Daylight Savings

Doesn't that just say spring? And how many of you are out there, probably more than I can imagine. Still cold here, and a prediction of snow--but hey, there are things to do. Clean up for one, stuff that's blown around in the community garden during the winter. Sometimes a neighbor's stakes or netting ends up in my garden. I'm hoping to do a better job this year with the weeding. And the dirt, well my friend Mike says he'll add chicken manure. I think that will be the ticket. Perhaps a little more roughage, leaves or something.

So imagine what you'd like to grow and plot it out on paper. Some folks like to keep a journal of the garden. This can be good later if you can't remember what you've planted. At the Kingston house we put in a lot of fruit trees, and later when we asked each other, now which one is this--we couldn't remember. So there was the journal I'd drawn out and everything in it was clearly marked. Remarkable feeling to be to be organized.

What do you want to grow this year. Try lots of easy things, and then maybe something exotic. Last year I grew a zebra stripped tomato. Interestingly, the strips went away as it grew. I was a little disappointed. The heirloom tomatoes don't grow well here in the PNW--just not a long enough season. They are so heavy with moisture and plump, they just get blight easily.

Well onward to dreaming with the seed catalogues.

Ciao! Flower

Garden Goals

I was reading this morning from a little book called Gratitude: Affirming the GOod THings in Life about setting goals. Anything we want in life can be had by setting a goal toward reaching it. If we aren't supposed to have it, it won't come, but if we are, it gives us focus and clearity. It is exciting and life-affirming to make the steps toward something.

Now that I'm divorced, I have a new goal. It is to find a satisfying and healthy relationship. I beleive I've stepped into this territory a tiny bit and yikes, it's is very exciting surf. Anyway, I'll tell you more as I know more. For now I'll just say, I'm having some fun.

Now for the garden goal. My garden goal is to make the soil better. I have a friend who will help and I have some leaves to add--which you already know. I think blood meal might be good addition too. Perhaps chicken manure. As I've gotten to know the local neigbors around the pea patch, I've realized that chickens are also my neighbors. Since I now have a male gardener friend who can push a wheelbarrel better than me, I can get this work done.

So gardening as a single woman--this wouldn't be so hard if it were more of a social act. I really like to have someone working beside me.

Peace,
Flower

PS The snow is gone now! Oops, the floods are here.

Working Hard on the Garden

Well it’s hard work keeping a garden, at least when you’re doing everything else in life that needs to be done, like working and cleaning house and shopping, etc. I did get over to the garden and turned over a swatch of the plot on Friday. It wasn’t weedier than anyone else’s—so I’m sure I wasn’t the only one getting a letter. I think the timing is good to see what is there for the winter—some beets, some chard, some kale. I dug a few potatoes and picked the last of the tomatoes. It’s really not so hard—I just make it hard in my mind. I’m like that, resisting; actually I’m kind of beat.

I’ve been thinking about this a bit—my own resistance makes things hard. This is not just for gardening, it is also for making art. I have a resistance that makes things hard. I’m wondering if it comes from my childhood when I was made to do things I didn’t want to do—like go to work with my dad to stuff hundreds and hundreds of envelopes—when I really wanted to be playing with my friends in the sunny park. I wanted to be tending my own little garden in the back yard. Yes, just that. Or riding my bike.

Okay, so perhaps I have a bad work ethic—although everyone thinks of me as so hardworking, and really I’m pretty much non-stop. What the hey? So it’s an attitude—give up my resistance and see what happens next. That’s my goal.

So today again, I’ll work a little more on the plot. I’d like to find some leaves to top off the garden with for winter. And some chicken manure. I think I know where I can get both of these things. A strong man to help me in the garden would be nice. Or a strong woman, makes no never mind. But I’ll probably do it myself. That’s just me.

Talk soon, Flower

PS Check out the photo of the artichoke. Cool, huh?