The Secret Formula

We were in enjoying a beautiful evening the back yard with some friends when someone asked Mark how we got such great vegetable plants. He quickly explained how we tilled compost in below the ground level ...

then built up the boxes and tilled in more compost, more soil and still more compost.

They seemed unconvinced so he explained how we put in a drip system and hooked it up to the sprinkler timer so it would get the right amount of water on a regular basis.

As Mark was explaining, another friend came up and said,
"Karen just has a green thumb".
The person was instantly satisfied and that was the end of the conversation.

I have thought about that a lot lately.

The answer they were looking for was some
quick fix secret formula.
The real secret formula they needed to make their garden grow
involved a lot of hard work.

The funny thing is that the hard work is not permanent.
We do not have to go back and recreate the boxes each year to get a great garden.
While we do have some routine maintenance,
like tilling the boxes each spring and periodically adding compost,
the amount of work required on a regular basis is quite small.
It's small now because of the past work we did.

Really, it's the same with weight loss
or an education or anything...

...maybe it's even true about getting organized.
Too much looking for the perfect system
and not enough making it work...