I am looking forward to going out to the garden to forage for things to bring to work with my lunch. I know there will be at least four or five tomatoes, and I am expecting a small cucumber. The greens and fresh herbs are a given. Having exquisite fresh food and making sure I take at least 15 minutes to savor it always makes a hectic day a much better one.
Don’t have time to garden? Try joining a CSA.
Just because I don’t write about asana often, doesn’t mean I am not practicing. The storm was just beginning. Longtime student and friend A came over to practice. We did hot water bottle restoratives, inviting ourselves to return our attention to the warmth whenever our minds got too busy.
Last night at dinner a friend noticed my necklace and asked about it.
“My friend Eleanor Drabo, who is at Eastern Market on the weekends, and is a wonderful artist and jewelry designer, made it for me,” I told her.
“Did you draw the image?” she asked.
“I asked for the basic design,” I explained, “it’s the central part of the yantra for the Goddess Durga. She’s the Goddess who had to slay the demon the the male gods made so powerful they couldn’t get rid of the demon themselves. I had it made of scrap gold–broken jewelry I’d found over the years at yard sales, a couple of unstylish single earrings that might have been a grandmother’s, and the custom ring from my former marriage.”
“That sounds like a story for your blog,” she suggested, “such a transformation.”
“It could be.”
It has been too cold for the nasturtium seeds I sowed a few weeks ago to germinate. By the time they germinate and grow, it will be too hot for the plants to thrive. (As a landscaper neighbor and friend of mine said of this dilemma this morning: “welcome to spring in Washington”). Nasturtiums love cool weather and really only do well in my garden until June.
The solution: I bought a few seedlings. I planted the seedlings where I sowed the seeds. By the time the seedlings have long since flowered and are starting to get leggy, the seeds will have germinated, and I’ll get nasturtiums for an extra few weeks at the end when it starts to get hot.
This combination of sowing seeds and planting seedlings also works well for me with annual herbs such as basil, dill, and parsley. The seedlings give me a few weeks head start; the seeds give me plentiful, inexpensive new plants when the plants that started in my garden as seedlings are starting to bolt.
I do only seeds for greens — kale, chard, mache, arugula, spinach, cilantro and beets. I can sow them in March and by now they are starting to feed me. I do only seedlings for tomatoes and peppers (I don’t have the facilities to get strong seedlings and starting with seedlings extends my growing season up 6-8 weeks).
It would be wonderful to garden entirely from seeds (swapped or harvested from last year), but the reality is that I am not a full-time gardener, but want to have a garden full-time.
It was great to get outside for a walk on this blustery day. Sometimes the sun was out and the wind settled and it felt almost balmy. At other times, the wind howled and the sun hid behind a dense cloud, and it felt like we were about to get a blizzard. In between, it was either cloudy and still or sunny and windy. What a refreshing way to get ready for the new year. Hot tea and soup were specially welcome when I returned home.
And then pasta with pesto and cherry tomatoes for lunch.
