gardenthoughts

working as a maintenance gardener on a small island definitely has its advantages .. for instance, every morning i load up my wheelbarrow with favoured tools .. into my trug goes gloves, trowel, snips, a kneeling pad, my camera, my sunhat and my coffee cup  .. my rake, broom, winged weeder, and shovel lay just so in the bottom of the barrow .. bits and pieces like string, velcro, scissors, screwdriver, hammer, snacks, etc., live in a small white plastic basket that fits neatly under the long handled tools .. thus outfitted, i make my way to the yard of the day .. i have no vehicle using gas, no traffic to manuever around (other than the occasional car, golf cart, bicycle or pedestrian), no looking for a parking spot .. just moving gently along on the planet .. me and my wheelbarrow, and often my trusty dog friend, beau, wending our way to the garden of the day, where i am given the liberty to peer, admire, preen, coddle, snip and clean .. to me, there is no greater vocation than to work in gardens ..

a case in point .. last september, i toddled into a new garden once a week, for nine months .. this particular garden was not new to me in that i hadn’t been in it before, but new in that i was going to look after it while the resident gardener was off to sail the pacific ocean with her husband during a year’s sabbatical .. and so, while these two were sailing the briny sea i was here, tending their garden .. and what delights were shown to me there ..

this garden is the work of an artist .. a painter of remarkably portrayed botanicals .. a painter of brilliantly coloured acrylics .. a writer of poetry and memoir ..  a budding pianist .. and a gardener .. so .. when i enter this yard it is as if i am entering a reflection of her art .. and i approach the garden from this perspective .. as art .. (actually, i am inclined to approach all gardens from this perspective .. happily) .. and, the plants are an essential part of each picture .. i’m hopeful that the photographs i’ve taken will convey some of the ‘art’ i saw as i peered around the yard, throughout the seasons ..

autumn: last autumn brought us a lot of rainy fridays .. as friday was my day in this particular garden, gardening tasks were thus limited ..(phil  told me that it’s best not to work with plants in the rain .. so, i don’t) .. however, i was still able to do some general cleanup in the woodshed/composting area .. and, naturally, to observe and photograph what was happening in the garden at that time ..

winter: snow came .. and stayed for over three weeks .. a long time for us,  here ..

upon its disappearance, there was more time to amble about the garden, peering ..

.. up, and down ..

eventually, as spring approached, peering took precedence ..

spring and the performance carries on .. one delightfull scene after another ..

and the hellebores are wonderfull ..

summer brings with it flowering shrubs, as well as perennials ..

.. and a few ‘unusuals’ ..

you know, after having spent nine months in this garden, peering and taking photos, i am now finding it a bit of a challenge to choose only ‘a few’ photographs for this post .. i think i might have gone overboard .. however, it’s quite a different exercise, to look back over almost a year’s photos and recollect what was happening, and when .. i had such a lovely time caring for this garden .. and, in my mind, one enjoyment in having a garden is being able to see it .. to enjoy the pleasures it has to offer in the moment .. i’m grateful for the opportunity i had to move through the seasons in this garden, peering ..

it’s been awhile since my last post (months ago) .. checking back,  i see it was june and the garden was already growing along nicely .. well, here’s what it looked like in mid july ..

in august, it grew to what it was in the picture below .. here you can see some of the tomatoes beginning to ripen ..

today, it looks like this ..

before the pick ..

as i recall, in june, the tomatoes were green .. the carrots were quite small (which they still are), yet delicious in flavour .. the squash, hiding in the garden’s voluptuousness, made us look to find them .. the cucumbers were flowering brilliant yellow flowers and already producing delightfull tiny, perfectly formed fruits (or, i suppose that would be veggies) .. the basil was perfecting itself for a feast of pesto .. the peas were heavenly, round and crunchy and sweet .. man, oh man, there is nothing like an organic garden growing at your fingertips .. magic ..

the tomatoes are beautiful now .. they were beautiful back in august, too, .. they hang in clusters .. green, and red, and fuzzy and shiny .. i’ve been bringing them into the house and putting them on the windowsills to ripen .. (apparently, that gives the ones left on the vine a bit of a jump on ripening, too .. i believe it’s an energy factor) .. when they are “just right” i wash them, and pop them into freezer bags for use later on in the winter .. soups and sauces waiting to be created .. i love tomatoes for their simplicity of use .. we’ve been eating them in sauces and salads pretty much every day .. a bit of basil, a little feta and life is good ..

today, i’ve been out gathering pint mason jars so i can starting canning tomato sauce .. i have a glut of tomatoes from the garden (so wonderfull), and from a box of romas and a box of beefsteaks .. gifts from the interior .. so, i’m inundated with tomatoes at the moment .. i’ve run out of room in the freezer, and canning is my alternative ..

today's pick

i love the process of canning .. getting the jars clean and ready .. washing and chopping fresh, crisp veggies and herbs .. and cooking them all up together ..the smells wafting through the house making my mouth water .. and of course, the finished product ..  coloured jars adorning shelves in the basement .. a burst of light in an otherwise dark space ..

we’re still munching on a second crop of peas, which i eat right off the vine .. no getting to the table with those little beauties .. we like to plant the varieties that you can pop right into your mouth .. crunchy and filled with juice .. sweet as candy ..

green candy ..

same with the mini carrots that are growing in the garden .. not sure why they didn’t grow large, but their sweetness seems to have intensified into their small shapes .. this morning at the community garden, a few of us were chatting about carrots .. the ones we planted in the spring didn’t really do what one expects a carrot to do .. there were many that were twisted, and splitting, not looking like very happy, robust carrots .. naturally, the question in my mind is, what can be done to enhance their growing environment .. (phil used to say our main purpose as gardeners is to give a plant the best start we can) .. someone suggested that carrots aren’t happy in fertile soil, that they prefer their soil on the lean side .. (i’ve read that before) .. sand, was another factor .. apparently, carrots like a looser, sandier soil that most veggies .. (who knew? .. and more to the point, how do “they” know?) .. then, to top that off, someone else mentioned that although their soil was fertile, and not sandy,  their carrots were doing very nicely, thank  you .. so much speculation, really .. one more thing i enjoy about gardening .. we can toss about all these different ideas from books we’ve read, or things we’ve tried in one garden or another, or secrets from other gardeners, but a carrot growing in a  community garden will always be different than a carrot grown in any another garden .. and a carrot grown in mandy’s garden will always be completely different than one grown in randy’s garden .. this is a phenomenon that i have been witness to in a number of gardens ..

little, sweeties

what it comes down to in my mind, is learning what makes a carrot happy .. not in another garden, somewhere else on the planet, but here in this garden, right in front of me .. experimenting from year to year with a multitude of different factors, in search of that perfect place for carrots .. or for any plant .. it’s all a live and learn experience .. patience required ..

and now, i’m off to stir the sauce .. i feel happy to be sitting here again, babbling on with stories of our voluptuous veggie garden .. i know there’s no end to it .. how delight-full ..