Ode to the novice gardener

“A couple of years ago I could not think that I would start planting seeds for seedlings and think about what is the best way to feed them, so that there is more natural and less chemistry. But, a wonderful time has come, like a decree. Since pregnant women are not predictable, and young mothers are not doubly predictable, I took up this pleasant thing. And then it started: I bought different forms for seedlings, with peat pots, without peat pots, round, square, in general, the more the better. The main thing was to get a rich harvest. There were a lot of seeds and various vegetables and greens, and I chose strawberry seedlings for a very long time and legibly, so that they were tasty, because a child needs sweet, tasty and healthy. In general, work in the garden was in full swing from morning to evening, interrupting only to drink and fight off any biting midges, and did not end throughout the season, and this is really so. Something had to be planted, something had to be dug, something had to be transplanted, and something had to be weeded out, so there was enough work. But there were also joyful moments that I experienced only outside the city, in nature. This is swimming and fishing (if there is a reservoir nearby), mushroom hunting (if there was a forest nearby).

But the biggest joy was the harvest I had grown myself. Ripe and carefully picked tomatoes, cucumbers and apples and berries of raspberries and currants were not transferred to the table all season. And what was not eaten right away was harvested for the winter - we did not hesitate to prepare winter stocks and therefore procured for future use. The more, the better, the more the family is large, there are many children. Give one compote with you to the city, another hodgepodge. We had another joy: neighbors in the garden, who became our friends and we talked all year round, and not only in the summer season when we met in the garden. You yourself understand that we had enough topics for communication. We willingly shared the secrets of a good harvest with each other, exchanged seeds and cuttings of seedlings, and inviting a neighbor to visit, we invariably put winter preparations on the table, describing in detail the process of cooking-pickling-pickling. But even before leaving on maternity leave (since I worked in a women's team, where women over 50 and a vegetable garden for them are an outlet from the hustle and bustle of work and help in getting rid of stress). Then I was still at work "shook my mustache" all the talk about seedlings, which variety of tomatoes, cucumbers, cabbage and potatoes is better. When it is better to plant them, I learned that there is a calendar where all unfavorable and favorable days for planting seedlings are marked. What fertilizer is better to fertilize the seedlings, what to water and feed them, you need to pour directly under the root, and not on the plant itself. Without pretending that all this is interesting to me, I have learned for myself a lot of interesting and useful information in the future.

For these small joys, for my first harvest, I fell in love with my 6 acres, on which there is nothing special, except for vegetables and berries, planted with care and labor. But there was something else that attracted to the garden every day and did not let go until late in the evening (“No, these are not weeds and weeds, as many might think”): this is the silence and calmness of the soul and body, these are the sounds of nature: a breath winds, birdsong, green foliage, the smell of flowers and much more. But the harvest brings more pleasure as a result of your labors, when you look at a clean vegetable garden, neat beds, seedlings that grow one to one, neat bushes of currants and gooseberries, raspberries that do not grow like a weed, growing throughout the garden. And you feel satisfaction: moral, spiritual, aesthetic. "