Gardening and parenting are similar, when it comes right down to it.
Planning for a garden during the late Winter is like pregnancy. Lots of excitement and anticipation: Getting the seed and plant catalogs, browsing online, dreaming dreams of what the garden will look like, getting revved up in late winter starting plants. It really is like being pregnant.
Gardening in Spring is like having a baby. Everything is young and new: sprouts coming up out of the ground, plants started now placed in their spots for the year. Everything is carefully guarded and tended. Nurtured is the word for it, I think. When frost threatens, we cover our green babies up, same as a Mom protects her infant from the cold outside and other threats.
Gardening in Summer is like taking care of a houseload of kids. Really, it is. Think about it. The plants are like kids and teenagers, especially in a vegetable garden. Growing by leaps and bounds. If Spring gardening is taking care of plants in their infancy, this season is one for pulling out all the stops. Feed the green kids, water them, make sure they don't have any diseases, etc. Again, it's nurturing, but not in the sense as we nurture our littlest ones.
Then there is late Summer into early Fall. The kids are all young adults now, maybe college-bound. It's a time of maturing and harvesting the garden. If we've nurtured and weeded and kept good track of the progress of our green kids, just like we do with our own children, everything and everyone matures as we would wish.
Then there is the fullness of Autumn, our own late middle-age as parents. The kids have flown the coop. In the garden, our plants are also getting ready to leave us for the year. There's still some tending to do. There always is as a parent and gardener.
Winter is the old age of gardeners, similar to the old age of parents. We sit with our memories of our children now grown. We get our visits from the kids, a phone call, perhaps an email. The grandkids come to visit. We buy a few houseplants. Except these are our green grandchildren of sorts. It gives us the chance in the elderly part of the year to spoil these green, growing things. Same as we do our human grandkids. Once again, nurturing. It never quite stops.
Planning for a garden during the late Winter is like pregnancy. Lots of excitement and anticipation: Getting the seed and plant catalogs, browsing online, dreaming dreams of what the garden will look like, getting revved up in late winter starting plants. It really is like being pregnant.
Gardening in Spring is like having a baby. Everything is young and new: sprouts coming up out of the ground, plants started now placed in their spots for the year. Everything is carefully guarded and tended. Nurtured is the word for it, I think. When frost threatens, we cover our green babies up, same as a Mom protects her infant from the cold outside and other threats.
Gardening in Summer is like taking care of a houseload of kids. Really, it is. Think about it. The plants are like kids and teenagers, especially in a vegetable garden. Growing by leaps and bounds. If Spring gardening is taking care of plants in their infancy, this season is one for pulling out all the stops. Feed the green kids, water them, make sure they don't have any diseases, etc. Again, it's nurturing, but not in the sense as we nurture our littlest ones.
Then there is late Summer into early Fall. The kids are all young adults now, maybe college-bound. It's a time of maturing and harvesting the garden. If we've nurtured and weeded and kept good track of the progress of our green kids, just like we do with our own children, everything and everyone matures as we would wish.
Then there is the fullness of Autumn, our own late middle-age as parents. The kids have flown the coop. In the garden, our plants are also getting ready to leave us for the year. There's still some tending to do. There always is as a parent and gardener.
Winter is the old age of gardeners, similar to the old age of parents. We sit with our memories of our children now grown. We get our visits from the kids, a phone call, perhaps an email. The grandkids come to visit. We buy a few houseplants. Except these are our green grandchildren of sorts. It gives us the chance in the elderly part of the year to spoil these green, growing things. Same as we do our human grandkids. Once again, nurturing. It never quite stops.
Last edited by: MarilynIN 02/19/08 15:40:06.
Edited 1 times.
