Search This Blog

Monday, April 29, 2013

News from the Garden



I've been away from the blog too long again. It isn't difficult to write a bit of something once a week, and if I had the discipline to set aside a dedicated time, well then, I'd have a weekly entry. And also, I'd be someone else!



Deciding hour to hour and day to day whether my next action should be grocery shopping, finishing up the kitchen clean-up, taking the dog out to the garden, researching future home maintenance needs or calling to schedule repairs or check-ups, going up to the studio to try and restart my stalled painting, arranging the next play dates or vacations, weeding, pruning, watering, or planting, mulching or fertilizing, running a load of laundry, checking email, doing a blog entry....well, sometimes I have so much trouble prioritizing that I find I choose "none of the above" and end up taking a nap!  Does any of this sound familiar?

Pictured is the rose bush which I've shown in earlier entries.  It's been glorious!  Now it's about done and ready to recharge for another bloom cycle (with some help from the organic fertilizer of course).

Also in the Garden: the frogs filled my pond with eggs which are now tadpoles; this last week a medium-sized ribbon snake and I have mutually startled one another on several occasions; Molly the dog drew my attention to a swarm of newborn praying mantises, fresh from their hidden nest in a rock wall; the lady bugs have decided that the artichoke plant is a fabulous place to make love and babies; the artichoke is showing some buds, and the tomatoes are coming along.  And we need rain!

When it gets too dark to garden, and I'm all chored-out, I've been enjoying a book I received recently.  It's called The Backyard Parables by Margaret Roach.  Margaret gardens in the Northeast, so her particulars are not transferable to central Texas gardening (except for the advice that the only way to really deer-proof is to fence).  But her meditations and the glimpses into her development as a gardener are universal.







  

No comments:

Post a Comment