The Secret To A Fruitful Harvest

Plant the first seed!

Getting started is often the hardest part. I think so many of us can relate that while there is so much beauty to having access to so much information, it can be a bit of a double-edged sword…. Sometimes too much information can just feel overwhelming. When Chris and I first moved into our home I was stuck in the state where I wanted to create such beauty on the farm but there seemed to be so much to do. It felt unfeasible. I wanted a garden, I wanted fresh organic vegetables, a flower farm, animals, I wanted it all! But where do we even begin? We knew we wanted a garden… so we figured we’d start there. How should the garden look, how should it be laid out? What do we plant? The questions started pouring in and the sinking belief that we didn’t know what we were doing started to creep in. I started to doubt the process. I love things to be aesthetically pleasing but also functional. Before I knew it, I allowed the self-doubt to creep in, and I didn’t want to begin. The fear of not doing it right, wasting our time and money, the fear of not liking what our own two hands could build vs. what a professional could create felt paralyzing. I started to believe that I should just save up the money to hire someone to do it. I believed if they messed it up, well it least it wasn’t me. 

Then I started to realize how stupid these beliefs felt. Why was I doubting myself? Was I really that incapable of creating a garden? And what was the worst-case scenario, maybe some vegetables don’t grow? Big deal… we could always start over next year and we would learn so much in the process. That’s the thing, fear keeps us where we are. No growth either way. We won’t learn without having those successes or without failing. So, against all the feelings and thoughts to just stay comfortable and not make any move, we planted the first seed. 

We started with four raised garden beds in the back of our house surrounded by some pea gravel and a brick border. We had absolutely no idea what we were doing but it sure made us so happy. My husband started to research how to start plants indoors from seed and I started to learn more about flower growing. Three years later we’ve expanded our garden to a 60x60 square foot space where fruits, veggies, and flowers are abundant! We continue to grow and so does our place. I remind myself daily to just take it one step at a time, to never let learning something stop you from getting started, and to never fear putting in the work.