Summer Garden, Goals, and Ideas

Well, it's summer here in my part of the world. With the exception of the last week or so, it's been relatively mild and comfortable, hanging in the 70's but the humidity can't seem to make up it's mind. But all this means is my garden is THRIVING!

Small orange rose bush rescued from the mint

Acorn Squash

K and I have now planted carrots, onions, tomatoes, basil, eggplant, acorn squash, green beans, corn, cabbage, lettuce, broccoli, spinach, beets, radishes, green peppers, spicy peppers, zucchini, cucumber, spaghetti squash, and ambrosia melon. The carrots are just about ready to be pulled, and I'm impatiently waiting. We've got garlic growing all over the yard, and also waiting to harvest it. As well as mint....tons and tons of mint growing wild through my roses. So much, that I think I'll have enough to do everything from HappySimpleLiving's blog, and still have plenty left for a Mojito or two (*ahem* dozen) over the course of the summer.

Corn and green beans reaching for the sky!

I've read a lot that things like cabbage, and broccoli don't do too well with warm summer sun on them, so K and I strung up some string and cheesecloth to make a bit of a sun shade for our cold loving veggie bed, and it seems to be working OK. I just have to be careful when watering, and make sure to check it after a rain to make sure the cheesecloth isn't trying to push the plants back into the ground.

Happy Tomatoes and basil

Surprise! Apparently tomatoes will grow just about anywhere.

K and I planted about five tomatoes when we started seeds this spring. Now we have 25 plants. When the big garden was tilled by our husbands, apparently a tomato or two got tilled in, and they sprouted. We also found a volunteer growing out of a barrel where we dumped all the tiny rocks from the onion and carrot patch. So we now have a few varieties of what appear to be heirloom, beefsteak, roma, cherry, and a few unidentified tomatoes.

We also found a few pepper plants that popped up in the tilled ground, so those got transplanted as well.

The Ambrosia Melon we are growing is an experiment. Not sure how it's going to turn out, but since the plant cost me like $2 I'm not complaining. It looks like it's something like a cantaloupe, but it is supposed to be super sweet.

This past week we had a bit of a heat wave, getting up into the upper 80's but with high humidity it felt more like 90's. Our air conditioning is out, so we ended up spending about a week at my mother-in-law's house, taking advantage of her cool air. During this time, I ended up teaching her how to knit a dish cloth. She had one she loved that has just about reached the end of its useful life, so it was time for a new one. I ended up picking some thread for a few wash cloths for myself (I just can't bring myself to use such pretty things on dirty dishes) and worked right along side her while she made her first dish cloth. I must say, for her first time knitting in several years, she got right back into the swing of things very quickly. She picked a skein of red/blue/grey mix that when I looked at it on the shelf, I wasn't too much of a fan, but after she started knitting with it, it pulled a transformer on me and ended up looking pretty kick-ass! Enough that I'm planning on making a few out of the same stuff. 

A nice bright and cheery wash cloth!

I am now into my second batch of home made laundry soap, and I am loving it! Some stains that I thought were there for good have magically disappeared, and it rinses out so well there isn't anything left to irritate sensitive skin. Bonus - It works beautifully in my H.E. front loading washer. Next time I make a batch, I'll have to put up a tutorial on it. 

While reading around online for something...I think ideas for more wash cloths since I get bored pretty quickly, I stumbled across something I haven't thought about in a few years. Hot Process Soap.....but in a crock pot! Sign. Me. Up!

I love homemade soap, especially the kind with herbs and flowers in it. I stumbled across the blog Little House in the Suburbs and have been browsing through the wonderful entries there, getting my creative ideas flowing. So of course now I'm reading up on making soap in a crock pot, and the ratios, and what to do if it doesn't work, and how to tell if it's not working before waiting for it to set up. 

I'm hoping to have my first batch of crock pot soap in the next few weeks, (seriously, not standing over a hot pot of soap stirring away in summer, umm yes please), now I just have to decide if I'm going to make plain old soap, or if I'm going to do something fancy, like oatmeal and honey, or lavender chamomile, or even a mint and lemon. This is especially exciting for me, because I'm always looking to find ways to pamper myself, without spending all the extra money at the store. Also because this year I'm really trying to cut back on our seeming dependence on store bought items, and be more proactive incorporating nature into our lives. What more wonderfully pampering way to incorporate some of our summer garden into our winter lives than including some of the herbs and flowers in the soap we will use all winter? Add to that the scrumptious wash cloths, maybe some homemade candles, and hey, who needs the spa?

Well, that's all for now folks. Need to get off of here before I get any more ideas and try to do too much at once!

Faith, spirit, and nature

Some days, things just fall into place. You feel whole, connected. Your body seems to hum with an energy that is but isn't there. Something so beautiful and perfect you feel your eyes tear up, your heart swells, and an overwhelming sense of peace settles around your shoulders like a favorite warm blanket. 

Yesterday, the air reminded me of Scotland, humid, but cool and breezy. Scotland was the first place I truly felt this overwhelming surety of who I am, and what it means to be me. To the point my soul cried "This is home, I am home!". The sense that my spirit, my body, and my mind were in sync, and for a brief moment, even the stars and time could move nothing unless I willed it. I felt what I have long believed, in so profound of a moment, that it no longer was a belief, but became a soul deep knowledge. 

Yesterday, I had a similar feeling, not as strong, but an echo of what I had felt before. Even if we hadn't already planned it, I would have found myself outside and in the garden, or the woods. Barefoot, bare hands, sinking into the damp ground, with the breeze a gentle brush against the face. 

K came over, and we got the side bed weeded and planted. We were able to put corn, green beans, acorn squash, tomatoes, basil, carrots and onions in the ground. We will be putting some eggplant in as well in the side garden. The carrots, tomatoes, and basil are all showing, but nothing else will sprout for a while yet. I am looking forward to dinners made with freshly picked food, shared with loved ones. 

Some people may wonder why go through the trouble of doing all this when you can just buy it. Well, there's many reasons, but only a few are very important to me.

The most important is that for me, working in the garden is very spiritual. Some people pray, some people meditate, some dance, or use rhythm and find that solace the soul is looking for. Gardens, nearby woodlands, and rivers have always been my solace. There is a sense of wonder, a sense of peace when in nature. It's where we came from, before there were cities, before there were modern conveniences, we lived in and with nature. There is a harmony that I have not found elsewhere. When you let nature set the pace of life, life is more full. There's less stress, and it's easier to accept that what will happen will happen, and we can't control everything, as much as some of us may want to. 

Part of the spiritual aspect is all of the sensory input, that when I focus on it, or simply sit surrounded by it creates a very humbling feeling. As humans, we tend to forget how important the earth around us is and that in one way or another we all depend on nature. Getting my hands into the soil, knowing that what I have my hands in provides life to the plants that will be put there, and thus to me. The scent of the plants is to me the scent of life. The sound of the breeze, and the air around me that carries the sound of leaves rustling, or birds singing, lifts my spirit. 

Another reason this is so special to me, is that working with the earth reminds me of loved ones, and cherished memories. Memories that come bursting through the misty reaches of my mind to stand bold, front and center when I'm in nature. Remembering my mother, and my grandmother taking walks and pointing out different plants, with my mother sometimes explaining a medicinal use of the plant if she knew it. Memories of my grandfather carefully saving and cataloging seeds from his favorite plants, or taking the time and care to paint leaves of prized plants one at a time to protect them from some pest, or blight. Friends that I remember talking to their plants, encouraging them grow, and thrive, and the excited phone calls when a bloom appeared. 

http://tattoos-and-doodles.blogspot.com/2012/01/triskel-plant.html

Another is it fills a special part in my heart. My faith. My belief that life is sacred, and deserving of reverence. As a Druid, there is so much more than simply having a spiritual connection, there is an underlying, fundamental belief, in love, wisdom, and creativity, all of which I find in the garden. The proof that our lives are more connected than they appear on the surface. The peace that is present when all is in harmony. In my experience, some of the most wonderful moments of freeing the soul have been found setting roots into the soil.

All of this sums up to the fact that I do this because it's who I am. 

Winter leads to beautiful spring, and yummy summer

Sorry folks for the extended hiatus. Between slipping on the ice and screwing up my back for a week, a minor procedure at the Dr's that put me down for another week, and then a nasty head cold, I haven't been thinking too clearly. That all seems to be past now, and man am I glad! It's always amazing the perspective that being physically discommoded gives being healthy. 

I don't know about you, but in my part of the country we get a "January Thaw" every year. It's this time of year people start acting stupid because of an early case of spring fever. You know, those few people who break out motorcycles just because it's 40º instead of 20º. Or start wandering around in shorts and no jacket? Then they whine when it gets cold again. Don't get me wrong, I love this brief warm up, especially because I get a pop of snowdrops in my yard, which are the first blooming flowers in, oh, 3 months, and I won't see any more for another 2 months. Here in Ohio, at least for me, that's a BIG thing. It's the first color that isn't grey since the leaves fell! Oh, and if the crocus pop up for a day, vibrant purple, yellow, and blue! But I know it isn't going to last. It's the same every year. 

This brings me to the topic of this entry, my rant about the cold

WE NEED THE COLD TO MAKE THINGS GROW!

Yes, you read that right. One of the keys to making sure many of the spring and summer perennial plants thrive and provide flowers or food for us to enjoy is COLD. In this part of the country that means COLD, bitter cold, the kind where you go outside and feel like your nose and fingers are going to freeze off before you're done wiping snow off your car. 

Random face in the snow on hubby's car last night.
(All I can hear  in my head is Mushu from Mulan "And it's happy to see you!)

One of these foods that need cold are apples. Yep, the good old All-American fruit. As a country, we seem to love our apples. Apple pie, apple tart, apple butter, apple jelly, apple cakes, apple bread, apple muffins, even just plain old apple by itself. Hell, we even love the fruit so much some of our biggest sell gadgets are made by a company called Apple. Yes, it's really named after the fruit. You can read about it in Steve Job's Biography here. 

Aside from apples, other foods we enjoy that require this extended cold season we call winter, are berries, oranges (a certain level of cold actually enhances flavor and color), apricots, celery, onions, garlic, potatoes, and cabbage.

Some of our prettiest spring flowers that really tell us winter is over need the cold too. Some of these are the most common Easter/Ostara flowers that represent the birth of Spring. Hyacinth, Snow Drops, Daffodils, and Crocus. Without the cold which lets the bulbs rest, we would not get the beautiful and fragrant blooms these flowers are known for. I don't know about you, but for me it just isn't Spring without these.

So remember: Be thankful for the cold bitter months. Without them, many of the plants we enjoy each Spring  and Summer would not flourish for us. There are many more plants that I didn't mention here need this time to rest, and a certain amount of "chill hours" to induce greater yields. So if you're looking forward to warmer weather, full of cookouts, with baked potatoes, and veggie plates, and desserts covered with berries, and jams and jelly and pies of all kinds, then you're just going to have to deal with the cold and think about the Earth instead of yourself first. So zip up, grow up, and get over it!