Imperfect Gardening for Perfectionists

I am a perfectionist. Therefore, when I start a garden, I research companion gardening pages, peruse the almanac, and find out when and where to plant what. I browse online seed catalogues and get recommendations from the gardeners that I know. I know that I've never done this before, and I want to do it right. In theory, every plant has a place, has been started as a seedling in my dining room window, and is perfectly ready to face the hardships of our Georgian clime.

Enter reality-- this morning, in fact.

I got up at 7:30, found this page and that page on the internet for companion gardening. Then, I printed the graphs and sketched a rough and very incomplete planting map. A little before 9:00, Bubby went down for his morning nap. Precious and I went outside and, horrors to the perfectionist, I dug holes and placed the seeds in the dirt. I was aided, yet greatly slowed down by Precious, who found that putting seeds in the ground was quite fun. Though, we weren't so sure about the ones we couldn't even see.

I was halfway through the planting when I realized that I had been out for a while. Knowing that Bubby would be waking up soon, I knocked on the basement window and asked New Daddy what time it was. "Nine forty-five," he replied.

I went into a panic, discarded any thought of a garden plan, and began throwing the rest of the seeds into the soil. At this point, Precious had been excluded from the process, because she was so slow, and teaching takes time.

I'm somewhat grateful to my garden for forcing me to give up my perfectionism, just once, and jump in with both feet, "live, die, sink or swim." I'm much better off with a messy garden that has the possibility of giving us a little food, instead of packets of seeds sitting on the counter, waiting on their picky owner to get them in the ground.

There, I did it! Now, let's hope for the best!