My Garden is Singing

It has been my experience that the state of a garden is a direct link to the state of the gardener. I am happy to say my garden has begun singing again.

My little green world speaks to me often, but sometimes I don’t listen. When the stresses of work or home clog my ears, my garden notices. Most of the time, the plants — and the bugs and birds who live among them — go on living their lives, waiting patiently for my return. But sometimes I leave for too long and they move on, like college friends you have neglected.

The loss of my job last month brought with it a special set of pressures, but once the initial shock ebbed I realized my friends in the yard were still there. So I began to dig. I pruned. I trellised and thinned and nurtured. Weeds were banished, at least for the time being. Younglings got the space and air and light they had been asking for, and the old were allowed to set seed in the sun.

I’d learned our silver maple had taken an untoward interest in one set of garden beds, and had nearly filled the soil with its fibrous roots. My Greek gigandes beans, winter squash and sweet peppers had been calling for help, but I had been too busy to come to their aid until this week. Now with maple roots gone, they are signalling their thanks with deep green shoots and leaves — soon to replace the pale foliage of suffering.

Now flowers are everywhere. So are honeybees, who are a welcome sight. My Swedish fingerling potatoes have begun setting their pale lavender flowers, and the tomatoes are in full swing; I got a late start this season, so I will not harvest tomatoes by Independence Day, which is my typical goal. But as a consolation, I should have ripe tomatoes all the way into November.

Most of my herbs have gone to seed. The bee frolicking in the oregano was one of a dozen humming around the plant at the same time. The odd yellow flowers to the right are from my rue, a bitter herb whose aroma I find irresistable — although don’t touch it when either you or the plant is wet, as you will develop a nasty rash, as Holly recently learned.

My medicinal herbs are doing well, too. Yarrow always makes me happy to look at it, as does echinacea — the unkillable flower. Ours sits in the front corner of the house, a blast furnace far from water. But they don’t complain much, and I think the conditions built character (and potency) in both herbs.

So far my garden is free from invaders. Or rather, free from any multitude of invaders. I always have a few aphids, a few mites and a legion of earwigs scurrying around, but they seem to stay in check and do only minor damage. I have not needed even organic pesticides more than once in four years. Let’s hope I did not just jinx myself, but I’ve found that listening to what the garden has to say has been enough. And a garden rarely asks for poisons.

We have a new friend in the garden, too. She is a little cat who lives outside we named Harlequin last year, when we first saw her. She had been healthy but is now rail-thin, so we’ve taken to feeding her. She is much happier now. Holly and I think she lost a dominance fight in the pride of semi-feral cats who lives next door, so we’re more than happy to have her around.

I wrote about my fondness for thistles the other day, and now that the season for eating them has past, the season for staring at their mesmerizing flowers has begun. The photo up top is an artichoke we let flower, and the photo below on the left is the cardoon plant, whose petals contain a natural rennet. The Portuguese make a cheese with cardoon rennet, but I need to somehow find some raw goat’s milk to make it. Any suggestions? 

 

Cheese or no, I find thistles, the symbol of my Scottish ancestry, the most beautiful flower of them all.