It Started With a Patch of Dirt
There was a small flower bed along the back of the house.
Technically.
In practice, it was mostly weeds, grass, questionable little beetles, one sprinkler head I discovered only after I started digging around in there, and the vague suggestion that perhaps somebody had once intended for plants to live there.
I have never been particularly good at leaving something like that alone.
This is my first house. My house. And every time I change some little piece of it, it feels a little less like someplace I’m temporarily occupying and a little more like the place where I actually live.
So obviously the neglected flower bed couldn’t remain a neglected flower bed.
It was going to become an herb garden.
First, We Had to Evict Everybody
The first stage was decidedly less charming cottage garden and considerably more middle-aged woman angrily pulling weeds in Florida.
I spent about an hour clearing the bed the first time around, in weather that was somewhere in the neighborhood of why the fuck is the sun touching me.
There were weeds.
There were bugs.
There was a sprinkler head hiding in there like a land mine.
There were subsequent gardening sessions involving an umbrella and OFF because I am willing to commune with nature, but nature and I need some clearly established fucking boundaries.
Eventually, though, I had dirt.
Actual usable space.
And once I could see the whole bed cleared out, the little idea I’d had started looking like something I could actually make.
Dirt Has Become Weirdly Exciting
I bought soil.
Then I needed more soil.
At some point I found myself genuinely pleased to announce that I had procured more soil, which is probably one of those moments when you should stop and examine the direction your life has taken.
I did not.
I added it.
Then came the mulch, because apparently simply putting plants into dirt wasn’t enough and I had developed standards.
The dark mulch changed everything. Suddenly the bed stopped looking like an excavation site and started looking intentional.
Oh yeah.
I was making a garden.
Welcome to the Neighborhood, Bitches
Then came the plants.
Peppers went in first on one side, with their little cages because I have been assured that eventually these tiny innocent-looking things intend to become substantially larger assholes.
Then the shallots.
Then garlic.
Then herbs began occupying the rest of the bed, with enough room between everything for the tiny plants currently making the place look hilariously oversized to eventually spread out.
I even had to start thinking about which herbs needed the most real estate.
Rosemary, I’m looking at you.
This is already becoming considerably more organized than most things in my life.
I don’t know how I feel about that.
There Must Be Fireflies
Once everything was planted and mulched, I stood back and looked at it.
It was good.
It was actually really fucking good.
But there was one obvious problem:
It didn’t glow.
Fortunately, this was an easily correctable defect.
So now there are little solar firefly lights scattered through the bed. During the day they’re barely noticeable among the plants.
At night?
That’s when this little bastard gets magical.
Because if I’m going to grow garlic and rosemary against the side of my house, apparently I’m also going to make it look like tiny woodland creatures are holding a rave in there after dark.
I accept this about myself.
The Soundtrack Matters
There are certain memories in my life that are permanently attached to music.
This one gets Jane’s Addiction.
That was the band playing while I worked on my first real garden at my first house, dirty and sweaty and repeatedly interrupted by Florida weather.
I don’t know exactly what will survive.
I don’t know what will flourish.
I don’t know which plant will become my favorite, which one will piss me off, or which one I’ll accidentally murder despite following every fucking instruction.
That’s sort of the point.
This isn’t a finished home-improvement project where I can take the final photograph and call it done.
A garden isn’t ever really finished.
And Here We Are
By the end of the day, that miserable little patch beside the house had peppers, shallots, garlic, herbs, fresh soil, dark mulch, plant supports and fireflies waiting for sunset.
And my fingernails looked like I’d personally clawed my way out of a shallow grave.
Worth it.
There are still plenty of things I want to do outside. In fact, immediately beside this beautiful new little garden is an area that currently looks like a generator, smoker, cooler, gardening supplies, weeds and general household debris were all told to meet there after school for a fight.
That’s another post.
This one belongs to the garden.
Because today I made something that isn’t supposed to stay the way I made it.
It’s supposed to grow.
And so this post will too.
Update: This Garden Is Alive
Nothing to see here yet, returning reader. This is where future garden adventures will live.
As things sprout, flower, fruit, bolt, get harvested, unexpectedly thrive, dramatically perish, or become victims of whatever fresh biological menace Florida sends into my yard, I’ll add it here.
I’m particularly interested to see what this whole bed looks like once those tiny plants actually fill in all that beautiful black mulch.
For now, though?
I have a fucking garden.
And tonight, it has fireflies. ✨🌿
Update: Apparently the Garden Came With Bonus Flowers
The garden has been alive for approximately twelve fucking minutes and we’re already updating the post.
Today’s soundtrack is Fleetwood Mac, because apparently my gardening life requires its own rotating score.
Remember the little flowering plant I discovered while clearing all the weeds out of this bed? The one I very nearly could have mistaken for another unwanted resident if I hadn’t stopped to figure out what it was?
She has children.
Several of them, actually.
Once I knew what the leaves looked like, I started spotting smaller versions scattered around the garden. They don’t all have buds yet, which is probably why I never noticed them before. Apparently some idiot who lived here before us simply allowed weeds and grass to grow over everything until the entire flower bed became botanical witness protection.
But they’re visible now.
And I’m leaving every fucking one of them.
Eventually there should be little pink flowers appearing in several places throughout the bed, courtesy of plants that were here before I ever decided this was going to become my garden.
I really love that.
Cat Agriculture Has Also Begun
I also planted an entire trough of cat grass.
This will not remain outside once it’s ready, because I know the clientele.
It will be brought indoors and presented to the cats like a lovingly cultivated artisanal salad bar, at which point I expect them to either devour it immediately or completely ignore it in favor of eating some houseplant they’re not supposed to touch.
There will be no middle ground.
MORE FIREFLIES
The firefly lights from last night were exactly as magical as I’d hoped.
Then I remembered something important:
The fucking box came with six.
Why was I rationing whimsy?
So the rest went into the garden.
During the day they’re these slightly strange little black stems with white tips tucked between the plants. At night the whole bed gets another round of tiny floating lights.
As the plants fill in around them, this is going to get better and better.
🌿 Tiny Herb-Garden Side Note: Epazote
Marcelo brought me epazote, which I had never cooked with before. It’s a traditional Mexican herb commonly used with beans, especially black and pinto beans. The flavor is strong and earthy—somewhere in the general universe of oregano, mint and anise, but honestly very much its own weird little thing.
You can use it fresh or dried, but since I now have the actual fucking plant, fresh it is. Snip off a small sprig, rinse it, and toss it into the pot while the beans simmer, then pull the stem out before serving. I’m starting with just a few leaves because apparently epazote believes in making an entrance.
So we’ve officially reached the stage where I can say, “Hang on, I need something from my herb garden,” and walk outside to season dinner.
I cannot adequately express how pleased I am about this development. 🌿😹
And Then I Stopped
Eventually I was done.
Actually, my body informed me that I was done and I chose, for once, to accept the memo.
The sprinkler was running, Fleetwood Mac was playing, and I sat down in the grass and discovered that the sprinkler stream was landing directly on my tired, filthy feet.
That water felt cold as fucking ice.
It was glorious.
So that’s where today’s gardening ended: sitting in my own backyard, feet in the sprinkler, looking at this little patch of earth that didn’t look anything like this a couple of days ago.
There are peppers growing.
Garlic and shallots are sticking their little green asses out of the mulch.
The rosemary is still behaving itself.
Flowers I didn’t even know I owned are reappearing.
There’s a trough of future cat salad.
And tonight there will be even more fireflies.
Not bad for the first update. ❤️
An Unexpected Feature
Apparently, the combination of my new fence, the firefly lights, and standing in exactly the right place has given me one additional garden feature I did not plan.
My shadow can flip off the entire backyard.
I have no notes.
And yes, adding all six was 100% the right decision. The wide shot finally shows why. They’re distributed all the way across the bed now instead of looking like isolated decorations. Once everything grows up around those stems, you’re going to see little floating points of light throughout the plants.🌿✨
Update: A New Bloom!🌸
This is a tiny update.
I don’t care.
Everything counts to me.
One of the little volunteer flowers I found hiding around the yard—the ones I carefully dug up and transferred into my new garden—bloomed her first flower this morning.
I’d been watching the transplanted ones mostly to make sure they survived me digging them out of the ground and relocating their entire lives without consent.
Apparently this one has decided we’re cool.
And look at her.
One perfect little white flower with that beautiful bright pink center, sitting there in the black mulch like she’s been part of the plan all along.
She wasn’t.
But she is now. 🌸
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