My Garden’s Gift

Everything that slows us down and forces patience, everything that sets us back into the slow circles of nature, is a help. Gardening is an instrument of grace. – May Sarton

My time in the garden has risen exponentially over the past few weeks.  And I’m loving it.  I do have an aversion to wearing garden gloves.  I just don’t like having a barrier between my hands and the earth.  I find it so much easier to pull weeds, pick sugar snap peas or plant small seedlings using my bare hands.

I feel so thankful for my garden.  It gives me so much: patience, peace, calm and yes, wonderful food.  Just a few minutes trouncing around and I’m just centered.  Yesterday I cleared out my smaller bed next to my Thompson green grapevine.  There were carrots and broccoli and weeds that were ready to make their exit.  I happened to notice that many of the tomato, yellow golden beet and sunflower seedlings had roots reaching out from the bottom of the toilet paper rolls.  Time to plant!

Many of the rolls that had been planted the first of February were already starting to break down and deteriorate.  The roots were growing through them.  This gave me a smile and a push to get them in the ground.

With the beets I just peeled away the roll so as to give room for the beet roots to expand.  They came off so well.  With the rest of the seedlings I left the roll intact around the roots and soil when I planted them in the ground.  So, so easy.

I’ve recently begun giving eggs, homegrown veggies and seedlings to friends, family and neighbors.  These gifts have solicited some of the most excited, thankful reactions I’ve ever had from any type of gift.  There’s something about giving sustenance, something grown from one’s own hand that really embodies the true essence of a gift.

What comes around goes around:

I received these amazing blue, chocolate brown and green eggs from my friend who gave us our Silkies.  They are all from her own hens.  We scrambled these eggs with breakfast this morning and joked that all we needed was a green ham to have a true Dr. Seuss meal!

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