If my mother had ever heard the words “garden therapy,” she would’ve rolled her eyes. “Garden” to her meant that field of vegetables planted behind the backyard of our out-in-the-country home. Long rows of corn, butterbeans, tomatoes, peas, cucumbers, squash, okra, and potatoes.

There wasn’t anything therapeutic in planting, picking, and preserving all that produce. It was a job that lasted all summer.

Fast forward to me. I don’t can or freeze vegetables, but I do enjoy planting a few hills of cucumbers along with a couple of bell pepper and tomato plants. By the time I buy the seedlings and amend the soil with bags of Black Kow manure I get from Lowe’s, I spend more money producing these vegetables than I would pay for them at the farmer’s market.

But that’s not the point. I enjoy growing stuff. In small amounts so that gardening doesn’t get to be work.

I’ve planted my cucumber seedlings at the edge of my backyard shrubs as I have for the last few years. I’ll have to post another picture later in the summer to show how much they’ve grown. If all goes well.

I repeat, if all goes well. The biggest problem I have with trying to garden at my suburban home isn’t drought or diseases. It’s animals. Deer, rabbits, and squirrels, to be exact. I’ve learned to plant everything in my fenced-in backyard, which at least keeps out the deer.

But rabbits and squirrels easily slip in. So this year, I’ve beefed up security. My youngest daughter gave me her cast-off raised garden beds and around them I’ve added a tight wire-mesh fence (thank you, husband for nailing it to the boards). I’m thinking it will take a Superman rabbit or a really starving squirrel to jump this fence.

Garden therapy isn’t so therapeutic when critters get to your plants.

To read more about my gardening (plants and flowers), click here: http://www.rockymounttelegram.com/Patsy-Pridgen/2018/04/29/Planting-Can-Be-Therapeutic.html