Our September blog post tells of Amanda’s experience creating a garden on a budget and with resourcefulness, yearning for simplicity:

Over the last 5 years, I have felt a pull to bring more simplicity to my life. I often think about the skills that my grandparents, and those of their generation and the generations before them, possessed.  I know that life wasn’t easy for them, but it sure seemed much simpler than the lives we lead these days.

Having the opportunity to join the Backyard Gardeners Program through Grow Ohio Valley, has truly been life changing for me. Something that I didn’t anticipate leaving such a big impact on my life and the life of my son. When I started the program, I had the goal of learning to plant a garden using the soil around our home. In the past, gardening seemed like a financial burden because all I had really known was to go buy bags of soil each year and to plant in containers or raised beds. This year was so much different!

The chance to create my own garden space and to learn each step of the process was so empowering to me. These are skills that everyone should have. I was able to create a garden on a sloped area of our yard and build terraced beds using trees that had fallen on our property. The soil that I filled the beds with was also from our land. Learning how to amend the clay soil and how to compost and mulch to keep the soil quality improving for years to come was fun to learn about and practice.

My garden has become a sanctuary for me. Seeing the results of my planning and hard work is remarkable. This is the absolute most success I have ever had growing anything!  Our daily harvests have brought beautiful vegetables to our meals and have helped me to start preserving some things for the winter months. My son has been a huge help in the garden and I know that these are some life skills that he will be able to use for his lifetime and hopefully pass on to the next generation.

I am eternally grateful for the opportunity to be part of Backyard Gardeners.