Gardens – Page 5 – Garden & Sky

There’s really no typical Saturday around here, but the arrival of the weekend does present an opportunity for activities and mind frames that just aren’t possible during the work week. For starters, the driving question changes from “What do I have to do today?” to “What would I like to do today?”–a significant shift. The pace of life slows a bit; tasks become more mindful, more meaningful. Years ago, I began attending yoga classes with my sister on Saturday mornings. Although never what anyone would call consistent, since then I’ve tried to keep doing yoga as much as I can, adding that and daily morning meditation into my weekly routine. I’m terrible at hauling myself out of bed early in the morning, so I can manage meditation before I head off to work, but a full yoga session usually needs to wait until evening or the weekend. Doing yoga at home instead of driving to a class helps, although sometimes there are still some logistical problems…

The great thing about Saturday is that (usually) I can get a meditation session and a yoga session completed in the morning. Feels amazing! Then, I can venture outside to see what the gardens have to offer. As it is mid-June, things are really getting lush and the oppressive heat of late summer is still weeks away. Our vegetable garden is a veritable jungle–so many leaves of different shapes, sizes, and greens! Tomatoes are a basic, simple green, while brussel sprouts almost glow with a pearlescent, blue-grey green. Basil has a definite yellow-green quality to it. Makes me want to get out my box of Crayolas!

Meanwhile, over in the herb garden, things are finally taking off, too. There was a “battle of the slugs” back in May, and many seedlings were lost. However, the larger plantings survived and are now looking as they should. Here’s today’s harvest:

These will go down to the dryer and be stored until this fall and winter when we’ll open the jars, take a deep breath, and be transported back to early summer. It’s amazing to be able to store a bit of summer on the pantry shelves.

But now, the laundry calls. It’s one of the more tedious of the weekend chores, but definitely not one to be skipped. Besides, this kind of chore provides another opportunity for a little more meditation, a little day-dreaming about what lies ahead this summer, this year, and next. And before you know it, the laundry is finished. Until next weekend…

You never know with gardens. Here we are at the end of the summer and moving into “harvest time,” yet our gardens will insist on going their own way. I’ve seen pictures in magazines and on websites of huge wicker baskets full of colorful vegetables, but for some reason, this year, our garden has not been productive in that way. I suppose we can blame it on the weather–we did have that incredibly wet June–but who really knows? But the thing with gardens–and with nature–is that you need to appreciate what you get. So, looking at ours in late September, I do see a “harvest” of many wonderful things.

First, our wild begonias in the back corner garden are looking better than ever. They share quarters with hosta and other shade-loving plants that seem to wander in. We planted these years back, and they’ve struggled, but now their deep green leaves and graceful pink flowers really catch the eye.

What would a garden be without a bit of mystery? We think these plants may be tomatillos, but we’re really not sure. This is what happens when you dump a mixture of seeds out to fill in a bare spot. We had cilantro growing here earlier in the summer, but it died off. Now, we have a strange mixture of plants sprouting up. And although they do look a bit like tomatillo plants, we didn’t think we had any tomatillo seeds. Surprise!?

This pot of impatiens (although you can’t really see the pot) adds a bit of color to another back corner shady garden. The impatiens are surrounded by one of my favorite herbs–lemon balm. Nothing smells as good!

And since I can’t bear to be without cilantro, we planted another round of it in the corner of the backyard next to the wild begonias. It’s probably not quite sunny enough for it there, but so far it’s surviving.

Our confirmed tomatillos continue to produce like crazy.

Then finally we come to the basil and peppers. These guys used to be shadowed and crowded by some huge tomato plants that never really produced anything but green tomatoes that then split and rotted. So, we cleared those out and let the other plants spread out a bit.

Well, to wrap up this month’s tour, let’s check in on the compass plant. Still standing tall, but the blooms are finished. I can’t wait to see what it does next year.

And in the front yard? Here’s brick pig in a beautiful blanket of white alyssum. A few gerbera daisies add some nice contrast on the tail end! 🙂

Category: Gardens

Saturday: Meditation, yoga, herbs, and laundry

Garden Tour – September

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