Gardening. Cooler than I thought.

I have learned a few things about my husband since we moved to Georgia.  Things I might never have known had we stuck it out in Boston.  For instance, Sean loves to cut wood.  Chop?  He chopped up a huge, old magnolia tree from my parents' yard.  He did it for fun.  I look forward to sewing or painting or making jewelry.  Seans just wants to chop wood.

Timber!!!!!

Sean is really interested in gardening. It is all he reads about and all he wants to talk about.  Everywhere we go he observes the plants.  This works out well because I want to "garden" but my method is trial and error. It's much better when someone involved is really informed and knows how it should be done.  We will probably waste much less money with Sean running the show.  I'm not ashamed to admit my contribution is hard labor and picking the prettiest flowers.

One of the big Azalea bushes in our yard.

Why am I telling you about my husband?  Well, we are in the process of planting a vegetable garden and I have learned something pretty incredible.  In the past, when I wanted to plant flowers in my city-yard (patch of grass) I would go to Home Depot or Lowe's and buy some flowers without much thought.  When our vegetable garden was just a thought we went to a local nursery called NeSmith's where they told us that they don't carry anything that won't grow in this area.  Lowe's and Home Depot will carry plants that are popular even if they don't do particularly well in your area.  Good to know but not the incredible thing.

Old Timey Plant Sale

Then this weekend we went to an "old timey plant sale" at Birdsong Nature Center (which was a cool new discovery as well).  I didn't think much about what "old timey" might mean.  When we got there we found out that all the plants were donated from gardens in the area.  I am pretty sure most of the plants had been propagated because they were really young looking.  It was amazing to talk to the people who had donated the plants.  Plants with stories?  Seriously.  Like antique plants.  How amazing is that?  Really amazing.  We went with the intention of just checking it out but how could we leave empty handed?  We talked to this woman with a really incredible butterfly garden and ended up buying some plants that came from her garden. We also bought some rose bushes, herbs, and a few flowers. 

I learned that many of the bugs important to the health of your garden will only thrive when they can eat plants native to the region. Pretty important little bit of information.  Healthy bugs = healthy poop = healthy plants.

Our spoils from the Plant Sale and NeSmith's

While we were talking to the rose guy we found out that there is a nursery in Tallahassee called Native Nursery  that specializes in.....native plants.  Very simply, they grow plants from plants found in local gardens...like antique pickers.  I. Never. Knew. This. Existed.  This makes gardening infinitely cooler in my opinion.

So here is our veggie garden in its infancy.  Here goes nothing...

Regarding the title.  I know community gardening is pretty hipster-y.  It was the last time I had contact with hipsters anyway.  Well, if you aren't on this already hipsters...get on it.