When I was in upper elementary and middle school, nothing ruined a summer morning more than being woken up to help Momma pick a garden.

Living in the Atlanta suburbs, we didn’t have space for one of our own. But a dear member of the congregation where Daddy preached kept a large, generous garden and always planted more than enough to share.

Oh, the sultry Georgia sun. It had a way of pulling sweat from every inch of my body, soaking through clothes before the morning had even fully begun. Wearing pants only made it worse. Mosquitoes seemed to find me in particular, leaving behind huge, itchy welts, and the scratchy leaves of green beans and black-eyed peas only added to the misery as I dug deep, to pick every last one. I whined and whinged and wailed. It was the most awful experience.

We didn’t go daily to pick that garden, or even weekly for that matter, but I knew one thing for sure…

I did not enjoy it.

Not even a little.

In fact, I was quite certain of one thing:

I would never, ever, not in a million years have a garden of my own.

It was pure torture.

When we moved to Tennessee during my high school years (that’s another tragic story entirely), I was so thankful band, softball and working at McDonalds kept me from helping in the garden Momma finally had room to plant.

Although, I did help shell peas and snap beans from time to time.

Then Audley and I got married… and discovered flowers. Truth be known, my love of flowers probably started in college. A special family friend gave me a rose bush for high school graduation. I loved that rose bush and cared for it for years, including moving it several times as we moved around.

There is something about trees, shrubs, and blooms that turns a house into a home. No matter where we lived, planting, both in pots, or the ground, if we had a lenient landlord, became a priority for me. I began to understand how powerful it felt growing something from a seed or keeping a start alive. There was a deep sense of accomplishment, and I began to also realize that gardening was art.

If there is one thing I love more than feeling accomplished, it’s art.

I love color and putting things together that form a “picture”. I love pretty, and I love aesthetic. Decorating our home was my inside project, and designing the yard became my outside project.

It was also an activity Audley and I could enjoy together.

From flowers, I moved on to tomatoes in pots. I can still see my four-year-old son, standing out on the porch, picking cherry tomatoes straight from the vine and eating them like candy… Seven Dust and all. That alone was enough to win me over.

Besides, I do love a good, fresh tomato.

Tomatoes led to herbs and lettuces. As someone who loves to cook, fresh herbs are necessary and what is fresher than picking herbs right off the back porch?

When we lived in Carrollton we used to joke that the DEA was flying over because my porch was so full of pots.

On one of our brief home stays in north Alabama nearly seventeen years ago, I took things a bit further. We actually owned our place in Alabama and rented it out when we travelled with Audley, so I planted apple, peach, and plum trees. I created a rose garden filled with stunning, fragrant English roses.

And finally, I dove deep into vegetables.

I knew that I did not want rows and rows of veggies where I had to fight weeds and mosquitoes as I was still traumatized, so Audley built several small and raised bed garden areas. I found inspiration from the old colonial gardens of Williamsburg and Mt. Vernon as well as English cottage gardens. The smaller plots laid out in raised bed form were art, and just beautiful. They were also manageable.

For two and a half wonderful years, I dabbled and played in the garden. It wasn’t work then, it was joy. It was beauty, and it was art.

But life carried us on, as it has so many times. Moves to South Carolina and Georgia brought my little garden adventures to an end. I went back to container gardening wherever we were, and was happy piddling in the dirt.

Then, four years ago, we came home to north Alabama again.

Hopefully permanently.

We never thought we would return to Alabama, so we sold our place several years ago. As we walked through what would become our new home, the realtor gestured toward the yard and said it would be perfect for an in-ground pool.

I smiled politely.

That space…

is now my garden.

Carefully laid out in raised beds with amended soil (because the soil here truly leaves much to be desired), it’s filled with carrots, lettuces, cabbages, cucumbers, sugar peas, and an assortment of cut flowers. And yes, green beans and black-eyed peas have found their place here too.

Funny, isn’t it?

The very things that once made me miserable have become some of my favorite things to grow. In fact, I cultivate several varieties from speckled beans to purples just because of the color and structure they add to the garden. After all, it’s art.

It’s a curious thing… how we grow and change.

Somewhere along the way, without even realizing it, I stopped fighting the very life I was meant to love. I began to look at things in a different light, and now, in this season, I find myself embracing something I once resisted with everything in me.

This garden of ours.

I should probably apologize to Momma.