My simple garden gives us beauty, food without fuss

My life is complicated, with four kids and one very stubborn hound dog, and so I resist things that require fuss. I don’t buy clothing that needs to be dry cleaned, or even ironed for that matter. I don’t grow finicky houseplants or prepare recipes with long lists of ingredients. I won’t even wear a hairstyle that requires frequent trips to the salon.

In general, I make choices designed to keep my life as simple as possible. Not having to run clothing to the dry cleaner, for example, means I save myself time and money. The same is true for preparing uncomplicated meals at home.

My garden is no exception to my keep-it-simple mantra. Sure, it’s possible—even easy—to make gardening complicated, by growing varieties of plants that need pampering and by worrying about things like soil temperature and PH, for instance. But again, I avoid all the fuss. Instead, I get seeds in the ground when the weather becomes pleasant, and I grow tough-as-nails plants that can tolerate a little neglect.

I work with simple and inexpensive tools—a hand trowel, a spade, a hoe, and a rake—and use composted manure I collect from my neighbors’ horses to fertilize my garden. As for my garden beds themselves, they are built with rocks foraged from our property, and the paths are lined with reclaimed woodchips.

When I started gardening, I didn’t exactly know what I was doing. Though I had read a few primers and absorbed garden wisdom from my parents over the years, I had no formal instruction of any kind. Instead, I literally just dug in and got my hands dirty, learning as I went.

I quickly discovered which plants thrived in my garden, and I decided to “love what grows,” abandoning specimens that didn’t perform well or that seemed to require extra care. I also recognized that perennial herbs and fruits are good investments; my chives and rhubarb come up in early spring and produce all summer long.

Now six years later, I have a large garden filled with sturdy perennials and with beds devoted to growing fruits, herbs, and vegetables. And from May until September, I am able to gather fresh produce by taking a few steps outside my back door. (As an added bonus, my children will eat anything that comes from our little plot—even onions.)

This year, I spent $48 on new heirloom garden seeds, which I’ll plant alongside seeds leftover from past years. For the first time, I’ll be collecting and saving the seeds from these heirloom varieties, which means I’ll have an even larger return on my initial investment. I’ll also be devoting more time to learning about companion planting—placing certain plants next to one another to improve plant growth and to repel pests.

I started gardening with only a willingness to learn and a desire to use the resources available to me. Together, these two things have made it possible for me to enjoy a frugal hobby that is good for me and for my family. By keeping my garden plan simple, I enjoy the benefits of homegrown food, without having to spend more time or money than I want to.

If blooming flowers or picking garden-fresh tomatoes seem alluring, I encourage you to dig in and try it this spring. Start with the space and resources you have; perhaps a friend or family member will even give you some seeds or transplants. Investing in a garden, big or small, can bring you a lot of satisfaction without breaking your budget.

Small steps toward my dream cultivate happiness

For as long as I can remember, I have loved old, white farmhouses. I moon over their clapboard siding and steeply pitched roofs, their mullioned windows and gracious front porches. I love them even more when they are surrounded by white picket fences, with red barns nearby.

Fueled by my farm infatuation, I have spent many hours trolling real estate sites looking for my own little white house with a big red barn. I have also been known to endlessly blather to my very patient husband about apple orchards and milking goats.

However, I began to realize that the more time I spent imagining my life in a white house, tending to my Nubian goats, the more restless and discontented I became. In fact, focusing on what I didn’t have was making me noticeably unhappy.

When I look closer at the situation, I recognize that I’d unconsciously gotten caught up in the “I’ll be happy when” mentality. I’d made my happiness conditional, believing that somehow being there—wherever there might be—was better than being here. What’s more, my conditional happiness was based more on romantic fantasies than the gritty realities of farm life.

Unfortunately, getting caught in the trap of conditional happiness is easy. What isn’t so easy is learning how to quiet the “I’ll be happy when” messages we send ourselves. These are the messages that say, “I’ll be happy when I get a promotion.” Or, “I’ll be happy when I get a new car.” The fact is that if you were unhappy before you got the promotion or the new car, you’ll very likely feel the same way after the initial buzz of achieving these things wears off.

For me, acknowledging that I was postponing happiness for a pipe dream was essential. (Again, enter my very patient husband, who helped me realize this.) Once I did this, I was better able to appreciate what I have right now, which includes a small acreage with a creek running through it, a neighborhood filled with people willing to help one another, and a sizeable garden that produces hundreds of pounds of produce every summer. I’m continuing to expand this list in a gratitude journal I have been keeping.

Although I may not be able to have a full-blown farm right now, I recognize that there are some intermediary steps I can take in the meantime. Building a small chicken coop out of reclaimed cedar and getting a few laying hens was one of those steps. We’ve been collecting over a dozen of our own farm- fresh eggs every week, and we have enjoyed watching our hens strut around the yard – a pastime we have dubbed “chicken TV.”

Other plans include ordering some dwarf fruit trees for our existing garden and expanding the variety of other produce we grow. (One of those new varieties we’ll be planting is stevia, an herb known for being a potent sweetener.) We also bought a bundle of posts that we plan to use on the back portion of our property to build a fence for some animals (which are yet to be determined).

Instead of feeling stuck because I am waiting on happiness in my white farmhouse, I’m focusing my energy on creating a farm-like atmosphere for myself and my family right now. I’ll take satisfaction in the flowers and vegetables that emerge from my garden this year, and in delicious eggs from my own hens. This kind of happiness costs me very little. It only takes determination to look for the good in what I have now.

How to make the most of summer

Have you ever been in a crowded room when suddenly it’s as though everything stops as you hear someone say your name? Why does all the other noise wash over you, but your name is audible among the din of the crowd? It’s not just coincidence, but a highly specialized mechanism working in your brain.

At the base of your brain stem, you have a group of cells that sorts and evaluates incoming data. This control center is known as the reticular activating system, or RAS. Your RAS works like a filter, sending urgent information to the active part of your brain and sending the rest to your subconscious. My RAS allows my baby’s cries to rouse me from sleep, for example, but lets me block out other non-essential noises, such as a snoring basset hound.

You might think of your RAS as an executive assistant for your mind, determining which messages will receive your full attention and which you’ll ignore. On one hand, your RAS protects you, helping to prevent sensory overload. (I’d go nuts if I wasn’t able to tune out the dog’s snores.) But it can also keep you from paying attention to things that may be important to you, such as goals you want to achieve. Still, you can “retrain” your mind’s executive assistant by telling your brain precisely what you want to focus on.

This summer, my husband and I plan to “retrain” our brains with what I have dubbed “Our Summer Manifesto.” Too often, house and yard projects consume our money and our time; I want this year to be different. I want to be intentional with our resources and plan for fun so that summer doesn’t just slip away from us. By putting our summer goals in writing, we’re literally sending a message to ourselves that says, “Pay attention. This is important.”

Interestingly, the word manifesto comes from the Latin manifestus, which means “evident to the senses; apparent to the mind; easily apprehensible.” By definition, a manifesto will keep our summer goals at the forefront of our minds.

To make our manifesto more obvious, I wrote our summer ideas on poster board in large, colorful letters. Next to each item on our list, I drew a one- by one-inch square so that we have the joy of checking it off when we’ve completed it. When I tacked the finished chart up on the wall, everyone (even those who can’t read) buzzed with excitement. Amazingly, the majority of items on our list are simple pleasures that require more planning than money.

Our summer list includes making homemade fruit popsicles, water gun fights, grilling peaches, making homemade ice cream, sipping wine on the front porch, camping in the backyard, eating the zucchini before they’re the size of small children, building a chicken coop, bringing in fresh flowers from the garden, creating art outside with our children, inviting friends over to roast hot dogs and play bocce ball, and perfecting a grilled pizza.

We haven’t set dates for completing the items on our list, but this isn’t necessary because we’ve stimulated our RAS. When we see “eat zucchini” on the list as we go by the back door, we’ll be more inclined to pick the prolific vegetables when we are working in the garden. When I’m at the store and see peaches are on sale, I’ll remember that grilled fruit is on the manifesto, and I’ll buy them.

And, by summer’s end, my manifesto full of check marks will remind me of all the pleasures I took time to enjoy with family and friends.