The Meditation of the Earth

My garden is my haven.  I did not know it when I planted a few seeds in early April just to see if I could 'grow stuff'.

And guess what?  I can!  This is a red sunflower in my garden.  It stands over 6 feet tall with 3 other off-shoot stems and will have more than 12 different flowers before the summer ends.  Amazing.  And the bees like it too!

I was completely surprised by the peace and rest I found digging in the dirt, turning the soil to prepare for planting, planning out the seed beds and wondering if any of it would grow.  I planted vegetables, sunflowers and a wildflower butterfly bed near my back fence.

Whenever I needed a break from work, or life in general, I would head out to my garden and get my hands dirty - and the peace that overcame me was amazing.  Spending time in the fresh air, sunshine...and even rain, took away the stress of the day, helped me find solutions to problems and answers to questions.

The wildflower bed was interesting.  I hoed for 2 hours to prepare the soil, then sprinkled  wildflower mix from a container into the dirt.  It poured rain for the next 6 hours so I thought for sure there would be no garden to look at from the deck.  After the rain, it became very dry and as much as I watered, the water just ran off as the dirt was rock hard.  I decided to not be so attached to this part of my gardening experiment and about 4 weeks later, flowers started to sprout.  At first, I was not sure if the greenery was all weeds, and to my surprise, the majority was not.

Just like people, when given the right conditions and a chance to grow, they will surprise you!

Now my vegetable garden was a different story.  Everything started growing like crazy!  Tomatoes in June (had to stake them twice because they are so tall), cucumbers that have at least 250 more flowers to grow, pumkins crawling up the fence and potatoes invade the space of everything around them  I am now waiting for the carrots to get ripe to pick and have just pulled the peas from the beds.

                                                    

Just like people - they come into your life when you need them.  They may be 'scattered, all-over-the-place' or be straight up and independent, not tied to anything or anyone for strength, how we nurture them, care for them makes a huge difference to who they are today and will be in the future.

From the earth I have learned to tend the garden of my life.