Mother Earth's Garden

As a gardener, you can either love fall, or hate it. more avid gardeners of course know that there is plenty to do in the fall and winter months, especially if you bring the garden indoors. But for those of us who are avid gardeners, or just the casual planter, don’t forget to stop and enjoy this glorious season. Often times I find my self looking at the ground deciding what to plant, or what needs taken care of. It’s easy to miss the whole landscape. Step back. Take a break from all your …read more

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I was asked not so long ago, what drives me to create, and why I like to garden. I debated about posting an answer to this question for some time. As a blogger, I can pretty much say anything I want about a particular topic, with out constraint. But then comes the obstacle of writing something that is understandable and acceptable to a broad spectrum without offending or segregating people. But I can not write that way, any more than I can live that way. Who we are as people is reflected in what we …read more

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Does it ever amaze you how easy it is to grow something? Those of us who spend hours planting, weeding, and watering may disagree, but bear with me for a second. Think back to grade school. Do you remember doing projects where you planted seeds in little round dirt clots, dumped some water on it, and then a week later there was this tiny little sprout. That’s all it took. In fact, all it takes for most seeds to sprout is simply to place it on a wet sponge. I have no doubt that …read more

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There doesn’t seem to be much to do in the garden except harvest. This is a silly statement because there is lots to do. Anyone who saw my garden now would wonder at the mess. The tomato plants are flopping all over the pathway because I haven’t tied them to their stakes for quite a while, and have not watered much because of the drought and the water restrictions. There are weeds right through the onion patch and the strawberry patch, and beans climbing the sweetcorn stalks.
The thing is, none of these things absolutely have to be attended to today. …read more

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I was just looking through some old photos, and came across this one – a picture of Vita Sackville West’s wonderful garden at Sissinghurst. These photos were taken on a trip I took with my family in 2002. A perfect day.
This is a photo taken from the tower, in which Sackville-West used to write her poetry.
 
 
 

The entrance, with wonderful climbing roses.
 
 
 
 

Me and my Mum – sadly she is now dead. Mum always loved gardening, and was disappointed in me as a child because I was completely uninterested. Thankfully I came to my senses in adulthood, and we were able to …read more

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Couldn’t help but notice this wonderful sounding job as a “seed manager”. I’m trying to finish a book at the moment, and admittedly even tidying my sock drawer seems more attractive – nevertheless I am really tempted. Hmmm

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How’s this for a man who understood gardening? This is from “Leaves of Grass” the wonderful epic poem by the famous Walt Whitman. I love it.
This Compost
(from “Song of Myself” by Walt Whitman)
Something startles me where I thought I was safest;
I withdraw from the still woods I loved;
I will not go now on the pastures to walk;
I will not strip the clothes from my body to meet my lover the sea;
I will not touch my flesh to the earth, as to other flesh, to renew me.
Oh how can it be that the ground does not sicken?
How can you be alive, …read more

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People have been suggesting to me recently that I must know more about gardening than I pretend.
I don’t think this is true, but I suppose it is not the kind of thing on which a judgement can sensibly be made. When the amount to be known is infinite, we are all ignorant no matter how much we have learned, if you see what I mean.
A wise friend of mine once said to me that the best thing about being over forty is that one has at least worked out what one is good at. Well, I’m over 40, and …read more

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Put your tomatoes in the ground on Grand Final Day, (mid Spring here in Melbourne) and harvest the first ones in time for the Christmas table. Well, we didn’t quite make it, but today we picked our first fully formed, perfect, glossy skinned tomatoes. There were a few earlier ones, it is true, but the birds got them. There was also a lovely knobbly cucumber, the first of the season, which was so fresh and juicy tasting that it has already disappeared down the kids’ gullets.
Hard to describe the smell of tomato plants when you brush against them. It is …read more

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How does one become a gardener? I should say at the outset that although I harbor a strong and mostly secret belief that gardening is what life is really all about, I am not a real gardener. I cannot tell you the common names of many plants, let alone their botanical names. My garden is mostly a mess, and I am very much a learner. I began my gardening career from a position of great ignorance, and I have not yet recovered.
It all started in the tiny back yard of a share house in North Melbourne. This was the kind …read more

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