How Does My Garden Grow?
And other news...
Though I try not to dwell on it much, my life has been challenging in all manner of unpleasant ways the last couple of years. My health, of course, remains an ongoing challenge, for instance, and there have been a lot more of a personal nature which I will keep to myself at the moment.
One thing I have learned over the years is that you cannot sit around waiting for circumstances to fill your inner well. You must, as much as possible, go out and create your own circumstances.
Please don’t take this the wrong way. I do not mean that I’m trying to play God in my own life. Nor am I discounting the encouragement from prayer and scripture and the confidence that God is at work in ways that I cannot see right now. But after rehearsing the truth in my mind, I have learned that there is a place for healthy distraction from present discomfort. A necessity, even. Healthy distraction! Not binge eating or “retail therapy” or…fill in the blank with any other unhealthy solace you or I have a tendency to indulge in.
I actually have quite a lot of interests and healthy distractions. The ones that do the most good, I think, are the ones that create something to look forward to, are beautiful, and can be used to bless other people. Sewing is one of those things for me, but increasingly, so is gardening. It’s just plain fun to go outside during the spring, summer and fall months and see what’s growing, blooming, or about to bloom.
I used to grow vegetables, mostly, and dabble in flowers as a frivolity. But now, it’s almost purely flowers and shrubs. This is because I simply cannot tolerate most vegetables anymore. Not only do oxalate-heavy vegetables give me problems, but I no longer “eat the rainbow” as the rainbow makes my stomach hurt and bloat a lot. My gut feels great when I stay away from salads and broccoli and focus on fatty meat, whole fat raw dairy, duck eggs, white rice, and the occasional home made gluten free baked goods and small amounts of specific fruits. So…vegetable gardening is kind of pointless for me right now. Maybe one day…?
(Incidentally, I lost 20 pounds of fat by filling up on red fatty meat that’s supposed to be so terrible for us and eating two meals a day instead of three. I swear…we have been lied to so much. But I digress.)
Anyway, since moving to this delicious slice of South Carolina countryside, I have been overwhelmed with gardening ideas as we have so much space! Eventually, I’d love to turn our entire yard into flowers, paths, and arbors with fragrant things climbing them. This, of course, will take some time and many years considering my physical limitations and Jonathon’s busy schedule, not to mention the cost of such a project. So, I focus on taking baby steps.
So, without further ado, here’s what’s growing, blooming and about to bloom in my garden today:
The Patio
We plowed up only one new garden space this year. Our yard is 75% Bermuda grass. That stuff is ridiculously hard to kill off. It’s impossible to smother it with mulch, so my no-till gardening method of choice was off the table, and we had to focus on quality versus quantity. So, instead of starting several new garden beds, we started one. And then I snatched the cheapest plastic planters I could find at Dollar Tree and got to work covering our cement patio with flowers.
I planted topolino sunflowers and zinnias in big planters lining one side of the patio. Those just started blooming last week and the big pops of color make me smile every time I see them.
The dogs followed me around the yard today as I took photos and here they are posing prettily behind my potted garden.
This morning, I found a little lizard using a sunflower leaf to hide on and stalk flies.
There’s also some random junk left behind by the previous owners that will take some grunt work to remove, like the weird pole with a chain hanging down. I decided to just go with it and planted some scarlet runner bean, trumpet vine and morning glories in pots at the base of said strange structure, let them climb and create an avant garde living sculpture:
On the other side of the patio, I have more of the same three vines climbing various columns and supports. The humming birds are having an absolute field day with all the pretty red blossoms.
And then, of course, there’s my lemon tree which is busily producing a few lemons for me.
They are about the size of golf balls now. I had a lemon tree at our old place which I had to leave behind when we sold the house. But the last year I had it, it yielded over 30 lemons! This one is younger, so I’ll probably get around ten or so.
The New Flower Bed
Funds are a bit tight this year, so I didn’t want to run to Lowe’s or some other nursery and buy a bunch of second or third year perennials. They cost lotsa money! (I’m trying my hand at growing some from seed right now.) Instead, I snagged bags full of dahlia, gladiolus, asiatic lily, and canna lily bulbs at Aldi one day. They were three to six dollars a bag. I was a little nervous. Would they be duds? In the end, I decided to have a little faith and planted all of them. I also got a bunch of packets of different varieties of sunflower and planted all of those in the very back. In the front, I threw some zinnia seeds down, watered and waited.
That was a few days before Easter. Then came the rains and turned the new garden into a massive mucky mess. That was bad enough, but the worst was yet to come. Our neighbor’s cows busted out of their fence and went traipsing through my new garden in the middle of that big rain. I surveyed the damage after we got the cows back where they belonged and my heart was nearly broken. There was not one square foot of space in that garden which did not have at least one hoof print three inches deep. Some of the bulbs were laying on top of the ground after being churned up by all that hoof pressure.
I put the bulbs back in the ground as best I could, and kind of gave the whole garden up as a big loss. But…a few weeks later, bulbs started sprouting. I couldn’t believe my eyes! Yes, some things came up in a different place than I planted them, but they came up! And considering everything that garden’s been through (including the Bermuda grass taking over again) it’s absolutely thriving. The sunflowers are just days away from blooming, the zinnias are loaded with blossoms, the lilies have bloomed and are blooming and the gladiolus are blooming too. Take a look:
Remember that part about your distraction being a blessing to someone else? Well, one thing I like to do is get vases at thrift stores, fill them with home grown flowers and give them to people. Last year, I had a delightful opportunity to bring vases full of zinnias to a wedding reception our church threw for a newly married couple. I hope to do a lot more of that this year. Look at the lovely bouquet I picked already!
Anyway, these flowers and growing things have been a delight to my weary soul this year. If you keep checking my Substack chat, I’ll have new photos from my garden once or twice a week. You can get to chats on your Substack app or on your computer browser on Substack’s website. I would also love for you to share your own gardening photos there with me! Be it big or small, I’d love to see what you’re growing!
Housekeeping
You’ll be happy to know that 27 is going to be longer than my first novel, The Pursuit of Elizabeth Millhouse! I did a word count, and it’s at 85,000 words so far. TP of EM was only about 69,000. I guess I have a lot more to say in my old age. Or rather, my characters do. Also, I recently sent the 21 chapters I have to one of my old college professors, who is a published author many times over. He mentored me through TP of EM, and I have a lot of respect for his opinion. He had some very encouraging words for me (words like “compelling” and “cinematic”) only a few chapters in, so that was good to hear. I look forward to his full constructive criticism when he’s read all of it.
Please continue to share my newsletter with anyone you think would enjoy it! I would love to have subscription base of at least 1,000. I have 200 right now, so…little ways to go! Help me out by sharing and getting new eyes on my writing. Here’s a handy share button:
Also, consider upgrading from free to paid so that you can listen to The Pursuit of Elizabeth Millhouse audio book and help me get it back in print.
That’s all for now. Until next time, folks…