nearly as tall as my gum boots, watermelon plants pouring over the dirt surrounding them, pea plants that dwarf my daughter.  It is hard to believe that this is my first year gardening, because barring a few gopher tragedies, everything here has worked.  Even without an ounce of garden know-how, my plants are living.  Growing.  THRIVING.

Lately, Donald and I have been working on a long-term garden plan.  We would like to be able to supply the majority of the fruits and vegetables our family consumes every year, even as our family grows.  We would like to support beneficial insects like praying mantises and native bee species.  We would like to discourage gophers and other pests from eating all of our food.  We would like to eliminate malicious insects like grasshoppers.  And we would like to find positive ways to incorporate birds and toads (hopefully without the birds eating all of our seeds and sprouts).

The sad fact is that we are going to need to become much more efficient gardeners and much more knowledgeable conservationists to attain those goals.  My cats are killing at least one gopher every week, but I have still lost several dozen plants.  I lost seven stalks of corn last week alone.  And I don’t know the first thing about native bees, insects, or birds.  Right now, my garden isn’t anywhere near where I would like it to be.

A couple hundred square feet of our garden of late.

But we’re making progress and that’s the good news.  We’ve talked to a few of our neighbors and asked them if they mind refraining from pesticide use so that we don’t have to worry about their chemicals landing on the foods we put on our dinner plates.  (This is one of the hardest things I have ever done, but everyone we’ve talked to so far has been understanding and supportive.)  We’ve started looking at water systems that will allow us to filter metals and chemicals from our water before it’s pumped into our sprinklers and drip lines.  We’ve joined a native wildlife group to learn more about how species here interact and how we can support them without sacrificing our vegetables.  And we’ve begun tackling the tasks, like relocating our compost pile, that needed to come first if we want to expand our garden area and keep it gopher-free (read: add raised beds) (with chicken mesh on the bottom).

As Donald and I are finishing up our first year of gardening, I’m finding that I have truly enjoyed it.  I enjoy the hard work, the problem-solving, the excitement of trying new things, the satisfaction of watching seedlings grow, the feeling that I’m doing something good for our family and our world.  Most of all, I enjoy the confidence.  I know now that I was wrong about having the Black Thumb of Death, that anybody can grow food, even me.

The seeds cost money, the water costs money, the raised beds are going to cost money.  But the feeling of having made something happen that I thought was impossible seems priceless.

This post is a part of the Summer Garden Show-and-Tell outreach with Healthy Child, Healthy World.  If you are interested in blogging on Healthy Child, Healthy World topics, please click here.