I know I’m not alone in feeling that my vegetable garden has been a silver lining to the COVID-19 pandemic.  Growing a vegetable garden had been on my mind for years.  And although I love to work in the garden, I’ve never consistently made time for it. 

When life as we knew it halted, and work and school shifted to home, I made a conscious decision that what formerly had been my time to drop off the kids and commute to my office, would not default to work time.  Instead, it became garden time. 

Weekends that formerly were filled with soccer games and social events suddenly opened up for family projects.  Lucky for me, my kids were on board with the idea of a vegetable garden.  We had traveled to the Loire Valley in France last summer, and visited several châteaux to feed our imagination! 

I had visions of paths lined with lavender, and neat rows of cutting flowers that would attract butterflies and bees. 

Naturally, our vegetable garden would need some surrounding topiary, for a playful twist.

With plenty of inspiration, my kids and I got to work making a plan for our own extensive grounds.  After carefully surveying the land, we determined that we had space for two 6’ x 3’ planter boxes.  Okay, so not exactly château-scale, but then again, we weren’t planning to feed a banquette hall full of guests, like the one below from Château Chenonceau. 

Once we identified space in our garden with the best sunlight, we looked on Etsy for raised garden boxes that we could easily assemble. Our neighborhood has lots of gophers, so we knew we would need to line the bottom of the box with wire mesh.  We also knew we wanted to grow root vegetables so we looked for a taller box with plenty of space for carrots and beets.  We found kits that fit all of our criteria from Infinite Wood Craft, and we put them together in a single afternoon.

While we waited for our kits to arrive, we planted seeds indoors, and were delighted when our little sprouts popped up.  Sadly, they did not survive the transplant.  For round two, we planted the seeds right into the ground in late April. 

San Francisco has an unusually cool and foggy summer climate.  Sprouts popped in early May, and then took their time to fill out.  We harvested beets around July, cucumbers in early August, and now it’s late August, and we are monitoring our green tomatoes with eager anticipation. 

Our herb garden is just starting to fill out, and picking our own basil and parsley is such a simple joy. The dill and chives are coming along, slow but steady. 

My visions of topiary and lavender, were satisfied with Nasturtium and Santa Barbara Daisies – reliable and low-maintenance ground covers that attract butterflies and bees, and require very little water. 

In a time when so much feels out of control, I’ve found great comfort in my new morning gardening routine, and the (semi)-predictable patterns of nature.