My First Raised-Bed Garden

It was neither the best of times, nor the worst of times.

It was mid-May, 2020. The pandemic was in full-bloom, but we were still optimistic that it would be over by the end of summer. Toilet paper was still being rationed. Zoom parties still had some degree of novelty. We had binged Love is Blind, and judged Jessica far too harshly.

At that point in time, I had never planted a seed in my life (if I ever planted the obligatory peas-in-a-cup that seem to be an American rite of passage in Kindergarten, I have no recollection). For years, I’d at least considered planting a vegetable garden, or at least an herb garden or a tomato plant. At that time I still genuinely believed that I had whatever is the opposite of a “green thumb.” I think I still thought I had some anti-plant radon gas cloud that would cause living flora to wither if they got within several feet of me.

It was in this environment that, during a Zoom party, I decided to embrace what I later realized would be one of the Top 10 Pandemic Cliches. I decided to start an herb garden.

I dusted off an herb-growing kit that my mom gave me about five or six years ago that I never got around to planting. I planted the seeds and waited, as one day turned oozed the next but also the same day, as life turned into a long-form reenactment of the waiting room at the DMV.

The seeds never sprouted (Lesson 1: Old seeds really don’t grow well, especially not after 5+ years in a drawer). However, I was determined. This led to my first-ever trip to Lowe’s Garden Center.

I went to Lowe’s in May 2020 to buy some seeds for an herb garden. I left with a raised-bed garden kit and several bags of soil and compost, along with seeds and about 20 containers of vegetable and herb “starts.”