State of the Garden (Summer Lunch Working From Home)


When I decided to make strawberry towers part of the new sleeping porch garden extension, Niraj Ray of Cultivate the City told me to remove all of the flowers until mid-May to allow the plants to develop leaves large enough to support sizable and sweet berries. He also suggested feeding them every time I water.
It has been a pleasure nurturing the plants and finally watching plump, juicy berries redden in the sun outside my study window.
Might this delicious lesson in the benefits of being patient be a lesson applicable to how and when and why to re-emerge post vaccination, but before the end of the pandemic?

A neighbor who lives in the top floor of the building across the street, and thus has a spectacular view of the maples in front of my house writes:
“The buds on your tree are more numerous than yesterday, and more visibly that color that Joni Mitchell sang about: “just a little green, like the color when the spring is born...” And we’re getting a good, soaking rain. Happy Spring!”
I have heard the song so many times, I do not need to look it up, except to share both with those for whom it is not part of an intimate map of a long ago period and with those for whom it is and who will have, by just seeing the words (and even more so by listening), some upsurge of memories and a revelation of the miraculous play of consciousness.
I don’t talk much about my front garden because it is not as exciting for me as the back garden with its edibles and herbs. I give a sincere effort to make the front garden beautiful and welcoming since it is my interface with the neighborhood and all who walk past my house. The front is very shady and two maple trees block the rain and drink most of the water that gets past the leaves, so it has taken some effort to find plants that thrive. Much of what is in my garden comes from other gardening friends. Plants that come from friends near-by are likely to do well moved down the street. As my garden has matured, it has needed divisions, thus giving me an opportunity to share, in turn, with younger friends and neighbors. It thus nourishes in important ways, though it offers nothing to eat.
Green America has prepared a helpful list of ingredients to avoid in personal care products, which I offer to you if you are not already familiar with these ingredients and where they are likely to be found. Which of these can you easily avoid, which will take some doing to avoid, but living mindfully with care for yourself and the planet leads you to the doing, and which do you want the product and what it does sufficiently that you do not care about the toxic risk? These questions apply for all sorts of things and not just personal care products.