July-August 2023 garden report

My plan to show readers my garden at the end of each summer month got away on me. So here's my July garden video, which was made yesterday, August 3rd. A wee garden tour in just under four minutes! Come visit at the end of August and we'll eat lots of wonderful produce together, God and weather willing!

Simple Suggestion #273... Start a seed

It's the most wonderful time of the year! Well, almost. Spring starts early when you're a gardener, and after a long winter, getting my hands back into dirt is always wonderful!

By the end of harvest in autumn, I'm always too tuckered to tidy up the greenhouse, even. So it sits, a jumble of pots and dead plants, until the sun gets higher, the days get longer, and the hothouse gets hotter -- it reached 35 degrees earlier this week. That's a clear sign that it's time to get on with things.

Now the pots are sorted, the shelves are cleaned, the floor is swept, the thermostat/heater and seedling heat mats are re-installed, and planting begins.

On the left are 40 tomato plants for me (and a few extras for my mom and friends), and on the right, three large pots of lettuce and some small planters for perennials. I brought in a few pails of snow because ordinary precipitation is better for these future babies than ordinary tap water.

Indoors, my little windowsill herb garden is growing quite happily, including one marigold seed that I found on my desk back in January! It seems to be doing better than the oregano that is also growing in that pot (probably stealing all the soil nutrients). And there are a few peppers slowly coming up -- they need more consistent heat than the greenhouse provides (on sunless days it sits between 7 and 16 degrees, colder than peppers like) so I'll keep them indoors for a little longer.

In a world where we are so often separated from the sources of our food and walled off from nature, it's really important for me -- for all of us, though not all of us know it -- to find a way back to seeds, soil, and green growing things, even if it's just a little jam jar on a windowsill. We all need some connection to the mysterious Source of Life somehow -- I'm sure our souls are healthier for it!

So today's Simple Suggestion is to start a seed. Any seed. Watch it grow, and feel your soul expand with it!

Tomatoes

It's a busy time in the garden these days, and moodling is happening off-screen rather than online. For the first time in ages, I missed moodling a Sunday reflection. So to make up for it, I'd like to share a wonderful prayer by Michael Leunig, from his book A Common Prayer (©1990 Dove - Harper Collins,

ISBN 0 85924 933 6). Even though it's coming on time to harvest tomatoes rather than plant them, it's a wonderful prayer:

It is time to plant tomatoes. Dear God, we

praise this fruit and give thanks for its life 

and evolution. We salute the tomato, cheery,

fragrant morsel, beloved provider, survivor

and thriver and giver of life. Giving and

giving and giving, Plump with summer's joy.

The scent of its stem is summer's joy, is

promise and rapture. Its branches breathe

perfume of promise and rapture. Giving and

giving and giving.

Dear God, give strength to the wings and

knees of pollinating bees, give protection

from hailstorms, gales and frosts, give warm

days and quenching rains. Refresh and 

adorn our gardens and tables. Refresh 

us with tomatoes.

Rejoice and rejoice! Celebrate the scarlet

soul of winter sauces. Behold the delicious

flavour! Behold the oiled vermilion moons

that ride and dive in olive bobbing seas of 

vinegared lettuce. Let us rejoice! Let this 

rejoicing be our thanks for tomatoes.

Amen.

Things are shaping up

My farm boy husband amazes me. 

He's the hardest working guy I know.

 Here's a picture of him, back on March 11th, 

getting my tomato planters ready to go.

Two weeks later, he invented a little "greenhouse" 

for the tomato plants I started in our green room.

Below is the finished product.

See those happy tomato plants now? 

On Saturday, before I even got out of bed, the amazing man dropped our daughter off at school for a drama rehearsal and stopped at the hardware store for a load of boards to make me six raised bed planters for our garden. By one o'clock, we had picked up materials for another six raised beds. By four o'clock that afternoon, he and my dad had them put together (Thanks, Dad!), and by nine o'clock last night, they were all set up in the garden. What I thought might take us a week took him only two days! My man moved more dirt and compost around than I can believe. Just two more weeks and our tomato plants will be even happier in their raised bed boxes! 

Strawberries and onions will be living here soon,

and carrots, beets, kale and chard in the boxes to the left.

And, of course, none of this would be possible without

my amazing husband. Thank you, Lee!

Our yard has gone through huge changes since we moved in almost nine years ago. 

In a few weeks I'll post some amazing before and after pics!

P.S. Happy Compost Awareness Week!!