Gardening for Body and Soul

“Eww, you want me to weed?”

“I’m hot and sweaty – yuck!”

“A BUG! Kill it, quick!”

How my whiny teenage utterances haunt me, when I think of my former hatred of gardening.

Worse of all, when it came to eating my grandfather’s bountiful kale and kohlrabi or the glorious red beets grown by my parents, despite a lack of work, my fork was always the first poised to attack.

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Need to start a bit smaller?  Click here to read about container gardens.

Ho-Ho-Hoeing

Hoeing clears my unkempt land and tangled thoughts.

When a writing deadline looms, and my words remain rigidly entrenched somewhere in my brain, far beyond my best mining abilities – I head for the garden.

If worries, personal or professional, threaten my well-being – I head for the garden.

The very act of repeatedly striking something solid, and breaking it up is cathartic.

Despite vigorous whacks that diminish earth clods and eradicate thick weed clumps there is no guarantee my problems miraculously evaporate.  This is only a postage-stamped garden – not Lourdes.

Sometimes, several hoeing sessions are required to achieve Nirvana. Often sheer exhaustion from the physical labor purges a situation’s difficulties with a deep sleep.

Can hoe-hoe-hoeing bring hope?

Yes, plus a great garden as well.

Life in the Garden

Life in all its glory and fragility is abundant in my garden today.

Yesterday, Licorice, the oldest feral cat resident, decided to bypass the tarp covered plastic bins I had set in the side garden I rarely use. 

Instead, she gave birth to her kittens in the only remaining high grass - exactly where I had planned to cut it down today and plant sunflowers and cosmos.

Now she moved her new family of three a few feet away to under the thriving rosemary scrub and within a snarl and a scratch away from all the new containers filled with sage and basil, lemongrass, ginger and garlic.

Oh well, temporary hand watering will build up my arms.

Honey bees and a backwards flying Anna's hummingbird gleefully gather the nectat from the orange blossoms.

Peace reigns supreme, and is that not what a garden is supposed to provide?