Spring is slowly moving into summer here in Southern California. I had been waiting to see what changes spring brings. So far there has been a cute new baby in the family, blossoming flowers, bunches of broccoli, seeding winter plants, harvested fall potatoes, ants trying to get into our house, groups of starlings that keep me busy while my scarecrow relaxes, a second vermicompost bin, different kinds of insects eating my plants, thriving perennials in a lot more sun, and brand new seedlings emerging. “Sitting quietly, doing nothing, Spring comes, and the grass grows, by itself.” - Basho perhaps Let me begin by telling you about how well the fall plants are doing. Almost all winter the perennials and annuals such as the woodland strawberry, oregano, rosemary, piemont salvia, yarrow, scarlet runner beans, nastursiums, and more showed barely any growth. But I knew that deep changes were happening even if I couldn't see them. As soon as spring has come upon us (more sun and rain) they have already tripled in size. What a pleasure for a gardener! I want to share about two plants that fascinated me and touched me as a parallel in my own life. The grape vine that a previous tenant had planted looked completely dead over the winter. It was dry and parts of its stem had broken from being brittle. I pronounced it dead about two weeks ago. This is how it looks now. I was so wrong. Even something that you have given up on can come back to life. In fact more rightly that is what happens to it every winter. Just a natural process of death and rebirth - a Taoist kind of death that we too go through when things turn out differently than we expected. Things fall apart and then gather up again, only to fall apart again. Not my words...inspired by Pema Chodron. Death is when things become difficult and that is how the winter has been. I often came close to pronouncing certain aspects of my life as dead. But just like with spring, there has been an unfurling within me, a reaching outwards, an inner understanding of who I am, and how I want to live. I can laugh like the blossoms, be angry like the wind, and cry like the nourishing rain, instead of being a fake, landscaping rock. What a discovery! The second incredible plant is the native, edible, scarlet runner bean which has already surprised me once last winter by surviving two weeks without watering. This time the natursium I had planted a bit too close to one of the beans, began overshadowing it. The bean plant's leaves started yellowing and I was wondering if I should do anything about this situation. As usual in my lazy, reluctant-to-make-any-changes style I procrastinated only to find to my amazement that nature doesn't depend on me. The bean had shot out a long tendril high up above the nastursium, latched on to the fence and was vigorously growing new green leaves. It found the sun despite the odds. It reminds me of Maya Angelou's words; "Just like moons and like suns, With the certainty of tides, Just like hopes springing high, Still I'll rise." I too am learning to rise like the bean plant, out from under those who stole my sun and drained me of what I needed. I am doing my best, giving it my all, and I have the support I need to wrap myself around. Maybe someday I will be able to offer support to others who need help rising up. Like the bean plant I will add nitrogen to the soil that will enable the nastursium to flower. I may love to think of myself as a plant, but I am definitely a human. I killed an animal bigger than a spider. Can you guess what? You are right, it was a rodent... a gopher. They live in the ground and eat the roots of plants and can even kill trees! Of course I had to save my garden too. It died in my trap that snapped it because I don't use poison. Poisoning gophers can result in worse problems like a dead hawk that eats it or if it reaches a water source etc. It was a gruesome death and I had to call Alex to handle the dead body. I am a predator. I must embrace all of me no?
With summer approaching there is a lot of anticipation building to see whether seedlings will emerge, if they will grow to bear fruit and feed my tummy, and if my experiments on the land have been effective. Will I get that horticulture internship that I have applied to? Will I be able to make sense of all the hard lessons and transform my life through them? All I can say is I have enriched the soil, mulched it, sowed the seeds, and cared tenderly. I watch them emerge. I leave the rest to time.
2 Comments
|
Lessons from my Permaculture Design Certification and experiments thereafter Archives
June 2016
Categories
All
|