The sunny skies finally arrived, and what a streak we are having — glorious, non-gray summer days. However, our herbs, vegetables and fruit are thirsty. They are pushing harvest times all askew, and the roses need dead-heading.
The garden is calling us with so much to do, while our spirits wish to sit in the shade with a good book. Yes, a real book, or maybe all those New Yorkers that stack up in the corner of our lives.
One way to relieve the sense of stress is to rise with the first light of dawn. It is a magical time to be in the garden. The city is still quiet, and the birds are calling forth with their yakking and songs. They bring a subtle sense of humor or amusement to the calm atmosphere.
The other morning about 20 or so chickadees showed up to frolic in the oscillating sprinkler. Mesmerizing…they were all jostling each other for their time in the morning’s very fresh “birdbath.”
Also, no one — none of your neighbors or family members — is going to interrupt your time with questions or needs. It is a sweet and fulfilling surprise to see how much can be accomplished before the day’s necessities intrude.
If the morning hours are already too full, then the evening hours are still available. Same story: quietude and lingering surprises.
Someone once said, “The sun has the garden for the afternoon — I rest.” Perhaps it was Horace, arguably the best garden writer for all times.
Everyday activities
You do not need to read the blogs and books about all that there is to do in the summer garden. Rather, find your way intuitively, and then check in now and then with a few simple key questions. I find that questions about when to prune are my top priority. Also who needs what and when for optimum production from selective pruning: Do I shear my rosemary and lavender now? I suspect I should when I read about all the lavender festivals….
Undoubtedly, your beans and early squash need to be harvested every day, and there is only so much zucchini bread one can make on a daily basis. Many good citizens bundle up their harvests
and donate them to our food banks. But may I suggest that you clean and organize your donations?
At the food bank where I volunteer, I am sorry to say that a lot of the good intentions go to waste because the produce is too old, too wilted, too small, too bug-eaten, too past its prime. Well, you might retort, it is still food. And I would reply, as my cohort at the food bank always says, “Would you buy this?”
Please treat your extra produce with the same care as you treat the produce that you keep. Wash the mud off the lettuce, bag up the beans (1/2 pound) in clear plastic bags, use all your accumulated clamshell containers for your small tomatoes and bundle up the small beets that you have pulled in the thinning process.
When you prune your herbs, use small sandwich bags to put individual cuttings.
The dedicated food-bank volunteers do all these things, plus more. With your attention to these details, you will be — for all of them — definitely in the front row of the angels.
Finding inspiration
Aside from all the current focus on productive gardens, one should not forget the exquisite inspiration that comes from just being in one’s garden — whether that garden is a series of pots on the balcony or the windowsill, or a place to get your hands into the earth outside your front or back door.
I close with a quote from the famous Vita Sackville-West: “Deadheading the roses on a summer’s evening is an occupation that carries us back into a calmer age and a different century…. There is no sound except the hoot of an owl and the rhythmic snip-snip of our secateurs.”
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