Raking, shoveling soil, squatting to plant seeds, all this takes energy. As recently as a month ago, I wasn’t sure I had the energy to do any of these tasks. Maybe I did, maybe I didn’t, but I know that now I can handle it. I worry, though; am I overdoing?

Bad tired happens when I wake up in that dark cloud, the dark cloud that holds me to the bed and makes me wonder if it’s worth even walking into the kitchen and turning on the coffeepot. Bad tired is not having the emotional energy to walk outside, much less get the trowel and seeds and get the planting started.

Bad tired feels like “Why bother?” Bad tired is dragging through mud, trudging up the same section of path over and over until I give up. Bad tired is a night when I feel tired, but not sleepy, and get tense just thinking of how tired I’ll be in the morning if I don’t sleep well. Bad tired, you can see, is a vicious cycle.

Bad tired happens less often now. I credit my garden with a lot of the good tired. That little patch of dirt that hosts the seeds and seedlings each summer is also a source of motivation for me. The internal energy that says, “Plant now, you’ll be glad later!” leads to the good tired, the feeling that I’ve accomplished something. I have more to plant in the next two weeks, and that’s good. Energy still isn’t at its normal level, so spreading out the efforts is the best way to handle this. If I overdo and collapse from exhaustion, my two steps forward will yield two steps back, and then it’s back to bad tired.

Deep breath: I brought in the tools. Now the rain can come and soak the seeds. I’m going to take a nap, and it’s a good tired.

I garden the way I teach and the way I cook; I don’t always follow the script exactly.

In Square Foot Gardening, it’s only right if the garden has a permanent grid and uses the perfect mix of soil. Well, I applied some of the philosophy. I rarely plant in rows; I usually plant in groups, often squares, to use the space more efficiently and choke out weeds whenever possible.

My soil, however, is the basic backyard garden soil with twelve years of compost mixed into the ground. It’s not a perfectly lovely store bought mix, but it drains well and grows lots of vegetables. I don’t use a permanent grid, either. I like the concept, and I measure (well, I estimate) when I’m planting, but I don’t build a grid. I use temporary guidelines of masking tape or in this case, string. Again, not perfect, but it gave me the guide I needed to plant seeds in the right portions and the right places.

The walkway is an old board. I’m not even sure what it was anymore. Fence? Deck? Now it provides a boardwalk so I can stay out of the mud and avoid stepping on my precious plants.

This, my friends, is the before picture. In a month or two I’ll post a during shot – if I remember. The after picture, the one with results, might not happen. Hopefully, I’ll be too busy harvesting and preserving the goodies!