One Small Step For A City Girl

After my last post expressing my ambitions to start a mini-garden this year, a good friend of mine offered to spend the day with me and share all her gardening knowledge. Thanks to all her help, I now have a growing garden, including peas, tomatoes, lettuce, mint, oregano, basil, and later, rosemary and nasturtium. Here they are last Sunday, the day after we planted them.

Basil:

 Drying basil; the plant was already big enough to harvest some!

Pineapple Mint:

 

Oregano:

 

Lettuce and Pea seeds:

And the peas and lettuce in planters:

 

Tomatoes seeds and planters:

Five days after planting, the lettuce sprouted!!

The next day the peas sprouted, and the day after that the tomatoes sprouted. Here's what they all look like today, one week after planting.

Basil; the basil that I harvested is dried and ready for use:

Mint, which I harvested right after taking this picture, and am now drying for tea:

 

Oregano, which needs to be harvested and dried; it grows quickly!

 

Peas and Lettuce: 

Tomatoes:

 

So, all those pictures to say this: my garden is growing!!!!!!! Hopefully this year, I'll actually be able to grow some edibile veggies. Tonight for dinner I'll be using some of the dried basil and well as some fresh basil leaves to make margherita pizza. so at least I've grown something that is useable! 

On a slightly more serious note, this whole gardening this is really teaching me a valuable lesson in patience. After I planted the seeds, I wanted to see sprouts right away. I hated the waiting, because I didn't know if the seeds were doing anything under all that dirt. But all I could do was water and wait and hope. And in the end everything has sprouted! Now that things are sprouted however, and especially with the herbs, the growth isn't drastic. It's slow....so slow that I almost don't notice it. That's why I'm taking the pictures: so that I can see how the plants change. 

I feel like life is a lot like that. God's plans are like the seeds. I know He's planted them, I can see the beginning of them, but now I just have to watch and wait and hope that there is something happening under the surface. Also, when God is working in our lives and hearts, the change is slow. The day to day difference in us is so unnoticeable that it is easy to get discouraged. Yet after while if we look back, we can see the change; we can see what He has done. And that is very encouraging!

A New Find, a Life Goal, and a Question for You!

Recently, in all my scouring the world wide web, I stumbled upon a lovely blog which has become one of my favorites.

It is written by a sweet young lady named Mia who is a fellow Christan, homeschooler, and Civil War reenactor, and who, like me, believes that her greatest calling in life is to be a wife, mother, and homemaker. Her entire family has taken on an old-fashioned "homesteading" approach to life, living in a small house in the country, trying to be as self-sufficent as possible. It's an intriguing blog to read, even if you're not into that kind of thing; it's still refreshing to see a young lady and family that is devoted to God.

However, the blog is especially inspiring to me. Why? Well, you all know I love the country; the wide open spaces, the fresh air, the peaceful sounds, the earthy smells. Yup, that's my thing. But more than that, I love the idea of "homesteading". I love the idea of growing my own food, and raising my own animals; the idea of using the laundry line more than the dryer, and candles more than eclectric lights; the idea of being a peacful, old-fashioned family enjoying the simple things of life in the country. Thankfully, my Man shares these ideas with me, so we both dream of having a house in the country with a porch swing and a vegetable garden and animals of our own.

When I first started reading that blog, I was so discouraged. I thought, "I can never be like her! She's probably grown up this way,and she lives in the country, and her entire family is involved. I've grown up depending on Wegmans and Targert, I live in an apartment, and I'm kind of alone in this right now." But, as I started looking back at her posts from the past, I realized that they started out just like me. She was a "normal" girl, living in the city, just new to homeschooling. But her family had a dream, and they made do with what they had, growing small amounts of food in their tiny back yard, until they could move to the country. And now, Mia has a dream, too, of continuing that country lifestyle, and learning how to be the best wife and mother she can. She's doing that, one little thing at a time.

And that got me to thinking....I may not have a family that's ready to throw themselves into the country and start homesteading. But, I can be the beginning of that kind of family. Yeah, the Man and I may have to start out in an apartment, but maybe, someday we will be able to take our family to that house in the country, porch swing and all. And I want to be as ready for that day as possible.

One thing I'm doing this year to make that happen is attempting to growing herbs and tomatoes. I've never grown anything edible before, and trust me, I've tried!! But, I've heard herbs and tomoatoes are easy, and that they don't take up a lot of space (essential, since I only have a small balcony to grow things on).

So here's my question for you: have you ever grown herbs or tomatoes? And if so, PLEASE give me any hints or tips that were helpful to you!!


P.S. Pictures from Disney will be coming soon.....it just takes a while to sift through ofver 1000 pictures!