© 2009 Marica

090 – A day in the garden

Sitting quietly, doing nothing, spring comes, and the grass grows by itself.
— Zen Proverb

Today was the day. It was going to happen. I knew it as soon as I saw the sun shining through the curtains when I woke up.

“We’re going to get out into the garden today,” I said to Lynsey. “I’ll mow the lawns if you dig up the vege garden.” I thought this was a pretty fair allocation of tasks although this perception was soon to be shattered.

Lynsey agreed and it was all systems go.

We had been waiting for this opportunity to get outside and begin tending our rather large garden for a while now. I still haven’t planted my vege garden and this has been nagging at me. Mind you the weather has been so crazy I wasn’t sure anything would grow and neither Lynsey nor I are bad weather gardeners. Then again nothing will grow (that is nothing that we can eat) unless we take the time to plant something.

The first thing I needed to do before I got started on the lawns was to hang out the washing. As I walked towards the clothes line I was shocked by the sight before me. The lawn had grown to knee height. The blades of grass were interspersed with yellow flowers (I don’t know what they’re called – I always thought they were dandelions but Lynsey assures me they’re not and he is the botanical guru in our house) with bees buzzing around searching for nectar.

How did it get so long? Why did we let it get this long? I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. I was sure Lynsey had last mowed the lawns only two weeks ago. Since then it has been cold and miserable but we have had lots of rain. I was still surprised by the level of growth even under these than ideal supposedly  ‘spring’ conditions. It never ceases to amaze me the resilience and determination of plants to do what they need to do. Growth can happen under the most hostile conditions and not just in fertile ground.

As I stood there looking at the sight before me all I could think about was the task ahead of me. I realised it was going to take me a lot longer than I thought.

Mowing the lawns at our place is no mean feat under the best of circumstances. There are six lawns in total (there used to be seven but one has become our vege garden) that require our attention. Each of them is like a small plot of land and they are situated on six different levels so there is the additional task of carrying the lawnmower up and down steps (plus all the other paraphernalia like rakes, brooms, weed-eater etc.). We lovingly refer to our lawns as our paddy fields!

Lynsey had offered to mow the last lawn for me while I had a break and finished off a few other things. As I watched him mowing I could see how tired he was as he pulled the mower behind him. It looked to me like her was taking a dog for a walk instead of guiding a machine to do what it was designed to do.

So, despite the unseasonable weather, growth is happening even if it isn’t the kind of growth we hoped for. I can’t wait to plant my veges and watch them grow. This is the ultimate luxury – to be able to pick organically grown vegetables and fruit as and when you need them. It is definitely worth the effort. Let’s hope the sun shines again next weekend so some planting can happen.

Manifesto
02. Every day is an opportunity for a new beginning.
44. Every day remember how far you have come.
48. Every day there are things you can’t change. You can change the way you think about them and deal with them.

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29 Nov This entry was written by Marica, posted on November 29, 2009 at 11:59 pm, filed under eating in, everyday skills, gardening, home, passion, seeing and tagged , , , , , , , , . Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post. Post a comment or leave a trackback: Trackback URL.

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