Gardener tries a positive attitude
(Originally published June 2023)
In 2022, I took a gap year in the vegetable garden. In 2023, I’m coming in hot.
You have to understand the setup: Years ago, we dug our garden beds, for reasons I’m sure made sense at the time, quite far from the house. How far? From our porch, you can barely see the tops of the tomato stakes due to the curvature of the earth.
Last spring, dreading all the work involved in planting and maintaining the garden—never mind the travel time there and back—I opted to skip the whole thing. And I regretted it.
“Giving up gardening resulted in a noticeable lack of fresh produce last summer.”
This year, I decided not just to get back to gardening but to lean in. The way I look at it, if you have a hobby you are not very good at and find overwhelming, you have two choices: Give it up or make it even more challenging.
Giving up gardening resulted in a noticeable lack of fresh produce last summer. So now I’m going back to it, only I’m planting more vegetables than ever before. That just makes sense.
In the past, I blamed the garden for imposing an undue burden on my free time. But I’ve had a thought: Could the problem be me—specifically, my general resentment toward the labor required to get the results I desire? I think it’s plausible.
With that in mind, I’m approaching this year with something different: a positive attitude. And it’s already working.
Last week, for instance, instead of groaning and muttering, “Today I have to plant and stake and mulch all these tomatoes,” I pumped my fist and shouted, “Yes! Today I get to plant and stake and mulch all these tomatoes!”
What a fun day I had.
Psychologists refer to this behavior as a “laughable strategy.” I call it a “clever reframing of reality.”
In the past, if it was sunny, I got annoyed that I needed to water. If it rained, I complained that the weeds were getting a boost. And if, heaven forbid, vegetables formed, grew, and ripened, I eyed them bitterly, convinced they were over-producing only for the sick pleasure of forcing me to pick them all.
Now, with my new, gung-ho attitude, I wake up in the morning wondering, “What’s a good way for me to get in 10,000 steps before lunch? Oh, I know!” And then I start lugging flats of seedlings and a spade and stakes and anything else I anticipate needing to the remote outpost known as our garden.
“I hope I forgot the trowel,” I say, crossing my fingers before peering into my basket of tools. Sure enough, I need to go back to the house. “I’m so lucky I can get extra exercise this way,” I tell myself, grinning like a person who is not at all ticked off at her poor planning skills.
Last Friday, it took me five slogs out to the garden and back to collect all the items I needed to plant the corn and the rest of the tomatoes. (Whoops. “Slogs” isn’t the right word; “jaunts” is what I mean.) It was a glorious day for numerous jaunts across the yard and back. As a bonus, the repeated trips in each direction ensured that I got even sun exposure on my arms.
I went to the garden center the next day, hoping to buy a single cherry tomato plant to round out my collection. Of course, they only had six-packs. I resisted my old way of thinking (“Why on earth do they sell these in multiples when they know just one plant will produce enough tomatoes to stock a Costco from July Fourth through Labor Day?”).
Instead, I pictured myself in August, bushwhacking through the tangled cherry tomato vines like Indiana Jones carving a path through the Amazon rainforest. It sounded so cool I ended up buying not one but two six-packs, plus a machete and a rope.
It rained all last weekend. And when it stopped, all I could think about was how the stupid weeds had multiplied and how I’d have to spend every free hour over the next two weeks trying to keep my plants from getting completely overrun.
Then I remembered that I’m choosing a happier perspective this year.
Pasting an eager smile on my face, I pulled on my muck boots, put on some gloves, and grabbed the machete.
“If there’s one thing I love,” I reminded myself as I embarked on the long journey to the garden, “it’s weeding!”
