Monday, May 31, 2010

Lost in the Garden

Gardening is a kind of disease. It infects you, you cannot escape it. When you go visiting, your eyes rove about the garden; you interrupt the serious cocktail drinking because of an irresistible impulse to get up and pull a weed.
 ~Lewis Gannit

I have been lost in my garden - my favorite place to be. All the planning, digging, rearranging, planting, and cultivating have taken up most of my off time, and have been placed on my high priority list. See, I must garden to relax, I need to relax for my health, and my health is high on my list of priorities. I go out to the garden soon after I arrive home. I spend hours getting my hands dirty. Maggie usually joins me after her dinner. She likes to sneak up on me, so I scream. Then, she will lay in the grass, or strawberry patch, or grass covered walkways, until her dad comes out and beckons me inside to eat. An hour will pass, and I will unwillingly start towards the house, pulling weeds as I see them.

It's my little piece of heaven. I have harvested strawberries and onions. Maggie helps herself to a strawberry or two, until her dad or I tell her enough - save some for us.

The plants are being planted slowly. I am painstakingly pulling up a bed of mint that has grown to a third of my garden. Candy mint, peppermint, oregano, and lemon balm. Some are planted in pots to sell. Others are dried for teas and potpourris and seasonings.

Tomatoes, plum and round, peppers of various varieties, cucumbers, beans, zucchini, broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, Brussels sprouts, herbs, and celery are planted. Onions, pickles, carrots, and whatever else catches my fancy are yet to be planted. And flowers to fill in the empty spaces between the perennials, and keep the color going throughout the year.

I love my little garden. It is my little piece of heaven.

Gardening

I've always kept a compost pile since the time I started gardening. In it, I put all my vegetables scrapes, grass clippings, weeds (that haven't gone to seeds), leaves, ... When I was in college, I wrote a paper on composting, and my professor said I should try to sell it. Idea - maybe I'll put it for sale on my blog??

The soil that it produces is great for your plants. When I transplant my plants, I try to mix some into the soil surrounding the plants to give the plant a healthy fresh start.

Start your own compost pile. It doesn't have to be anything fancy, and it doesn't take much work. Just stack up all the grass clippings, vegetable scrapes, leaves, etc. in a neat pile, and you have a compost pile. Or you can get fancier and buy compost bins such as the ones available at Gardens Alive!.

In the garden,
Aunt Janet

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