By Michelle R. Negro

I just finished digging various small holes in my yard. My cats kept me company. I know, it sounds like I have completely lost my mind, yet there was a purpose. Part of that purpose is to prevent my losing my mind with everything that is going on in the world right now. I cannot control it.  I am sick of hearing about it.  I need something constructive to occupy myself, keep my mind functioning and force myself outside.  I rather wish the various small holes were to find lost treasure, but it was for the more mundane purpose of collecting a soil sample.

I have spent many hours this past year staring at my yard (that whole stay a home thing).  My yard needs work.  My husband is not keen on paying someone to landscape and my half-hearted efforts.  And admittedly near total ignorance of planting/yard maintenance has led me to the drastic decision to sign up for the Master Gardener’s Class through the Alabama Extension Agency.  I do not believe they know what they are getting into with me as a student.  I am certain I do not know what I am getting into as I stare at eh book for this new Master Gardener’s Class, about the size I imagine the NY City phone book would be if they printed them anymore.

My earliest memories of yard work and gardening were of trying to avoid them.  Since I was often sent back out to the garden repeatedly as I missed half the tomatoes or endless green beans.  I dreaded the hundred-degree heat in the kitchen and the smell of tomatoes as my mom canned, and my siblings and I ground the tomatoes through a sieve.  Admittedly, the pasta sauce she made was delicious, and her green beans to this day are far better than anything in the store.  I just was not interested in the work that went with them.

As an adult, something terrible happened.  I discovered that once I was forced, kicking and screaming into the yard (for fear that the neighbors would call someone if I did not do something), I enjoyed the results.  I may even have enjoyed the process of physical labor, the fresh air and the flowers and fresh herbs.  Please do not tell my husband, he will have expectations.  I find myself now, daydreaming of our pool having actual landscaping around it as opposed to some cheap plastic pots filled with plants in various stages of, let’s just say, various stages.

Thus, I have embarked on this course that I hope will improve my future and my yard.  No more half-hearted efforts.  No more shove it in the ground and hope.  So far. I have started nagging my husband not to bag and burb the leaves (great for compost and mulch).  I have learned why all those twigs I ordered through those see catalogues, did not last a whole year.  You really do need to follow the planting instructions.  I should have soaked them thoroughly, dug the hole deep enough, and even more importantly, wide enough (twice as wide as the roots), spread the roots out, backfilled, tamped, watered, finished back filling and mulched.  As opposed to the one year when the weather was bad, I was busy with work and just cut slits in the soil and shoved the tree in…….

Yes, this will be a long process.  But with one step, signing up for the course, and another step, and so on, I can now do more than dream about finding treasure in my yard, I can one day, create it.

Michelle R. Negro, an intern in the 2021 Master Gardener Class, lives in Montgomery.  For mor information on becoming a master gardener, visit www.capcitymga.org or email capcidtymga@gmail.com.