As Mother's Day approaches each year I think I get more excited knowing it will finally be time to start my garden! I honestly never thought I would be this into my garden. I mean, I LOVE my garden. It becomes this baby that I tend and care for each year and with every new year, I want it to do better and better, and I learn more and more. I do not consider myself a true "gardener" but I feel like maybe a little bit of my Nana's green thumb was passed along to me in some way and I am so thankful for that. I have a true love for plants. Watching them grow, flower and create food is absolutely amazing to me. When you are good to your plants, they return the favor 10 times over. It's a wonderful process and every year I love it more and more.
This year in the garden I knew that we really wanted to get all organic plants. Over the past three years we have mixed in a lot of organic soil with our own and mixed our leaves into the soil each fall. This has made amazing soil for our garden full of worms and pill bugs. To say I am proud of our soil at this point would be an understatement. How old and uncool am I getting excited about soil? Sheesh!
Last fall my friend Jean took me to an organic farm called Tanglewood Berry Farm that had a little market and I fell in love with it. We drove down a one way gravel road in the woods and were greeted by chickens and the friendliest big, white, fluffy dog. They are a certified USDA Organic farm in the heart of Fort Wayne, Indiana. The farm is family run and owned and you can feel that when you are there. They have strawberries, raspberries, blackberries, 125 vegetables, herbs, vegetable plants, flowers, U-pick, and other local products. Their organic veggie plants are only $2 a plant so we might have gone a little overboard and bought too many tomato plants again, like we do ever year after we say we aren't going to do that next year. Oops!
I'm so glad that we went to Tanglewood Berry Farm this year to start our garden and that we have a farm here in town doing the work that they are doing. I know it is a lot of hard work to get the USDA Organic certification and I appreciate it so much! Our grocery stores here sell organic produce but to be able to buy local and organic makes me one happy mama! I love knowing we have organic plants that were started and grown with lots of love and care. If you are in the Fort or close by, I definitely suggest heading out there for your plants or flowers this year!
