Tag Archives: gardening

What a Mess

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There are no easy days even when good things happen. We had what seemed like a huge deluge of rain last evening. You could not see out of the windows from the onslaught. While the moisture is still much appreciated, we are left with a mess of mud, dead leaves and other debris. The rains are also promoting the growth of those creeping creepy bellflowers that has taken over our front yard. I had spent last summer trying to dig them out of one flower bed. Now they’re all back. They’re impossible to rid. It’s no exaggeration that what I feel is despair when I look at them. But I will not go the chemical route.

So I found myself digging again this morning, the soil being very wet and soft. I could only do so much before tiring. I planted 2 clumps of false sunflowers in their place. My plan is to crowd them out with perennials. That and sporadic digging, weeding and mulching. I’ve had some success with these methods in other parts of the yard. Realizing that, I’m not feeling quite as hopeless. There’s still hope.

Talking about hope, I am sad to learn that Johanna Macy, author of Active Hope has died. I have the book for many years and have yet to finish reading it. That has been me, collecting and not finishing reading. I will have to find it and read it. Maybe I will learn to be more active and not give in to these moments of despair. Sometimes it is hard, especially when there is smoke in the air again. But I will try.

Misty Sunday Morning

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A cool grey misty Sunday morning in July. We had rain in the night. It’s not a morning that would have me singing Hallelujah! But I am relaxed and comfortable in my skin. I made a tour of the garden and the greenhouse before our breakfast of bacon and sourdough pancakes.

I have the making of chicken soup in the Instant Pot. I am at the keyboard early for a change. 11 days left in the Ultimate Blog Challenge. I can make it. I can finish my Daisy Yellow Index Card a Day Challenge, too. I am a few days behind. I can catch up. I have 14 cards to go. It’s not a matter of do or die. It’s about doing doing my best, persevering and finish what I have started. I hate feeling lackadasical and sagging, sighing and giving up. I’m testing my mettle. Here are my 2 index cards from yesterday’s effort.

gratitude
pivot

Sometimes scrolling is not always a waste of time. I found someone interesting and inspiring on Facebook yesterday. His name is Paul Alexander. He had polio when he was six and was unable to breathe on his own. He was paralyzed for life. He lived most of his life in and out of an iron lung. Yet he was educated and became a lawyer. He wrote and self published his memoir Three Minutes for a Dog: My Life in an Iron Lung, in April 2020. It took him 8 years to write it. He passed away at age 78 in March 2024. What a remarkable man! A story like his makes me keep trying to put my best foot forward.

Finding Peace, Moving on

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It’s difficult to come to the keyboard in the morning. I have to make the best of it and settled for afternoons and evenings. There’s much garden work and the best time is mornings when it is still cool and I’m fresh. I’m into the rhythm of it now. I’m sufficiently recovered from losing my mother and my hearing almost at the same time. I do not like to talk much about either experience. I’m superstitious. I don’t want to jinx myself. I’ve recovered a good part of my hearing. I am highly functioning again. I’ve regained most of my self confidence though feeling life is very vulnerable.

I would say that this past year is a most pivotal year. I am woke, seeing and hearing the world and life through a different lens and ear. It might be paradoxical, but I have been both traumatized and gratified by my experiences. I am reconciled to my new realities. The fog has lifted. I am strong again. I am at peace and moving on with living. I find myself enjoying again working in the garden and greenhouse. The empty spaces meant for bitter melons are not seen as failures but spaces for new possibilities of parsley, more cucumbers and lettuce. Yes, maybe, just maybe it is still possible for bitter melons. I stuck in 3 bitter melon seeds. If I don’t, there definitely will not be any.

There was no smoke for this 17th day of the Ultimate Blog Challenge. We had sunshine. I was off early in the morning to the community garden to harvest and water. Now in late afternoon, we are having rain. It’s good for the garden. It is good for me. I don’t have to water the home garden. Yay!

What July is Teaching Me

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It is amazing how time slips away when I am not paying attention. I had intentions of writing this post this morning but look. It is afternoon. I also had intentions of attacking the weeds in the yard this morning, too. I don’t know what happened. Grocery shopping took longer than I anticipated. I hadn’t done it for a long time. I gave that up to the guy after he complained I took too long and bought too much. He’s away sailing. It is our grocery day and it is Seniors Day. I had to take on the shopping challenge.

What I have learned is everything takes longer than anticipated. Everything is harder/easier than I thought. Sometimes I win. Sometimes I fail. I’m learning to look at all outcomes as learning experiences. Mistakes are great teachers. They teach me to try different things and different ways. Now I look at them as great adventures. Wayne Dyer was right when he wrote Change Your Thoughts – Change Your Life.

I’ve read that book and I know that it is true. But there’s different levels of knowing. Now, in this moment, I really know it. It is that AHA moment. Just Like great ideas, if you don’t write it down, it will disappear again. That’s why I write and participating in these Ultimate Blog Challenges. And I do love words and how they can flow into pictures and stories. It pays to take the time to sit and work at it when I’m blocked. There’s value for my time instead of letting it slip away scrolling through things that don’t matter a damn.

It’s almost the end of the afternoon. It is not all lost. I got a wee bit of weeding done. Being overwhelmed by those creeping bellflowers, I thinned some of the carrots instead. It is very hard work, bending over the raised bed, assessing and pulling. I muttered quite a bit. It’s no wonder some people do not garden. It is much easier to get the vegetables from the store. It’s not just growing and harvesting. There’s storing them, too. We still have carrots harvested last autumn. Though I muttered a lot, I know I will get over the hard stuff and keep doing it till I can’t. I guess that’s passion.

Ranting

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The smoke certainly has thrown a monkey wrench into my plans for this week. I had decided to take this time off from the gym and work out in the yard and the gardens. There’s more than plenty to do. The front yard is a disaster with those creeping bellflowers taking over again. I put in alot of sweat and tears last summer digging and digging – to no avail. They’re still coming and coming. I’m not going to put myself out there, fighting them or anything else, in the smoke.

It is very frustrating to wake up again in this smoky haze. It is the middle of July and it is cool and grey. I am somewhat angry that we’re in all this. There’s still many who are denying and not talking about the climate change even those in power. We need to recognize this and talk about what needs to be done. It is, of course, easier to pretend nothing is wrong even though we are on fire. Grrrrr!

I could not handle being hampered and hemmed in and full of wrath. Not regarding what I said about the smoke, I went to the community garden with my masks. I harvested a bag of snowpeas, weeded a bit and watered our plots. After an early lunch, I drove out to the allotment garden with my masks and gloves. The gloves are for squishing potato beetles. And there were some. The potato leaves were not a pretty sight.

By now the air quality index is better but you can still smell the smoke and the sky is still grey. But the rant is out of me for this 15th day of the Ultimate Blog Challenge. Tomorrow I shall tackle those creeping bellflowers.

potatoes
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beets
beans
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A Plan and an Early Start

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When the going gets tough, it’s best to have a plan and get at it early. That’s what I did. Knowing that the day gets away on me if I dawdle, I planned to have my morning cup of tea and head off to the community garden before breakfast. It was 8 o’clock when I left. It was a good thing. I was early enough to have a parking spot. There’s a baseball field across the street. A baseball game was starting up. Cars were lining up.

Our little plot is doing quite well after a poor start. I harvested a good number of snowpeas and can now harvest every 2nd day till they give out. The patching Swedish bean patch is filling out. The carrots are looking good. The 2 bottle gourds and purple beans are doing well, climbing up the towers. Hope they will create a show. That’s my main purpose for them. They are also edible. I weeded our plot and my brother’s before watering. When you have the right tool from Lee Valley, weeding is almost effortless.

I was home in an hour. It was only 9 am. I had a leisurely breakfast. It felt like a treat. I felt good enough to wander out to the garden and water my tomato and squash patch. The cherry tree was close at hand so I picked some sour cherries. They’re washed and in the freezer. There’s a never ending list of things to do. The best thing is to do them if I can and not think about it. After I filled all the greenhouse pails with water from the rain catchment tbehind he garage, the sky clouded over. It was eery. It was dark in the house. I felt my heart catch in my throat. I tell myself I’m ok. There is nothing to be scare of. The world is not ending – yet.

I am happy I had a plan today and made an early start. Tomorrow I shall head out to our city allotment garden early to check on the potato beetles and see if there’s peas to harvest. If I do that, I will really enjoy my tea and breakfast after. The clouds have passed. We had a few drops of rain and the sun came out. This is our new norm now almost every day.

One Thing at a Time

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Summertime and the living certainly isn’t easy. That is what I am finding. Everywhere I look, there’s work to be done. Everything needs attention. I was immobilized by overwhelmed. I took a deep breath. I can only do one thing at a time. I focus my attention on the greenhouse. It performed well in the spring gifting us with greens and snowpeas. I was looking forward to a big crop of bitter melons this year. But alas, I got an infestation of aphids that got into the peppers and bitter melons. I rescued the peppers and they are thriving in the raised beds outside. I did not have any luck with the bitter melons with 2 different plantings. I’m waiting for a third set of seeds to germinate.

In the meantime I set to work clearing away the chickweed that was thriving in the beds. I planted the 2 basil seedlings and some of my too many celery seedlings to fill the gaps. The cucumbers are doing well as well as 2 bottle gourds.I have a few tomatoes that are now starting to thrive. The greenhouse will be a full house eventually.

After the Storm

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Our evening of watching the Doctor Blake Mysteries on britbox came to an abrupt end last night around 10:10. With a huge rumble of thunder and the sound of heavy rain, the power went off. There was nothing to do except prepare for bed. The power came back within half an hour but we were ready for bed. It’s good to get a good night’s sleep.

This is what the garden looks like in the morning. The lovage, weighed down with rain is worse than the leaning Tower of Pisa. The rhubarb is loving all the moisture. The borage and cilantro are just growing crazy. I am weighing heavy and feeling limp with the humidity. I’m moving slow but steady. I still went to the gym, though talked more than worked out. I was exercising my social muscles. They’re a bit weak.

In the afternoon, I whisked my father off to the mall for our daily walk and coffee. I was worried about him last night with the power outage. But he was already in bed and asleep. He did not know it was out except in the morning, the clocks were all wrong or flashing. He was able to fix them all. Some were harder than others. Those had to wait till he had breakfast to figure out. Yes, he knows how to use the flashlight on his iPhone and he has regular flashlights. He still has it together. I didn’t need to worry.

My days seem busy. There’s always something to do. I was never Miss Efficient. This past year has been especially difficult. I’ve had a few storms to weathered through. When you are not a spring chicken any more, everything is harder. It has taken alot out of me. But there are more days now that I feel I’m almost ‘normal’ and up to speed. I am grateful and surprised that I’ve been able to put in the gardens. My only disappointment is that the bitter melons are a bust. So the greenhouse is relatively empty except for some cucumbers, a few tomatoes and 2 bottle gourds. It’s still early July. I’m still trying for some bitter melons. And I’m still on the keyboard, tapping away for this 7th day of the Ultimate Blog Challenge.

Ain’t No time for the Blues

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July the 4th, the height of summer. The flowers are blooming, the grass is growing and so are the weeds. There aint no time for the blues. They’ll have to come back some other day. The house is a mess. I am also. The gardens are also crying for some attention. I have to pull myself up by the bootstraps and get to work.

It’s not easy though. I was tempted to skip the gym this morning thinking of all the weeding and watering. The temperature gets brutally hot by midmorning. But I thought it best to stick to my routine of going to the gym Monday, Wednesday and Friday mornings. It’s good for my body and soul. We had an early start this morning and was done by 9. I set to work watering and weeding the back garden beds. It’s gets the sun all day but early morning it is relatively cool. Next I took the whipper snipper to the grass in front of the raised beds. It was a good effort for the morning. I need to do this more often regularly.

My day is gone. The afternoon was spent with my father. My brother has taken over the care of our father’s yard and garden. Since he’s away for a week, it is my job. So after harvesting some Chinese greens, I gave the garden a few drops of water. Then I whisked dad off to the mall for coffee. We ran into our friends so coffee was longer than usual. We were a bit slow getting to my sister’s for a barbecue. It was a busy day for us all.

Now it is almost bedtime. I need to bring this post to a close. I thought about another day off but 2 days in a row might lead to many more. So by gosh and darn I got here to say good night. Till tomorrow then.

Day 4 of the Ultimate Blog Challenge.

Pushing Through

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Photo by Vlad Cheu021ban on Pexels.com

I’m feeling my fragility this morning. I’m afraid to go there, not even knowing where ‘there’ is. It’s well known it’s not good to watch the news before bedtime. It applies to reading news posts on social media with my morning tea, too. I’m greatly disturbed by 2 articles this morning. The first one on Mads Mikklesen, a Norweigan tourist being blocked from entering the U.S. The 2nd story involves an unprovoked attack on an Afghan toddler in Moscow airport.

I really don’t have the time or energy for this but it’s hard to avoid or resist bad news. My human nature of curiosity gets the best of me and I investigate further into the story of John Hunt even though it added to my distress and worsen my mental health. If I am to live in this world, I have to be awake to it all. Let me be a big girl, grow up and develop a strong backbone. I can do it.

It’s taking me time to write this post. There’s so much to do. I’m so weighed down with all my feelings. The only thing to do is push, push and push through despite everything. So I’ve paid this month’s bills and swept the sunroom floor. Though I was sagging with emotions and the humidity from our weird thunder and rain storms, I’ve repotted 4 of my mother’s house plants. It felt good to seem the plants perk up after. In between raindrops, I planted a row of coneflowers and a few marigolds in mom’s/dad’s frontyard flowerbed.

It didn’t feel so hard after everything was said and done. I was tired and sweaty but happy. I loaded the wheelchair and got my father into the car and off we went to the mall for a leisurely stroll and coffee.