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My dad is a farmer. I was born on a farm and was raised with a vegetable garden every year even after we moved from Alberta to Victoria, BC. We had enough produce to fill our bowls every day of the spring, summer and fall, and to salsa-fy and pickle through the winter: peas, beans, cucumbers, tomatoes, zucchinis, corn, peppers, squash, strawberries, and multiple varieties of each. We had fruit trees, too… apples, plums, pears and cherries. I was extremely lucky.

My dad keeps a seed bank in our old sauna, where his precious babies are cool, dry and safe. My parents grow everything from seed, in little egg cartons on a table behind the couch where they get the best sun. There’s a timing to each of them, when to seed, when to plant, when to change pots, when to pick the little flowers off and when to leave them on. Do they go in the ground outside? What if it’s a rainy spring? Do they like wet feet? How much space do they need? Do they climb? How is pruning not just taking limbs off a tree? My sister and I were in the garden every year, we climbed trees with ice cream pails on our arms to pick fruit on high branches because we were light enough not to break them. We weeded and watered on Dad’s instructions. You’d think I’d catch on.

I’m well into adulthood now. I’m only a few years away from middle-age – let’s never write that sentence again. I grow things, kind of. My technique is to plant and hope. I experiment with seeds from hardware stores and pots I find on the side of the road. Sometimes the experiments work, but many of them don’t and I find myself standing over my compost bin like I’m delivering a eulogy, a lament to lettuce or a farewell to fennel. Basil and I are not on speaking terms.

Moving every few years doesn’t help, living in small apartments with even smaller balconies that face north-east. We have more space this year, a whole yard in fact, with planters full of zucchini and cucumber plants. We had to move the cucumbers to their own accommodation after realizing that the larger zucchini leaves were robbing them of sun – lesson learned. Three survived, which is more than I expected.

Growing a vegetable garden is hard, but rewarding. Cucumbers wrapped in plastic? Not for me, at least for a couple of weeks. Tomatoes shipped from California? I hope some of these flowers turn to fruit soon... Ask questions and pay attention, always. But most importantly, practice and don’t be afraid to fail. Get your hands dirty. Every little thing that you grow yourself is proof of self-growth.

Just don’t let your dog run away with the zucchini. She knows quality when she smells it.

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