My First Blog Award

My first indelible impression of a vegetable garden is of my father breaking the cement on a paved yard (I seem to remember the whole thing was paved!) and planting beans and tomatoes in the hole. He also planted herbs and other edible plants. I remember the smell that the green tomatoes left in my hands as I ran them over their shiny green surface. Later, my older brother released a baby turtle in the hole to live in the “garden”.  Fast forward to my mid 30’s and one day I awoke with a strong urge to get married and have children. Also, along this feeling, there was the memory of my father’s vegetable patch. I bought some pepper seeds; jalapeños, serranos, cayenne, anaheim, I bought a mini-greenhouse with the little peat pellets included and I began my gardening journey. Many failures and successes later (my first batch of peppers grew to green lusciousness only to be destroyed by late Spring storms and a plague of caterpillars that ate the surviving plants to the ground), I find myself with two precious and handsome boys, a tolerating wife, two dogs and more vegetable plants I can keep up with. There are things we gardeners enjoy that non-gardeners don’t: the solitude of weeding, the conversations with bugs, plants, flowers, birds, sky, water,soil, and sun; the taste of peas off the vine, the setting and rising of the sun, the company of a robin as we move soil around the garden — once, I had a robin literally at my feet as I was turning soil in the Spring; me talking to the dirt, he waiting for any grub or worm that may exposed. I am glad my father broke the cement that day and exposed the soil underneath. Little did he know that his action would lead to this.

Every year I learn of many new and exciting growing techniques: Square foot gardening, lasagna gardening, permaculture, sub-irrigated containers, straw-bale gardening, the list goes on and on all in the name of healthier plants and tastier produce. But there is a benefit to this activity that transcends plants and that is the sense of community. All these other people doing what you love. They understand. They know. They may be thousands of miles away or right around the corner but we still know of their daily dirt adventures because they graciously share them with us via their blogs and websites.

Thanks to all gardener bloggers out there for sharing your knowledge and your stories. Special thanks to Garden On Sherlock Street for giving me this award. Every time I go to her blog, she has new subscribers. There is a reason for that. Now the rules of this award stipulate that I must pass the award forward. Gosh! There are so many good, versatile garden bloggers out there and so I will think about it carefully. I promise on my next post I will announce the recipient of the award. Until then, I leave you with a poem I posted last year in this blog.

Gratitude To A Vegetable Plant

Thank you,
for speaking to the elements
on my behalf.
Thank you for reaching deep
and reaching high;
that through your efforts
I may bite
into the soil and the sky.

© 2009 David Borboa

Over and out.