To Plant a Garden

-- Ice Breaker by Julie Martwick

Thank you Madam Toastmaster, fellow Toastmasters and distinguished guest.

I would like everyone in the room to please close your eyes for a moment while I read aloud a few statements.

“To plant a garden is to believe in tomorrow”. Audrey Hepburn

“My garden is my most beautiful masterpiece”. Claude Monet right before he painted his famous “Lilies”, which were inspired by his own garden.

To nurture a garden is to feed not just the body, but the soul”. Alfred Austin

And finally: “Last night we had three small zucchini for dinner that were grown within fifty feet of our back door. I estimate they cost somewhere in the neighborhood of $371.49 each.” Humorously reported by Andy Rooney

Now everyone, please open your eyes.

What occurred in your mind when I read those words? How many of your five senses reacted?

• Perhaps some of you were able to envision the last glimpse of the day’s sunlight on the white petals of a limelight hydrangea bush.
• Maybe a few more could smell the fresh dewy sent of perfectly balanced organic garden soil.
• Could anyone taste the pure sweetness of a freshly picked sugar pea?
• Or maybe you could even hear the wings of a Honey Bee dancing the waltz across a golden sea of sunflowers.
• And finally how about touch, did anyone feel the plumpness of a perfectly ripened white grape in the fall? One that you know is would get eaten in less than 24 hours by a deer passing by.

That is what I see, smell, taste, hear and touch when think about my garden. How did I become this poetic garden gnome? This Martha Stewart Cisco want-to-be? Let’s go back to the year 2000.

Here is me, back in the year 2000 when I was still living in Los Angeles. That spring, I came up to Seattle to surprise my mother for her birthday and we decided to make a trip to the Tulip Festival in Mount Vernon. It was my first time seeing so many tulips all at once. I was mesmerized. I fell in love. 

I came back home to my little apartment at the beach and planted as many flowers as I possibly could on my tiny balcony. The problem – all of my tulips ended up frying in the 90 degree heat.

But ever the optimist, year after year, as I kept picking the wrong companies to work for, and the wrong men to date (yada yada yada, we covered all of this in a table topic a month back). I would also continue to plant my tulips that ended up prematurely dying from the heat. All the while, I kept dreaming on the day I would have my own piece of dirt in which to plant as many tulips as I wanted to.

So one day, I decided to leave Los Angeles, as I just mentioned. Here are my feet in the Pacific Ocean in Oxnard (which is due north of Los Angeles).

I arrived in Seattle and optimistically and enthusiastically began my search (this is me on top of the Space Needle) for a better job, a nice boy, and my own piece of dirt.

It took about a year or two to find the right company to work for, and the right man to date…

And the right piece of dirt.

And with the right direction from me.

My amazing husband help me build out our new piece of dirt.

Knowing there was more out there, I signed up to become a Master Gardener. Six months later, through roughly 300 hours of class work, lectures and labs, studying for exams, and field work, I achieved this goal.

I learned many things. Among them – it’s best to grow squash, pumpkins and green beans together. This is also known as the “three sister’s method”.

Last summer, I grow over 50 different fruits and vegetables in my vegetable garden. My love of flowers also grew as well.

Not everything was a success. Here you will see one to of the flower beds in my garden. In it were dahlias, zinnias, sunflowers, lavender and marigolds. Garden trick: marigolds do a great job of detracting pests.

Sadly, my lavender never bloomed. That’s okay though, there is always tomorrow. Or in Pacific Northwest speak, there is always next year…

Here you will see my baby artichoke at the beginning of the season.

Turn into a great big one at the end of the season. This was another fun thing I learned – artichokes THRIVE in Zone 8.

Another fun tip that I learned from attending a lecture entitled “Cocktail hour In The Garden” is to plant white flowers in the area of your garden that you plan on spending the most time during dusk as it is the best color to hold onto the light.

Another valuable lesson – one man’s junk is another woman’s treasure.

 

I learned to be wary of uninvited guests in your garden.

And I also learned how to relax and enjoy the fruits of my labor and to nurture my soul.

This is one of my sunflowers that grew against my garage with tons of southern exposure.

To plant a garden is to believe in tomorrow. Gardening, very much like life, requires many things, but most importantly, it requires patience optimism. Optimism; that the seeds you plant today, will grow into something beautiful and amazing tomorrow. And along for the ride are your heart and soul.