Peace and light, E — Posted with WordPress for BlackBerry.
Even though we had real, hard frosts this winter, there are already aphids on my roses. I went out this morning and picked the aphids off of the new buds — yes, my roses are budding. It was too cold to stay out long, but I did a little weeding and planted a couple of pots of pansies.
I was thinking about how I garden in my tiny space — using my fingers to take the aphids off of each rose bud, pulling up individual weeds between new plants in containers, choosing to let some volunteers come up between bricks because it expands my planting area. How different it would be if I even had a small yard by suburban standards. It would not be possible to attend to all the detail that I see, unless I were to spend every waking hour in the garden. If I had an acre, it would take three full-time gardeners to attend without tools and sprays the small things I touch by hand.
It seems we make our world as big or as small as we want it. My tiny garden is as much a universe for me as a gardener as would be an acre garden — though of course I cannot grow sprawling things like melons and potatoes and fruit trees.
But the fullness of how much I see and experience, how much calls out for love and attention, how much I am enriched by tending and observing what is there, is not diminished by what I do not have. Rather, I am called to expand to the greatest what I have within my limits. This is true, too, in our yoga and meditation practice, and our lives. We can choose to live expansively no matter what our limits or we can choose to feel bound and diminished by our limits. The garden, this morning, helped me remind myself of that choice. It helped me turn towards possibilities for growth instead of towards constriction.
Peace and light, E — Posted with WordPress for BlackBerry.
I was just led to this blog entry on community gardening in DC from the DC Urban Gardeners‘ list serve’s daily digest. The blog entry was originally posted last spring, but still has helpful information, and the service provided by the blogger looks interesting too.
If you have been thinking about getting into a garden, now may be a better time to get on a waiting list than the start of the growing season. Now is the time that novices have realized that they don’t take care of their plots, and they are better off supporting the local farmers’ markets. If you cannot get into a garden, why not be the fantastic neighbor that starts a new garden?
In the interest of full disclosure, after a few years at the garden nearest to my house, I decided to restructure my tiny backyard to add three 3’X3′ beds. This gave me as much space as I had in the community garden. I would love to have both spaces or more, but since there was a long waiting list at the garden, I ceded my space. Currently most productive in my garden: cucumbers, hot peppers, and all sorts of herbs. Tomatoes aren’t doing too well, but I’ve gotten a few eggplants and my first big butternut squash. Yum!
