Patience is a virtue

I tend to be an instant gratification kind of girl, but this garden lifestyle change inspires patience and planning. I went to the farmer's market this weekend. Bless their hearts for coming all the way out to the U District with their goods and for standing outside all day in those cold, outdoor market stalls. I had hoped to buy more local honey and some other ingredients, like onions. But since only a handful of farmers were able to make it to the market in this wintery weather, the pickings were slim and I wasn't able to instantly satisfy my desire to have those products. I discovered that I was OK with that. I picked out some shallots instead and decided to wait until next week to pick up a new jar of honey. I think I'll appreciate them more when I finally get them next week (hopefully). I know this epiphany seems like minutiae, but for a girl that's normally impatient, I think it's a good thing.

Along the same lines, I've been thinking a lot about my future garden and how beautiful it's going to be. Since I can't be out there right now, I've decided to plan ahead and complete a garden project that I'll love when it's finally time to plant. Normally, I would squeeze this mosaic project in (along with a few flower pots) while I was knee-deep in the bigger project of creating the garden itself (which will be quite a labor-intensive, time consuming job on it's own). But now, in the spirit of patience and planning, I've completed the project ahead of time so that when the time comes to actually build the new garden, I can focus all my energy and attention on the task at hand (the most important one of all).

So, here is what I made: mosaic seed markers. I stripped the wooden slats off some old garden fencing and made each one into a plant marker. I don't think I'll actually forget where I planted each type of vegetable and certainly won't need a marker to know what a tomato plant looks like when it sprouts, but I think the more garden bling there is, the better.