The Grass is Always Greener on the Side you Water

There is just something about a garden that can soothe my soul quicker than almost anything else in the world. From breaking ground and starting seeds, to planting and then harvesting, I love the time I spend in the dirt.

If you stop and think about it, there is a close comparison you can make between a garden and living a Simple Life. They both need sun, healthy soil, and a good helping of water to thrive. And if you think about it, the grass really is greener on the side you water. 

Transcript

Episode 94 – The Grass is Always Greener on the Side you Water

There is just something about a garden that can soothe my soul quicker than almost anything else in the world. From breaking ground and starting seeds, to planting and then harvesting, I love the time I spend in the dirt.

One of the very first gardens I ever planted in my life didn’t do so well. I did all the prep work right, paid close attention to spacing, carefully pruned, and tied up tomato plants, and watered it faithfully. But it never seemed to do well. 

That is, until one day my friend Becky came over for a visit. While talking, I asked her to continue our conversation while I watered the garden. I turned the hose on, directed the water to the base of my plants, and as soon as the water began to puddle, I turned off the hose. Since it was a small garden, it probably took about 10 minutes.

Becky turned to me and said, “Aren’t you going to finish watering?” It turns out that, although my garden was getting water, it wasn’t getting nearly enough. What I thought were puddles deep enough to flood my plants, it turns out that when it all finally soaked in, my soil was only wet about a half-inch down, and barely damp at another quarter inch.

A garden needs at least one inch of water every week. If you are a math person, that means approximately 20 gallons of water for a 32 square foot bed. For those of us who aren’t good at math, that’s equivalent to an 8’x4’ raised bed and pouring 4 five-gallon buckets full of water on it over the course of a week. That first garden of mine was probably lucky to get half of that, unless we had a good rain. 

If you stop and think about it, there is a close comparison you can make between a garden and life. My friend Scott, who is an amazing Entrepreneur, put it to me this way: “The grass is always greener on the side you water.” When applying his words to my simple life, it really made sense.

We love the idea and concept of living a Simple Life. And we do get started on it. We remove one or two activities from our calendars. Once or twice a week we cook a meal at home. And at some point, we tried to invite a friend for coffee, but your schedules never seemed to match. 

Or, we have become so used to blowing and going, we either don’t know how to slow down or we miss the constant flurry of activity when we do. When we are super busy, we don’t have time to think about what we truly want out of life, or why we seem to be spinning our wheels but never making progress. 

A couple of months in and you shrug your shoulders and give up. But deep down, you know you really did enjoy having time to breathe. You got a taste of quiet contentment and would love to have another serving. 

The problem isn’t that you didn’t try. The problem is you didn’t water deeply enough. 

Shifting lifestyles takes time, thought, effort, and patience. For each step in the journey, we need to take it slowly and do things properly. If we compare living a simple life with a garden, here are a few things to consider:

The first step would be choosing a location. When we choose a spot for our garden, we need a place that is slightly sloped to allow for drainage, a sunny location, and good soil, just for starters. It helps if it is located close to the house with easy access to water. 

When living a simple life, your location would be the areas of your life you want to work with. As we talked about in Episode 93, the most basic categories would be home, garden, Food Preservation, Livestock, Handmade/DIY, Family, Community, and Faith. Just as in choosing a location for a garden, not every place will be the best area to grow plants. Some may be too shady; others may not have easy water access. With the simple life categories, not all of them may work. Instead, you choose the ones that are best suited to you and start digging in that ‘location’.

The next step is to find a place that is slightly sloped to allow for drainage if at all possible. This prevents water from building up and drowning your plants. It works the same with living a simple life. You want to slow down, and in order to do that you need to provide drainage for all the unnecessary busyness in your days. 

Keep in mind – you still need to water your garden and that water needs to sink into the roots of the plants in order to keep it healthy. What you are doing is finding a balance between too much water and drought. The same thing applies to slowing down. You are still going to be busy – the difference is you are engaging in the activities that are most important to you, and eliminating all the other things that are basically busyness for the sake of busyness or staying busy just to prevent boredom. 

Your garden also needs a sunny location and good soil. The sun provides light, warmth, and photosynthesis, which most plants need. Without it, they become weak and spindly, and your plant will produce very little to no fruit at all. Healthy soil is filled with nutrients the plant needs to grow strong and produce well. 

Our bodies need sun and nutrients to survive. Our simple life does too. The sun and good soil are represented through wise choices, our values, and how we apply ourselves to each aspect of our life. For instance, if we have chosen our family as one of our categories, we need to find time to spend with them. In some cases, it may be one-on-one. In others, it may mean family as a group, such as game night or going on a picnic. The time we spend together brings the warmth and strengthens the bonds we need to have to keep our family healthy and happy.

Our values are what set the precedence for our time together. The nutrients are respect, consideration, thoughtfulness, and encouragement, just to name a few. Quite frankly, I think these sound a bit better than nematodes, bacteria, fungi, and protozoa, which are just a few of the nutrients that live in healthy soil, but either way our garden and our simple lives need them in order to survive.

From there, we need easy access. When you can reach your garden in a few steps, you are more likely to take better care of it. My garden is 5 steps down and 17 strides from my back door. (I know this because I just stepped outside to measure the distance!) I walk past it to get to the barn, shop, and chicken coop. I walk right beside it to go out into the back pasture. And I can clearly see it from the clothesline. That means, I am able to see at a glance if seeds have begun to sprout, a tomato plant needs tying up, and if there are vegetables ready to harvest. Easy access equals a willingness to maintain it.

With a simple life, easy access means it is something you are practicing every day. If your home is a category you chose to work with, then you can do a quick walkthrough to see if something needs to be done, or a friend called, so you put the coffee on in anticipation of a fun visit.  

On the flip side, an example of inconvenient or difficult access to a garden would mean, at least in my case, putting it in the far back corner of our property. In the first case, that means I would have to take a 10-minute ride on the four-wheeler to get to it, cross a creek, maneuver around the big tree that fell last winter, and fight the weeds and brambles that are trying to take over the path through all the trees. I would also have to figure out a way to get water to it, as there is no well back there. And that’s only if the plants even survived the snacking the deer, hogs, and other wildlife would be doing.

For a simple life, inconvenient or difficult access would mean trying to do too much at one time, or choosing to implement something that is currently out of your financial comfort zone. For instance, if one of your goals is to learn how to, oh, let’s learn how to do something really different, like becoming a welder and creating beautiful art pieces. 

Unless you already have a shop full of equipment and supplies, or have a bottomless savings account, welding may have inconvenient access for you, or just downright difficult. To weld, even the basic equipment such as torches, welding helmets and gloves can be costly, and that doesn’t count the appropriate metals, acetylene, and oxygen you need to light your torch.  On top of that, if you have never welded before, you need someone to teach you. And this craft isn’t going to come in a one-day class.

And all of that takes time and money. If you are already trying to balance a full-time job with home, family, other priorities, and passions, adding on an additional time-and financially consuming item may not work well. Something will end up suffering – either your initial priorities or your new passion for welding.

Once you have your garden planted and growing, it’s time to start watering. With a garden, you balance the water coming out of a hose with the free water falling from the sky. Either way, you first make sure it gets the required 1” of water each week. From there, you watch your plants for signs of drooping. If they do, then you add a bit more water, and make sure you water deeply. 

The same thing applies to your simple life. No matter which category you choose, or which priority, passion, or activity you are currently working on, it’s going to need water. The water in this case is time and attention. If it’s your home, you take the time and attention to clean it and make sure it’s a welcoming place for your family, friends, and for you. If it is handcrafts, you find time to work on a project at least for an hour or so each week. If it is faith, then you set aside time each day for devotionals or prayer and meditation. 

It doesn’t matter if we are growing a garden or living a simple life. If you want it to thrive and produce a healthy harvest, it needs to be cared for. If your simple life is floundering, it may be time to take Scott’s advice - the grass really is greener on the side you water. And the more water you give your simple life, the better the harvest will be!

If you want to learn more about living a Simple Life, just visit my website at www.thefarmwife.com/ . If you’re enjoying listening to these podcasts, you can support the show by clicking the SUPPORT button in the show notes. When you do, you’ll be helping me continue bringing you fun and helpful ideas for living the Simple Life you love!

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Thanks again for stopping in. I will see you next week on Living a Simple Life with a Back Porch View. And while you are waiting for the next episode, grab that glass of refreshment, pull up a rocker, and sit back for a while. It’s time to relax and enjoy.