By Amanda Cleary Eastep

Hobbits like gardens. And eating. Two things we have in common. I thought about this as I mapped out planting the small garden plot.

Mapping it out made me realize how gardening is a journey in which you start out one place and end up somewhere completely different. Without the traveling, of course, but you learn and labor and experience and eat along the way.

Meanwhile back at the ranch…we’re dragging my father along on the journey. He’s building a raised bed back at his “ranch” for the melons and potatoes since we don’t have room for that. (Damn you, condo association!)

Our seeds from Seed Savers arrived in the mail, so I’m spending today planning which ones need to be planted when.

Some I’ll start in trays (I can hear my mother saying, “Where for godssake are you putting trays full of dirt?!”) or maybe in homemade milk jug greenhouses outside. Others will be planted directly in the ground before the last frost. Some will have to wait until after the earth warms up a bit more…

…because this is what my main garden area looked like as of last week. The beginning of the “journey”…