Downsizing My Garden, Uplifting Myself

I used to have a small garden. Just two raised garden beds at the back corner of my house. It wasn’t much.  

And I used to have small children with pudgy hands.  They drove a miniature tractor around our little yard and filled the plastic trailer with produce from my garden. Just two tiny humans. And they were everything.

Since then, the garden has grown to a half-acre monstrosity. The kids have grown. Our businesses and lives have grown. It’s all gotten so much….bigger. 

Yet somehow it’s like there is hardly room for me in any of it. 

So I have decided to go back. I can’t rewind time, of course. I can’t shrink the children, and I’m not even looking to scale back my life. Not really. But I am at least going to abandon the oversized garden. And I am going to abandon all guilt about doing so.

I am going to build myself two raised garden beds again, and I will plant in them a few handfuls of seeds. I am going to get my hands dirty in a completely manageable manner. I am going to tend a small plot of earth and in so doing fight back against the continual expansion of, well, everything.  

Bigger isn’t always better, you see. (Unless we are talking about chocolate malts.)

A tiny garden, just some carrots and cucumbers and peas.  Maybe a tomato plant. It feels right for this season. And I might have to collect the fruits of my labor myself this time, without the aid of a toddler on a John Deere. Or I might find that the kids’ now-bigger hands join in and help, and those bigger hands are just right for this season, too. 

Either way, there will be sunshine on my face and peace in my heart.  And fresh veggies on my plate.