July 13, 2019
This is the time of year you can feel the tiny water particles falling from the grape leaves. Sitting under them in the shade you can also see them. It reminds me that grape vines output a tremendous amount of water every day, and are not a good choice for garden borders. I seem to constantly be increasing my water application, and it is probably because year after year the grape vine roots creep further into the garden, suckng up the water and misting it out in respiration. This is also the time of year when you walk next to the dusty dirt trails, leaning over them like a gnome, looking at what tracks have been left in them..
Rabbit, squirrel, deer, birds and raccoons are most frequent, with turkey, heron, dog, Adidas and Nike next. Snake tracks are rare, as are tortoise and lizard. I wonder at how many of the actual critters I've missed seeing because I was so focused on the ground..
July 14, 2019
We don't all have good garden soil but we can all improve what we have by increasing it's organic content. Grass clippings, leaves, wood particles, chopped weeds, straw, and hay are all good candidates for this. I used to have decomposed granite for garden soil, which has so little nutrient value that it's merely a root supporting structure. I would bring home bags of leaves and grass clippings that were left out for our town's curbside pickup, because I couldn't get enough material from our property. Composting it all was more work than i wanted so I began laying it on the ground in rows..
I would walk between the rows, so half my garden was pathways, but under the material that I kept wetted down, the soil soon turned black. That was the beginning of my sheet composting that I'm still doing today. It turns out that "no till gardening" is being encouraged now as a healthy alternative to disturbing the soil microbes that function best at their particular depths..
July 15, 2019
In front of my garden chair in the shade, a Love in a Mist stalk came up, and looked like a weed. In time a pale blue flower developed on it and I realized it wasn't a weed. It looked a bit pathetic but I left it. It kept putting out new branches and forming new flowers and now it's a bouquet of assorted blue colored flowers. It's absolutely perfect and could be uprooted and placed in a vase as an arranged floral decoration. It feels like a gift. It evolved in front of me and now brings me joy..
To the left of it, on the other side of the pathway, three kale plants sprouted in early spring. They are ready to be harvested now with their big tourquois and purple leaves, but they were a gift also and I'm reluctant to alter their symitry. I'll enjoy them as eye candy for awhile. Two Swiss chard plants within my view came up as volunteers and are also a gift. I planted the row of beans in front of them but the fact that they sprouted feels like a gift too. The whole garden is a gift of nature, whether we plant it or not..
