Gardening is like life: There’s the “Must-Do” stuff and there’s the fun stuff. They sometimes go together. Preparing ground for planting can be a bit of a slog. Sowing seeds or tucking transplants into the ground is fun. Tending a strawberry patch demands a fair amount of labour. Popping fat and juicy, sun-warmed berries into the mouth is supreme delectation.
Key to contentment is a sensible balance between the two. Over the course of recent years I’ve been training myself in the art of dallying, in the sense of slowing down to savour what’s around me. I’m learning, during each gardening session, to seek moments of diversion — a light trimming of a shrub, sketching out a plan for simplifying an area of the garden, moments of observing bees buzzing in flowers.
When the toilsome parts of gardening start swallowing up the lighter, brighter parts, it’s time to simplify, or/and get help.
Gardens can almost always be made easier to care for: Eliminate awkward, ugly, or tiresomely high-maintenance plants and beds. Pare plantings down to a collection of trees and shrubs, flowers, herbs and vegetables that you truly love and that grow easily and well in your garden’s conditions. As in life, cutting back on even one or two non-essentials can be enough to allow for a bit of daily “free-breathing” relaxation.
A little help from family or friends can also make things more manageable. I’m blessed with kind friends. One, recently retired, living now in a condo and missing her garden, drops by regularly to help with various projects.
Daphne, another long-time friend, comes by every two weeks to garden with me. And for large, heavy-duty projects, in the spring I found Ken, who arrives with a partner to complete a clearing and tidying project in two or three hours that would have taken me weeks of labour.
I was recently astonished by a surfeit of generosity when Daphne and her husband Dennis, along with Alberta, a visiting niece, arrived on a Saturday morning to tear down my daughter’s old falling-down playhouse and take all the bits away to a disposal station. Bless them.
Thanks-giving. I’m often asked how I continue finding topics to write about. The answer is obvious to me. It’s the column readers who send in questions, observations and opinions every week. They lead me down pathways of research that I never would have thought about. Thank you.
Recently there has been a series of opinions on the best, the earliest and the easiest tomatoes to grow. One more arrived on the morning of this writing. I’ll be passing along some of these thoughts in a column soon.
I’m beyond thankful to have a garden to work and play in, grateful for the flavourful, nutritious food and the spirit-lifting blossoms and scents it yields. I’m conscious too of the health-enhancing exercise involved in tending plants and plots.
So much to give thanks for. So much reward for the work. The pumpkins and winter squash have just finished being “cured” in the warmth around the wood stove — a space now occupied by a dish rack holding the sweet potato harvest surrounded by damp cloth to create a period of damp heat that will cure the tubers for a long storage season. These nutritious foods promise a winter of fine dining.
I wish you a most Happy Thanksgiving. May the weekend meals reflect a season of bounty, shared in companionship and joy.
Garden Events
Winter pruning. Russell Nursery, 1370 Wain Rd. in North Saanich, is offering a workshop on Winter Pruning of Trees and Shrubs on three Saturdays at both 10 a.m. and 1 p.m. The dates are Oct. 19 and 26, and Nov. 2. Noah Alexander, a professional arborist, will cover general pruning theory and practice, with demonstrations, and he will answer all your pruning questions. Cost is $20 plus GST. Register by phone at 250-656-0384 or email [email protected]. Please provide your phone number when registering.
Hospice garden dinner party. A “Beef and Burger” dinner party will be held on Sunday, Oct. 20, from 5 to 8 p.m. in the Cobblestone Pub, 3566 Holland Ave. in Cobble Hill, to raise funds for the Rotary Garden to be Created at the new Cowichan Hospice House on Cairnsmore St. in Duncan. Hosted by the Kitchen Sisters of Cowichan, the dinner will have substitutions available. The evening will include entertainment and a raffle. Tickets at $30 are available in advance at Cobblestone Pub or by phoning 250-701-8095 or 250-743-9465.
