Garden Tales

While in the garden yesterday, I heard about a hydroponic solution that makes broccoli grown like crazy, and a local college that doesn't hire experienced writers, only those with degrees, and a weed in the nightshade family—I don't recall the name but it's not lambs quarters, that's not edible. Lambs quarters is edible and tastes similar to spinach. There is chickweed and sorrel and many other edible plants that most consider to be weeds, abundant for the taking in the garden. If the garden is properly rendered, weeds can live in peace alongside cultivated plants. Is this also true with people?

I'm going to say no, not if you want to be happy that is. I'm going to say that to have great love, one must let all weeds die away and open the heart to something greater—some beautiful vibrant plant that nourishes consistently. I've realized that my heart is a convenient heart, not a heart that risks great love. Why? Because, I was taught to catch hold of any branch that would hold my weight as I was being washed downstream. A skinny, half-hearted branch will keep you from drowning—it's the sturdy branch that will allow you to climb free of the flood. Of course one will catch hold of anything when in a state of panic. I forgive myself for this.

In the garden, there is no panic. There sometimes is the overwhelm of the gardener; it would be easy to call it quits when the soil is poor. I will not. There is a book Secrets to Great Soil by Elizabeth Stell that looks good. And my friend said to layer leaves and manure—and my neighbor suggested blood meal. I hope this doesn't come from letting blood. Remember those movies from junior high where the villagers let the yak's blood and then drank it. Right there in front of the poor yak. Yesterday I had my blood let by my ex and then he drank it right in front of me. He was smiling the whole while. I will no longer go near his village. Yaks are vulnerable to type of hedonistic behavior.

Anyway, I picked some nice tomatoes and a zucchini yesterday. I think I'll be getting serious soon about turning over the weedy spots and piling on the leaves. I have a friend who could give me leaves come fall, as the garden itself will have few. It is pretty open with the exception of the row of plum trees to the north, which will be ripening soon. What a lark. Fresh plums to dry.

Happy gardening,

Flower

G. G.

Guilty Gardener. Yes, I was leaving the garden yesterday, feeling good that I'd strung the string and bad that my garden isn't as lovely as the others. I was pushing the grandbaby up 10^th street in the stroller, when I ran into my neighbor and her friend from Victoria. We stopped and chatted, again she commented on my pigweed and lambsquarters and I think convinced me not to worry about the letter and the man, the one who comes with a clip board to record the behavior of community gardeners, giving us grades, A, A, A+, D- --the last one's me, because of the weeds, but my friend was saying again, about the studies the Japanese Doctor who wrote the book One-Straw Revolution, philosophy on gardening with weeds. That in the garden, the exact weeds the soil needs will grow. If the soil is too acid, it will draw weeds that like acid soil, which will use up the bite, if it's too alkaline…etc. And he only weeded small patches around the plants.

Now I think this has other benefits—the deer can't see the plants they want to eat because the weeds are in the way, and so they eat weeds instead. Last year I planted the beans inside the row of Cosmos. I'm doing the same this year. It worked last year, so unless the deer have turned sneaky, then.... Deer don't eat Cosmos. But weirdly, they do eat tomato plants, which I've never seen them do before. My Zebra Stripped Tomato is missing a limb. Aurgh!

Well, well, what else to tell you. I've realized that women, well this one anyway, has much to give to the world and the man who's being such a @$%! to her, is nuts. That's a good realization in the scheme of things. Heartbreak is so hard to get over. I left my boyfriend in high school after he moved to Alaska. I was a bit Lazafaire about it, and my sister, four years younger, was pissed, what did she know? She was mad at me for being mean to Bill. But how could we date, with him in Alaska and me in Washington, and was I to wait until after I graduated to have a boyfriend? No, as it went, I met my high school sweetheart that later became my daughter's father, and my drunken husband. Fate? Who knows these things. But there is a book I'm going to read called SaddleUp Your Own White Horse that I think will be interesting in teaching me how to come back to myself always, to trust my decisions, to not defer to others, etc. So I will quit sulking around the garden being the G.G. thinking someone will come over to me and laugh and say, "So many weeds!"

Ciao!