Over this past weekend my husband and I planted our second ever vegetable garden. Last year we bought already grown veggie plants and transplanted them into our garden. This year we wanted a challenge. We decided to try our hand at growing from seeds indoors for warmer weather vegetable plants as well as directly sowing some of the colder weather vegetable plants into a separate garden. This is a post about slowing down and giving things a chance.

Every morning after we put the seeds in the ground ( beets, onions, kale, swiss chard, buttercrisp lettuce) I would look out our window to see if anything had sprouted. About two weeks in I started to notice some growth. A few days after that it was like the whole entire thing was covered in weeds. I had no idea what the beginnings of a beet or kale plant would look like. I wasn’t sure if I was looking at a dandelion leaf or a four leaf clover. It all started to look very green and very much the same. I started to lose steam and patience and faith. I would stare at this garden and just look for signs of life that I might recognize. (At this point I was so frustrated I didn’t even think to get on the internet and look up images of what these seedlings might look like!)

Fast forward to this weekend when we had just transplanted all of the obvious, still in egg cartons, warm weather seedlings and I was smiling and happy. I know what these things are, I can see progress – serious visual progress. We sat down out of the sun and looked at the other, weed covered garden. We inspected it like we were ten years old and had just been given our first magnifying glass to look at worms and bugs. I just wasn’t seeing anything that I recognized as a vegetable. I suggested we rip it all up, go to the store and buy already started vegetable plants and just transplant them in. Why waste this perfectly good soil and garden space for things we didn’t know for sure would grow.

He walked over to the garden and looked at it pretty freaking closely. At first he didn’t say anything and then he shouted “I see a row!! A single row of the same looking tiny plant.” He kept pointing, “And here’s another!”  It felt like a tiny little garden miracle. Even though we still weren’t sure that what we were looking at was the beginnings of a beet plant, we knew that it was something.

So what am I trying to say? Don’t give up. Slow down. Natural things take time. They need time to be nourished. Get some water, get some sunshine and just be outdoors and they will start to grow. Lean on your partner, help to bring each other to balance.  There is this inner nature loving lady inside of me that believes the same for what we’re all about to do. 21 days of putting us first, of giving us all the benefit of the doubt, of eating and living slowly so that we can grow something on our own when our own body is ready.