It has been two years since I have been outside to enjoy the sun and warmth. Not my fault, of course; just some diseases, dementia, auto immune issues and cancer were getting in the way. I wasn’t going to let anything stop my gardening for this year.
What I have missed is two years of golf and gardening. The golf course is not open yet, but Monday was a perfect day to get a start on my vegetable gardens.
My wife and I started out late Monday morning for our favourite garden centre, but it was closed.
Guess they didn’t know that we were coming.
We continued to Stratford and found a good and open garden centre. There was hardly anyone there – it was wonderful.
We got all our supplies – soil to beef up the garden from last year, and a good crop of seeds to be planted in our veggie pod.
I have a three-foot by six-foot raised garden to keep the animals away from our plants. Our veggie pod has a summer cover of mesh to keep the rabbits away, and a fall and spring plastic cover to keep the frost away. Last year’s crops were not too successful; my mind was on my health, so the intent this year is to do much better, thus the early start on our garden.
We got home from the garden centre around 2 p.m. – the sun was still shining – and the temperature was in the 60s. It felt good! As I was getting organized, my wife brought all of our supplies to our veggie pod. I started to work the new soil into the old soil.
After about an hour I remembered how much my back rebelled at this work, but I was not going to complain. I was doing what I wanted to do.
After another hour of work, I decided to take inventory of all the seeds we bought.
I was all ready to begin planting.
We bought seeds for Romaine lettuce, Earl Wonder beets, Hollow Crown parsnips, Nantes Coreless carrots, Southport White Globe onions, Early Calwonder peppers and Dark Green zucchini. My wife bought chives, salad greens, Morning Glory, rosemary, oregano, nasturtum and basil.
As I read the instructions on each package, I realized that the amount of work needed was more that I was capable of doing today. My wife and I looked at each other and agreed that we should stop for today so we can come back another day.
And that is what we did.
I was feeling bad that I had stopped gardening. So, I came into my house and checked the weather for the rest of the week. Hooray! It was going to be sunny and warm for most of the week and I will be able to complete my gardening scheduled for his week. It made me feel good, again.
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Bob Murray is retired from the graphic communication (printing) industry and has been living in Seaforth since 2015. Murray was diagnosed with Dementia in 2013 and works hard to stop the progress of the disease. Follow him on his blog entitled Voyage with Dementia – https://myvoyage553264702.wordpress.com.
