image by woodleywonderworks

Summer is coming up—my favorite time of year when gardening takes priority over being indoors. This past spring, I really wanted to start my seeds indoors early, but I was so busy with graduate classes, so I pushed aside seed planting. Gratefully though, I did do a seed germination test with my leftover seeds from years past. Actually, what pushed me to test my old seeds was that I had committed to write about it for this site. It’s interesting how that works, but since I shared my thoughts with other contributors here—Megan, Uli, Sarah, Stella and Rich—I was bound to deliver on it. In the future, I would like to cultivate my interests to a greater extent to where my motivation is large enough to propel me forward, and sharing with others enriches it, reinforces it, but is not dependent upon it.

After the germination tests, I did cull a lot of old seed.  I am really enjoying the clarity and sureness of knowing that all the seeds in my seed storage box are viable. That may sound silly, but it’s a bonus to see the link between effort and results, because in life, it’s not always so clear. For the first time, this spring I looked out at my garden, and realized that its beauty is not only because of the intrinsic beauty that is nature, but also a result of the effort and care of my parents and me. I was moved more by the realization that the garden shows the efforts we have invested in making it beautiful than everything that needs doing.

I am feeling more confident in my abilities as a gardener to flow with the activities that keep it flourishing; planting from seed on time, growing a variety of vegetables, pruning perennials, building the compost, and harvesting the compost. In working on a garden there are a few different kinds of results to witness. There’s the end of season harvest after four or so months after planting, then there’s the slower development of perennials adjusting to their specific locations and also the way the sum total of plants, trees and non-living features blend together, which creates a landscape. 

What I want to say in this article is not so much about the details of gardening and gearing up for planting a multitude of vegetable varieties as it is about the form a garden takes when well tended over the years by human hands.

Yesterday, Megan spoke about our inherent connection to nature and that there is no difference between the force and energy of mountain uplift and the desire, plan and technological know-how of blasting through it to build a tunnel.  I was really fascinated by the connections she brought to light and I can see it so clearly in my garden. Any garden well-tended by gardeners who observe the plants, insects and soil and plan their gardening desires based on the laws of nature will flourish and will be exponentially grander and breathtakingly more beautiful exactly due to human touch, human intelligence. I don’t agree that nature is only at its best the wild forests, untamed and left alone. While pristine land is important for maintaining a certain level of biodiversity I don’t believe that it’s the only natural setting that does our planet good.

So now when I survey my garden, I notice that the beauty is partly a result of my sweat and care and that this care is not separate from the natural rhythm coming from the plants, the earthworms, and from me. This really does change everything!

While I didn’t start my seeds super early, which would have been ideal, as I look around my garden, I see that there are not too many weeds and they will come out easily. There’s a new compost pile to build and a lot of the finished stuff to spread around. Yesterday, I quickly started my seeds for herbs and lettuce, having planned it all out with containers, seed starting mix and a hand drawn diagram. I was amazed at how quickly I got it done and afterwards again noticed that because I prepared all my materials and selected a manageable variety of seeds, starting them was a breeze. I am beginning to choose a natural flow to life, stretching further, but not being a perfectionist about things, getting overwhelmed then crashing. Instead, I am just doing consistently more, taking one step, and then another.