To Garden or Not To Garden

Something to blog about from last week's Pagan Blog Prompts:

I loved my potted herbs last year, I really did.  But keeping them going inside over the winter didn't work--the house is in general too dark for houseplants, and the puppy gates we have up to protect both our puppies and our stuff (not to mention the cats) make watering where there IS sunlight extremely difficult.  Add to that the fact that I have at best a brown thumb, and it spells failure.

Oh, that I had even a touch of my late aunt Juana's green thumb.  She could grow anything, and I mean ANYTHING in her South Texas garden--and she made it look easy!  The only thing I ever really tried growing on my own when I lived in Texas was a fern, which I killed.  LOL.  (DH and I (mostly DH) did have a small vegetable garden there once.  We (he) had a successful crop of tomatoes and jalapeños.)

I guess I didn't really like gardening until I became a Witch.  Or until I realized I was a Witch, that is.  At that point, as I became more and more aware of the cycle of life around me, and wanted to be outside more and more, I realized that I did actually WANT a garden.  I changed from a few flowering plants, grown mostly to "pretty-up" the house, to a combination of flowers, vegetables, and herbs.  I even got to where I didn't mind dirt under my fingernails, at least not much!  And I did pretty well at it--nothing died!!!

I did have problems, though.  I had to restrict myself to container gardening--the ever-present possibility that we will be able to put the house on the market keeps me from digging up the now-disliked lawn.  And I had to place those containers where they wouldn't get knocked over or otherwise damaged by two rambunctious, rapidly-growing puppies, which limited the amount of space with a proper amount of sunlight.

I got around those problems last year, but I don't think I'm willing to struggle with them again this year.  DH and I have talked about using fencing to cut the yard in half--one side for the dogs, the other for a garden--but there's that ever-present "what if the market improves" feeling.  And we're looking at a community garden plot, but we're not sure we'll be able to swing it financially in time to actually get a plot for this year. 

All of which makes me think that this year maybe I should be thinking about gardening, researching plants, and planning for next year instead of actually trying to garden.  The dogs will be older, and presumably calmer by then, our financial situation will hopefully be better, and maybe, just maybe, we will have sold the house by then, or maybe even decided not to do so.

Anybody know how long it takes grass to grow and re-establish itself in Southern Ontario?