Timing

I wrote yesterday that I had taken my garden in early in the season. Little did I know that we would get hail today which would tear apart many of the plants that I had not already pulled.

Gardening Problem

I face a little problem with my garden. Having extra time today, I finally got around to starting to clean out my garden. I know it's a bit early in the season right now, but the bugs have been getting to some of my plants and I need to make some changes in preparation for next year so I'm starting early.

I started by harvesting the carrots that had not been looking promising early in the season. Now the carrots have taken off so that in many places there is virtually no dirt between the carrots. They are big and beautiful and too numerous to eat all of them soon. I pulled out the broccoli plants since I already have more broccoli than I can eat. I pulled up the potatoes. I have been wondering about them all year since I could see that the plants grew, but I could only guess at how well the potatoes were coming on. I don't remember having much success with potatoes in our family garden when I was growing up so I was not sure what our chances would be. We got lots of potatoes - even if you don't count the ones that got sliced by the shovel as I dug up the dirt after removing the plants to find any potatoes I had missed. We also removed all our squash plants but there was little fruit left to harvest there because we had already taken most of it in. The squash plants had been the hardest hit by our bug problem.

So what's my gardening problem? I can't possibly eat everything I picked today unless I learn how to store things over the winter. I know it can be done because people have lived for centuries without refrigeration or global produce shipping. The problem is I am not exactly sure how to do it since we live in an age where most people live week to week between trips to the grocery store rather than working all summer to live over the winter on the produce you saved from your harvest.

You may ask why it matters since I can always go buy food at the store. The answer is that I have a goal to one day learn how to live entirely off my garden. I hope it never becomes necessary, but I would like to have that skill so that I can better understand and appreciate our modern lifestyle. Storing the produce of my garden over the winter is one step towards that goal.

Discerning or Disagreeable

I have been going to conference sessions all day today and it has made me begin to question how I approach learning. I find that there are no classes where I simply absorb what is being said without finding parts where I disagree.

I think it is the responsibility of every student to consider what they are being taught so and coming to know and believe it for themselves, or where they cannot believe it they must discard it in favor of something which they can believe. If that is what I am doing, then I am sure that I am playing the part of the prudent student.

I began to wonder today if the fact that there was no class where I could accept everything was a sign that I was being either proud or picky.

For example, I was in a class on gardening and learning a lot about a specific way of gardening that is supposed to produce high yields and reduce weeding and space requirements. I liked a lot of what I had heard and I learned a lot about composting which I intend to implement, but despite all the benefits which were listed, I do not intend to implement the gardening plan as presented in the class. I found that it did not agree with my own gardening goals. I will use some principles and see if it improves my results, or cuts my costs, but I don't want to put the work or the cash in to follow the method to the letter.

As I think about it, I believe that it is a matter of discernment and not just me being disagreeable. I am not judging the information to be bad, or faulty, but I am adapting it to my own situation and my own purposes.

My Gardening Hobby

During this last year, as I have been settling into my house and working on my yard, I have begun to really enjoy gardening. I did plenty of it in my childhood, but it is different now.

Back then I remember the gardening mostly for planting, roto-tilling, pulling weeds, and picking the produce. There's nothing wrong with all those things and they are certainly a part of gardening. The difference now is that I see the gardening much differently. I have worked hard on making flower gardens and a vegetable garden in my yard and I have enjoyed taking the time to watch the life in the various plants. I love to observe how they grow. In the flower gardens I always try to make sure that things are appealing visually, but in the garden I let things grow a little more wild. That does not make for the highest yield, but I enjoy watching it more.

The bane of gardening when I was young was that the weeds seemed to grow easier than any of the plants that we planted. As I have watched my garden grow I have been entertained as I have seen some of my squash and pumpkin plants overrun the most tenacious species of my weeds.

I have also seen some other things that make me marvel at the tenacity of life. When I was getting flowers for my flower gardens I found that I really like delphiniums. We bought three varieties and planted them in our main flower garden. It was not too long before we came out one morning to find that the one we liked the best was broken off at the ground as if it had been kicked over. That was very disapponting. A few days later I was surprised to discover that there were two little shoots of a new dephinium growing out of the roots from the old one. I was just amazed at how tenaciously a plant can cling to life when I would have expected it to die. The plant has now survived two such occurances.

To top my observances off, yesterday I discovered a flower among my carrots. It was a type of flower that I can't name right now, but I have seen it for sale in nursaries. I have no idea how it got into the carrots - we didn't buy any and I have not seen any elsewhere, but I got a new flower for free which I have now transplanted into one of the flower gardens.

It is those kinds of random occurances that ensure that I can never tire of working in the garden and observing the growth of the plants. As a nice bonus, I get to eat the fruits of my labors (many times fresh off the vine - before it has ever come inside the house).