We are the Garden

Yesterday I worked for a few hours in the garden, mulching my plants, trying to get the garden to a point of self-maintenance. Keep in the moisture, enrich the soil, and keep out the weeds with the help of some good black organic mulch. When the work is done I get to sit back and watch it grow with minimal intervention and maximum health. After having done this for a few years now, I am setting a timeline for the garden; all plants in by June 1,(except the moonflowers and the plants we buy for Larry on Father's day) and all mulching and staking done by the July 4th weekend.

I am a "cottage gardener". I let the plants take their own paths, with only a little intervention from me. I figure they plants know what the best places are for them to grow, and what they need. I have to help them out now and then, but for the most part, they settled in pretty nicely. Even the weeds have been given a place in areas of the garden....sometimes they have honored and surprised me in with beautiful blooms or medicinal leaves or food for the many bees and hummingbirds which dart gleefully about.

The garden is like raising children and nurturing ourselves; we provide the means to grow, protection from what might hinder our maximum yield as humans, and use natural ingredients that don't harm our bodies and gives back to the earth. There are day to day variables that might affect the rate of growth, or quality, and many these are out of our control; it makes us unique individuals. And like the garden, we give back with our beauty and we sustain ourselves and one another. We all have a value, a purpose. If we only tended the world like we tend our gardens, it might be a place of acceptance, peace, and balance.

Movie of the weekend: we rented Boys Don't Cry. 1999, true story. Hillary Swank has a commanding performance in this movie. Powerful, moving, painful. A must see.