Right this moment, I am dreading school starting. I am dreading the intrusion on my time, waking up early to work rather than to run, not losing track of hours as I muck about in the garden. I dread the rushing and busy and noisy and . . . Well, I just dread it.
This morning I woke up at six to run and lift and then spent my morning in the garden. I need this green therapy. When I am pruning plants and picking berries, I am not thinking about the actual problems with elderly, ill in-laws (as opposed to annoyances that I am shrugging off). I am not worrying about what will happen with a job or lack of job for Jack. I am not fretting about Bell. I just am. I think about green - what I am going to grow in the fall, what is ripe or needs pruning, what I will cook with it, what Thoreau said about it. And then my mind is off on tangents - maybe I have fallen down a literary rabbit hole, maybe I am dreaming of what we can do if we are really a farm, maybe I am sailing through the islands with Jack and have left English in the dust of Oklahoma. What ever it is, I am not worrying.
So what is it that I am growing? The tomatoes are finally here, at least in amounts to satisfy my daily requirements. I am fighting something that I think is summer blight - maybe this copper fungicide will do the trick. Some of the peppers are ready and the plants are loaded. The Armenian cucumber has tiny babies that will be big in a week, but alas, I found squash bugs on the squash today. I have picked four quarts of blackberries from my six tame plants and the same from the wild bushes on the lake. Both plots still have red fruit so I will get a few more quarts in before it's over. The blueberries are not doing so well - they are just existing and not really growing so we are looking into some changes for their care. The herbs - well, they just need an intervention - they are literally taking over.
I do grow pretty things as well. Jack and I looked at some wooden rectangular planters that were pricey, pricey so he built me his own version. They line the back sidewalk and are over flowing with flowers - geraniums, impatiens, periwinkles, salvia, all manner of trailing vines. In the front, mixed in with day lilies are giant zinnias, cactus zinnias, cosmos, amaranth, lantana, nasturtiums, and pentas. The dahlia bed is sharing space with butterfly weed and yarrow and unidentified things I dug up at my grandmother's. Jack's passion fruit vine is covered in flowers that smell exotic and enticing, and he has seed trays full of tiny cacti and succulents,
I have a few more weeks of green therapy but August first is looming. Positively looming. Until it gets here, you will probably find me in the green things.
Right this moment, I am dreading school starting. I am dreading the intrusion on my time, waking up early to work rather than to run, not losing track of hours as I muck about in the garden. I dread the rushing and busy and noisy and . . . Well, I just dread it.
This morning I woke up at six to run and lift and then spent my morning in the garden. I need this green therapy. When I am pruning plants and picking berries, I am not thinking about the actual problems with elderly, ill in-laws (as opposed to annoyances that I am shrugging off). I am not worrying about what will happen with a job or lack of job for Jack. I am not fretting about Bell. I just am. I think about green - what I am going to grow in the fall, what is ripe or needs pruning, what I will cook with it, what Thoreau said about it. And then my mind is off on tangents - maybe I have fallen down a literary rabbit hole, maybe I am dreaming of what we can do if we are really a farm, maybe I am sailing through the islands with Jack and have left English in the dust of Oklahoma. What ever it is, I am not worrying.
So what is it that I am growing? The tomatoes are finally here, at least in amounts to satisfy my daily requirements. I am fighting something that I think is summer blight - maybe this copper fungicide will do the trick. Some of the peppers are ready and the plants are loaded. The Armenian cucumber has tiny babies that will be big in a week, but alas, I found squash bugs on the squash today. I have picked four quarts of blackberries from my six tame plants and the same from the wild bushes on the lake. Both plots still have red fruit so I will get a few more quarts in before it's over. The blueberries are not doing so well - they are just existing and not really growing so we are looking into some changes for their care. The herbs - well, they just need an intervention - they are literally taking over.
I do grow pretty things as well. Jack and I looked at some wooden rectangular planters that were pricey, pricey so he built me his own version. They line the back sidewalk and are over flowing with flowers - geraniums, impatiens, periwinkles, salvia, all manner of trailing vines. In the front, mixed in with day lilies are giant zinnias, cactus zinnias, cosmos, amaranth, lantana, nasturtiums, and pentas. The dahlia bed is sharing space with butterfly weed and yarrow and unidentified things I dug up at my grandmother's. Jack's passion fruit vine is covered in flowers that smell exotic and enticing, and he has seed trays full of tiny cacti and succulents,
I have a few more weeks of green therapy but August first is looming. Positively looming. Until it gets here, you will probably find me in the green things.
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