Remembering Glory in March

This picture was taken in the most vibrant weekend of October; two close friends had come to visit and we went to a park where people had used trees and vines to create an elaborate shelter that you could climb around inside. The weather was warm enough to not worry about a coat, but cool enough to not sweat in a sweater. There was no rain – you can see the blue sky peeking out behind all those leaves.

I need photographs like these on days when March, when mud has been the norm for months now and the variety is only in how much mud and how frozen the mud is on a given day. I need to remember how delightful the world can be when there are no thunderstorm warnings and my hair isn’t ruined in the wet. Lately, in days when rapidly shifting weather seems to leave me with a sickness every two weeks, I’m having to reach back to memories about positive things for gratitude.

Gratitude is one of the things that slows down my frantic mind – gratitude makes me able to take the time to make a home-cooked meal when panic would have me order take-out and eat it all in gulps. Gratitude is hard to muster on days when my boots are covered in mud, but I’m doing it, one step at a time.

What are your favorite meals during muddy March?

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The Comeback Kids of the September Garden

I really thought that getting 20ish pounds of tomatoes out of the garden by late August was wonderful – I was excited to have tried canning and to have harvested and processed 6 butternut squash. We’d had a decent crop of potatoes and basil, and we’d harvested one bell pepper and a tiny pile of carrots.

September, thus, has been a bit of an unexpected bounty – I just cut the three squash in the squash tree down, and there are two little bitty ones still growing. The tomatoes didn’t let up at all and even expanded; I’m having to actively trim them just to keep them inside the garden box; we’re probably nearing 30 pounds total for the year. The bell pepper finally has multiple blooms and a few germinated, tiny peppers growing, and the transplanted basil seems to finally be making a comeback.

Interestingly enough, we have a few new potato feelers growing around. They look like nothing much, so I would be totally unsurprised if we pull them up and there’s nothing there, but I’m holding out for first frost and pulling them up at that point – maybe we’ll have a few more of the delicate little 1-inch potatoes we ate up a month and a half ago.

I thought about trying to replant lettuces for the cooler season, but I think I’m all gardened out for this season – it’s been so wonderful that the chance to add some cooler weather crops didn’t appeal, and thank goodness: we’ve yet to hit consistent cool weather, and first frost might be only 6 weeks away! Next year, one of my goals is to more intentionally get 3 plantings in – salad greens as early as I can, summer crops in early june, and a crop of late-season veggies. For now though, I’m content to trim back my tomatoes, speak kindly to the tiny peppers, and pull basil for every pasta dish I can come up with.

Seasons Changing, Seeds for the Future

My friend N recently mentioned that she likes having two new years, because she’s still in school and gets a new school year and a regular new year. My job operates on the school year calendar, and so I get that too. Strangely enough, the weather has gotten the first whispers of cool in it the past couple of days, and school begins tomorrow. The tomatoes are still coming in strong, though less strong than last week, and two more squash are still on the vines, but five have already come in. We’re past peak summer, we’re into ebbs and drips of remaining heat.

I’m excited to pull out the tomato vines when they stop yielding and I hope to put in a few more spinach plants to make salads for us till first frost. I’m excited to save the squash seeds I’m painstakingly rinsing and use them in the spring to create another lush bed of vines that will, eventually, be pulled out so that Husband can actually mow the yard again. I’m excited to drop a few more carrot seeds into the ground and just see if maybe, some of them will grow.

But I’m also pretty happy, today, with where I am. I haven’t been good at that, most of my life, but gardening, especially what I would call a bounteous harvest season, has taught me that all the steps seem to be joy-full. I don’t need to be looking to fall crops to be happy, or looking to winter to construction of a window box for herbs, or to spring for new sprouts. Now is good enough – soup on the stove is good enough, the heavy smell of curry and squash mingling. The hum of bugs outside, and the knowledge that tomorrow will be a very busy day, are all enough. I’ll enjoy these first gulps of fall weather and not hurry myself to whatever comes next.