65\u00a0 bar steady\u00a0 29.78\u00a0 0mph E\u00a0 dew-point 64\u00a0 sunrise 6:11\u00a0 sunset 8:24\u00a0 Lughnasa<\/p>\n
Waxing Gibbous Corn Moon\u00a0 moonrise 1816\u00a0 moonset\u00a0 0130<\/p>\n
Rain all night.\u00a0 After a night of moisture the air is cool and the garden looks replenished.\u00a0 The lily bubils I set out in their soil plugs yesterday got a good drenching.\u00a0 Forgot to mention yesterday that I also planted a stem with the bubils on it, apparently this was the old method of regeneration.\u00a0 It makes sense because it’s what the plant intends.\u00a0 After die back the stem and its bubils would fall to the ground and sprout from there.<\/p>\n
While looking at the tomatoes yesterday, I had a realization, one you’ve probably made already.\u00a0 When the tomato fruits are not ripe, they blend in with the bushy plant and its leaves.\u00a0 Once they are ripe, that is, ready for distribution by hungry critters, they turn red.\u00a0 Then, they stand out against the green.\u00a0 Mother nature reverses the human traffic light, for her green means stop and red means go.<\/p>\n
When I set aside a book review to purchase the book The Brother Gardeners,<\/u> it made me think about gardening from a different perspective.\u00a0 That is, why does gardening inspire us, over and over again?\u00a0 We do not write books of a philosophical bent about agriculture, at least not many.\u00a0 I can’t recall any, but there must be some.\u00a0 So why does gardening get so much ink; it is an act usually irrelevant to economic fortunes.<\/p>\n
Here’s one answer.\u00a0 Gardening is a unique experience for each one who engages it.\u00a0 The topography of your land, its winter and summer extremes, annual rainfall, the microclimates, the amount of work you put in to the soil, your ability to match plants with all these variables, the time you can devote, all these factors plus many more make certain that even the person gardening next door has a different experience than you do.<\/p>\n
Within that unique experience though, there is a universal moment, an archetypal moment.\u00a0 Each time we provide support and care to a plant, any plant, we relive a defining event in all human history, the neo-lithic revolution.\u00a0 Somewhere, around 10,000 years ago or so, somebody, probably a woman, noticed that plants grew from seeds.\u00a0 Little by little this led to tending the first gardens, a bulwark against the vagaries of hunting and gathering.<\/p>\n
This changed the world.<\/p>\n
Gardening, too, remains the most common activity, perhaps after parenting, that gives us the sense of co-creation with the forces of life.\u00a0 In each unique experience, from tending African Violets in a windowsill to tomato plants and corn outside, we have to live on plant time.\u00a0 We wait for the seeds to sprout.\u00a0 We wait for the leaves to grow.\u00a0 We wait for the blooms.\u00a0 We wait for the fruits to set.\u00a0 We wait for the fruit to mature.\u00a0 Though we can, and do, fiddle with these factors most of us allow the plant to lead us.<\/p>\n
In this cycle, as old as plant life itself, older than the animals, is the paradigm for our own lives.\u00a0 Thus, when we weed or harvest, prune or feed we know ourselves part of the vitality of mother earth.\u00a0 That’s key, we know ourselves as part, not the whole, not the most important part, only a part.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
65\u00a0 bar steady\u00a0 29.78\u00a0 0mph E\u00a0 dew-point 64\u00a0 sunrise 6:11\u00a0 sunset 8:24\u00a0 Lughnasa Waxing Gibbous Corn Moon\u00a0 moonrise 1816\u00a0 moonset\u00a0 0130 Rain all night.\u00a0 After a night of moisture the air is cool and the garden looks replenished.\u00a0 The lily bubils I set out in their soil plugs yesterday got a good drenching.\u00a0 Forgot to … Continue reading Why Does Gardening Inspire Us?<\/span>