Go Big, or Go Home

We have cabbage overload.

Our neighbor (read: the couple that lives nearly two miles down the road) gave us the world's largest cabbage the other day. Per my friend's request, I nearly cut it open and put Jack in to make a life-sized Cabbage Patch Kid, but didn't.

Instead, I doubled my cousin's Asian Cabbage Salad recipe, using still only 1/2 of the world's biggest cabbage, and we're on meal #2 of it as a side dish.

And it still looks like we haven't touched it.

Sigh.

It is "in" to garden, even though, obviously folks have been doing it for centuries. It's trendy to post a picture on Facebook of your harvest. Chubby cheeked toddlers with a big zucchini is pretty cute, but I would like to see these folks' gardens, because my husband has a theory on gardening:

You either go big, or go home.

Seriously. We planted sweet corn with our little planter. Joe cornered off a portion of the field last year for our garden...it was nearly 3/4ths of an acre.

And I had a newborn.

And three other kids.

Thus, no garden...just a lot of weeds.

Sigh, again.

Thus, this year, our "garden" consists of Anna's garden in a glove project from 1st grade, which has been eaten alive by Asian beetles, and has given us one tiny radish.

Yay, us!

What's wrong with me? Shouldn't I be better at this? I have been a farm wife, scratch that, a country living wife for six years, shouldn't I have figured out how to keep carrots alive, grow lovely tomatoes and dig up potatoes? I enjoy eating my mother-in-law's vegetables. We love the cabbage...thankfully, since we'll be eating it until September. So why can't I figure this out?

I'm still hearing the words of the mother of one of my good friends...who happened to be slightly tipsy, but was a former farm wife, nonetheless, "You're not a real farmwife if you don't garden."

Gah. Really? I'm not? Again with the barriers I have to break down!

I'm keeping kids alive and a few flowers...isn't that enough?

I'm trendy in a lot of ways. Currently, I am sporting a running skirt (laugh if you want to, but girls, try it...it's awesome). I love skinny, colored jeans and big bold prints. I scour home, fashion, and pop culture blogs, pin to my boards on Pinterest, and follow different folks on Facebook for the latest thing...so why I am unable to go with the gardening trend?

We're going to try next year. We really are. I can make a mean homemade pico de gallo/guacamole, so it would be nice to have some of our own tomatoes to use in it.

However, I am NOT going to go big or go home...I'm going to go with the trend of the family I saw in town the other day...a cute little painted box (somewhat resembling a sandbox) filled with a few (A FEW) plants.

Then, maybe I'll feel like a farm wife.