Tag: gardening

Sunflower

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Every year for the past several I’ve been lucky to have volunteer sunflowers scattered throughout the back yard. If they choose to come up in a place that’s not designated for something else, I typically just let them grow as they can. The pollinators love it and the birds enjoy them throughout the fall and winter.

This summer, in one of the raised beds where I put tomatoes, a sunflower started to grow. I didn’t think much of it. One had grown pretty near that same spot last summer, so I decided to see what might come of it. As it started growing it got really big and tall, all green leaves and heavy stem, no blossoms. It just kept climbing like Jack’s beanstalk. It was easily over ten feet tall before it had one tiny blossom at the top. I thought, well, if that’s all I get from a volunteer, I’ll take it–this gangly, tall, beast of a plant with one teeny tiny flower at the top. Then something extraordinary happened. It exploded in gold and brown blossoms all over. It developed branches. I kid you not this thing looked like a tree. At it’s zenith, it was probably 12 to 14 feet in height.

Several weeks ago, I had to make the difficult choice of putting my elderly cat, Usul, to sleep. She was 16 1/2 and in a tremendous amount of pain. The evening before, I dug her grave and when the time came, Mary helped me lay her to rest in it and we gathered those sunflower blossoms and covered her with them. I don’t know why things meet in time like they do, but I felt like my sweet kitty deserved the final honor of being covered with a blanket of sunflower blossoms before being buried.

Now that fall is here and the remaining blossoms have all faded and the seeds are getting ready to scatter for next year, I’m hopeful that another volunteer or many volunteers will choose to grace me and teach me of patience and beauty and honor again. And I have enough that I might share with my loved ones so they can get to enjoy a similar experience.

I encourage you, when something beautiful shows up in your life, let it grow. See what happens. Who knows what can be learned.

Gardens

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When I was a kid, we had a big garden at the first house where we lived in Yakima–corn, peppers, cucumbers, beans, tomatoes, and potatoes (probably more things than that, but that’s what I remember). At six, my job was to smoosh the potato bug larvae on the backs of the potato plant leaves and then flick the mature bugs into a bucket of soapy water. And I also had to get the tomato worms off the tomato plants into that same bucket of soapy water. These are the things that build character, yes? We never really had a big garden after that.

Our family split apart. Mom lived in apartments. Dad lived in rentals. When we moved to Ohio, we lived basically in college housing apartments for about four years before getting the house in Wonder Hills. Southeastern Ohio soil is essentially red clay. We had a flower garden and that’s about it. My sister and her husband have always had a beautiful vegetable garden at their home. My Auntie Lila has an oasis of flowers everywhere she’s lived. I remember fondly her place in Stanfield that always seemed magical. My Grandpa Moore had the most epic garden, one of legends–biggest and best everything. Trust me this is not hyperbole. Straight facts, folks. What I’m trying to say is that I’ve had intermittent, but intense relationships with gardens until moving to Walla Walla.

A little while into our courtship, I asked Bryan if we could rototill his backyard and plant a garden. The look on his face was the closest to apoplexy I’d ever seen. I’m taking that as a no. HA! I’m sure I’ve told this story before, but it makes me chuckle and is worth the retelling. I negotiated ONE jalapeno pepper plant and ONE dill plant. I’ll have you know I’ve had dill volunteer every summer since. Oh yeah, and over the course of our time together, Bryan built me five raised beds.

This evening as I was watering, I looked at all of those raised beds full of flowers, tomatoes, peppers, and potatoes and smiled. This garden is a love letter from him to me, and from me to him and anyone who I can share it with. I harvested the red potatoes that volunteered this year. I sprayed them off, brought them in and used the soft-bristled scrubber to clean them. Here they are drying on a towel–potatoes as a love letter.

Bryan and I used to chat about people who were goal-oriented versus people who were process-oriented. There are those who bury the needle one way or the other. I used to think I was solely goal-oriented. The rototilling request kind of emphasizes that point, but I have become increasingly appreciative of the process. The garden has taught me that. Tending a home by myself teaches me that. Change is the constant. The “ta-da” is very short-lived; it’s what comes before, after, and during that matters most.

Overmatched

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Some days I get up early enough, make breakfast, make the bed, get to work with time to spare, take care of all the tasks in front of me. Laundry is caught up. The kitchen is pretty clean. The house is mostly tidy.

And then as the day concludes, here, alone, I see all that’s not done. All that I’m reponsible for. I feel overmatched. How do I do this? How am I supposed to do this? That feeling of overwhelm and smallness–it clobbers me.

I went out to clear the stream of debris. I think I might have plucked a dead squirrel or rat or some misfortunate, drowned rodent out along with all the water plants that flow downstream to the grate that separates my side from the neighbors. I began to remove weeds and dead plants from the back garden, barely scratching the surface. Why is it so much harder this year? Why does it seem like a mountain?

I know I can do hard things, but I don’t wanna. (you can imagine that in as whiny a voice as you can tolerate) Tomorrow is a new day. I’ll put on my big girl pants and tackle one thing at a time.

Too easy.