How my garden grows

This year will start my 4th year of container gardening.

I am not a pro. I barely know what I am doing. That is part of the appeal.

I started in the summer of 2010 I think. I’d been inspired by an episode of Talk of The Nation Science Friday interview with Shawn Verrall of The Cheap Vegetable Garden. http://www.sciencefriday.com/segment/05/28/2010/turn-it-upside-down.html

I soon started attacking large PET bottles and plastic containers with duct tape, X-acto blades and wire hangers. Soon I had two hanging tomato plants and one eggplant…in bottles too small for what they really needed… and a small herb garden.

It wasn’t terribly attractive but it brought me joy. I produced enough herbs to encourage myself. I moved my tiny garden into my new apartment a few months later. My plants were the first thing I moved as soon as I got the keys to my place. I had hired a moving company to do everything in a day but I had no clue how best to pack my frankensteined planters for anyone else to deal with. The evening before I moved I packed plants in my bike basket and biked to my new place, making a few trips, to hang the veggies and herbs of my labor.

The next year was, well, earthquake year. Today marks two years since the quake.

Soon we will stand at our desks and observe a moment of silence.

I planted the fuck out of my balcony that year…and went for containers instead of anything hanging. Hanging planters don’t make much sense in a country that has a typhoon season. With containers I also had the option of bringing things inside if outdoor air became a concern, which was constantly on our minds in the summer of 2011. I also tried to grow a green curtain (a Japan-wide obsession that summer) with bitter melon but my balcony doesn’t have an overhanging anything to attach a net to…except the pole I hang my laundry on which needs to be usable for laundry.

The garden brought me calm. It reassured me. It also gave me something to do. When you’re worried about nuclear contamination destroying the land around you, your health and your way of life then being able to experience seeds becoming plants brings a sense of hope. I posted photos, so many photos. It helped those watching me from abroad, worried for me. Even when I ran out of words that year and found myself deep into the depression hole…I shared photos of the things that continued on. I continued to make, grow, create. I showed….but I could not tell.

My patio garden was haphazard but I loved it. I helped make things grow. I tasted the flavors and fed myself from it. On bad summer days when my allergies and asthma teamed up with their increasingly powerful buddy, severe anxiety and depression, I appreciated that I could see my garden from the bed I couldn’t seem to leave. It made me feel connected to something outside at a time I was becoming wildly internal.

Last year I learned more from my gardening mistakes and adjusted the plants here and there…but I still didn’t plan a damned thing.

My garden became a place to eat last year. I worked hard on trying to eat without too many extra distractions. I started having my meals at a small fold-out half table as I sat on a pillow, dangling my feet out into the balcony.

My tomatoes went crazy for a bit and died. Things on vines hated me. Peppers were content. My herbs loved me. My anti-depressants were working out.

This year…

Gardening is helping me through the anxiety spikes involved with reducing my anti-depressant dosage due to ear-related side-effects. I am planning my garden more…but that might be because in the last year I’ve found myself planning more than usual. I’m trying to balance all the things I do in a way that isn’t just about getting things done (or relying on my deadline-OMFG-rush) but getting those things done in a way that is mindful of my physical and mental stress.

I will have a place to eat outside this year…and I plan to make sure I can fit two chairs out there.

As my workday will be over soon I am debating if tonight is for cooking, gardening or both…along with some choreography work. I know, it being this anniversary, that all of those things will do what I need tonight. Tonight I need space in which I quietly feed my mind and body and allow the emotions that need to come to come.

Posted via LiveJournal app for iPhone.