I'm enriching the soil of Fam Camp one dumped French press of used coffee grounds at a time. By the time we leave here, it will have been transformed from a sandy wasteland to a rich, tropical paradise. But that's not all (oh, no, that is not all, Dr Seuss). The kids and I have also started a vegetable garden with the help of one of my neighbors who does not immediately blanch at the word "project" and has an enterprising husband who loves her more than I deserve. In fact, the kids and I went up to Tennessee one weekend, and when we came back: Ta-Da! There were two pallet vegetable gardens (in a lovely shade of blue) holding court at the end of our RV, and a tomato plant and bell pepper plant already putting down roots thanks to my husband (who loves
me more than I deserve).
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This is for those of you asking for a picture of the outside of the RV.
The truck is parked next to it so you can pretend we're pulling it down
the highway, making all the other drivers annoyed. |
We've since added a cherry tomato, a jalapeño, another bell pepper, a zucchini, a squash, two strawberries, and a lavender (transplanted from the herb planters but appearing to revive itself once the chocolate mint plant was no longer strangling the life out of it--the cilantro was not so lucky). We've also added two lily plants and a mimosa tree (thanks to our awesome neighbor). The mimosa tree somehow escaped being parked on when we had a dozen friends over for dinner the other night (food inside, people outside), so I'm pretty sure it's a Miracle Mimosa. It can only provide shade for snails and ladybugs at this point, but I hope to come back and visit it in another ten years and see if it's survived living here. Until then, I'm making sure it gets its caffeine fix every morning so that it can grow strong and healthy just like me.
The main attraction has been the vegetable garden though. As I'm writing this, one of the boys just managed to kick the soccer ball and hit the garden, but for the most part, having it behind the RV has been a good place for it. Out of the way of the boys' energetic ball games and close enough to the hose. Sure, Twinkle is managing to start water fights at least every other day with the hose, but what else can be expected?
I've loved adding a bit of beauty to our outdoors, but mostly it's been fun having a neighborhood project. The Man's old boss donated the little tractor light before he left. The pallets came from another neighbor. Strawberries are being shared between four trailers as they're picked off one by one. And best of all, I don't have to worry about the garden being taken care of while I take the kids up north for the summer, because my next door neighbor has my back with the weeding and watering. Also, if it dies, both of us are self professed black thumbs, so we'll take equal blame in the failure (winning!). Although right now, we're looking good since we seem to be only days away from our first official tomato and our squash and zucchini plants have more than doubled in size since these pictures were taken last week.
I know better than to let my momentary gardening success go to my head, but it's been good to keep trying at something that I routinely fail at but which gives me a lot of joy. I'm reminding myself (and the kids) that success isn't about perfection or even production. This garden will have been a success even if we get not a single vegetable out of it, simply because we've learned from the experience and it's encouraged our community. And it's led to a lot of joyous water fights, which in my opinion is always a win, even if it produces extra laundry and a lot of soggy shoes.
{I've been making the kids read a bunch of Victory Garden books the last couple of weeks. I feel like a pallet garden in a trailer park in the middle of a hurricane disaster zone qualifies as a victory garden. And I'm pretty sure we all need a little victorious fight in our lives.}
