Positive Focus Sunday - Sustainability and FOMO

FOMO - Fear Of Missing Out

Yep, I experience each every time I watch a gardening show, flip through Facebook and see pictures of other people's gardens, or read a book on some aspect of gardening. Those 'perfect' gardens. Beautifully manicured, every blade in place. Raised beds overflowing with plants. 

Then I look at my garden. 

This is a bed in the front of my house. And was on the list of things to do, but I haven't gotten to it yet. I was concentrating on getting the veggie garden planted, I was letting the front take second place. I have plants in pots waiting to be planted in here. 

It doesn't look anywhere near the pictures I see in books and online. Sigh.

And it brings me down mentally.

Then I have to drag myself back into reality.

It's getting there. Slowly, but surely. 

I want the 'overflowing' garden - spilling out of its borders into paths. Lush. And that does not lend itself to neat pathways and straight edges. I am learning to appreciate the look of those other gardens. I am learning I can still take something way from seeing them. But it isn't me. 

I also am repeating to myself a garden is a long-term process. It never stops 'growing'. The garden evolves. 

One of the principles I am trying to incorporate is 'sustainability'. My budget, and style, can't sustain buying the lovely galvanized raised beds. That hasn't stopped me from dreaming a truck pulling up and dropping off the beds, followed by a dump truck filled with lovely compost. I also dream of winning the lottery. In the meantime, I have to think about what I can do.

Part of creating a sustainable garden is my own energy level. 

Face it, I'll be 66 in a couple of months. And while I don't consider myself 'old', I can no longer sustain working in the yard for 6 to 8 hours at a time. I can do 2-3 hours and then I have to rest. But I am also realizing it doesn't have to be accomplished NOW. Or even this week or this month. It will happen. As things slowly get done, some of the maintenance I have to do now - like the weeding  and mowing - will decrease as time goes by. 

Another part of my garden ethos is to reuse and/or repurpose things. I just sourced 2 carloads of plastic trays and cell packs. Not only will I use them, but I am sharing with all my gardening buddies. Eventually, the plastic trays and cell packs will have to enter the trash, but in the meantime, by reusing what I sourced, a lot of people will not have to buy new ones. 

Drawers from a broken dresser have been repurposed into mini-raised beds for some strawberries. Since I want 'stuff' to decorate around the garden, I hit up thrift stores and yard sales to find things which I can repurpose into fun things to put around the garden. 

But in the meantime, I recognize I can't 'sustain' FOMO. It's not realistic. It's not me. I can admire those other gardens and then go out and pull weeds from my own garden.