What's in a garden?

What's in a garden?  For years I've been trying to meet my need to garden by growing plants in containers.  I never allowed myself to think of it as a garden - after all, a garden has real dirt - not potting medium, ground to dig in - not containers, and a sense of permanency you just don't have on your apartment balcony.  You garden in your backyard, you have some planters on a balcony.  Right?

Wrong.

Last year I lived in an apartment with a shady balcony.  Shade means growing vegetables is tough - I started late in the season, so it was too hot for lettuce, radishes, and other cool season vegetables that grow decently in the shade.  Even my herbs were unhappy.  I realised, quite quickly that I was also unhappy.  I missed my former balcony garden - the cheery yellow flowers of my non-producing zucchini from the year before, tending my tomatoes, and picking herbs first thing in the morning....  I also realised for the first time that I'm not just a "container gardener".  I am a Gardener.   I realized that a garden isn't the physical space that you put your plants in, it's an act.  A garden is our connection to history, to years past, to other people, to the earth.  When you garden, you grow too.  You partake in everything that has brought us to where we are now, and that connection is what makes a garden - not the space you grow your plants.


So this year?  I'm making a new resolution.  I'm not going to be "just a container gardener".  I'm going to be a Gardener.