gardening | Words + Images

Posts Tagged ‘gardening’

meanwhile …

Posted in Inspiration, Kitchen Inspirations, Nature Notes, Photography Exhibits, tagged activists, art, beauty, climate change, climate crisis, colors, flowers, gardening, Inspiration, nature, Photography on November 26, 2022| 1 Comment »

… prepping prints for a new group show. More details soon!

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with thyme …

Posted in Inspiration, Kitchen Inspirations, Nature Notes, tagged beauty, colors, food photography, gardening, herbs, Inspiration, nature, Photography, pickling on October 24, 2022| 5 Comments »

Cleaning up in the garden still … a slow process … and found a bit of thyme that was the perfect excuse to slow down and make some pickles. Not bad. 🙂

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sight lines

Posted in Inspiration, Kitchen Inspirations, tagged family, gardening, gardens, healing, healing gardens, home, Inspiration, musings, nature, Photography, walking on October 16, 2022| 1 Comment »

Outside this window, down below, there is a yard chaotically divided into lots of pocket gardens. There is a trio of pots that still have remnants of basil though I think they will fade to black when the night time temps drop into the 30s this week. There are raised beds bright green with red clover growing and the bright gold flowers of tall stalks of mexican tarragon. I specifically placed pots of orange and burgundy mums in the furthest bed right next to a forest of rosemary. I wanted that burnt beauty to be part of his line of sight once he returned home. And now that Steve is home, practicing his steps deliberately, he can walk from the living room to the distant kitchen window and see the wider world, the gardens that he helped plant and dream of what we will plant in the spring.

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early autumn harvest

Posted in Branches, Inspiration, tagged autumn, beauty, colors, flowers, gardening, harvests, herbs, Inspiration, nature, Photography on October 16, 2022| 1 Comment »

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On the porch

Posted in Inspiration, Kitchen Inspirations, tagged beauty, colors, flowers, gardening, Inspiration, nature, Photography on September 9, 2022| 3 Comments »

On the porch are two pots of sweet basil, two pots of Mexican tarragon, Thai basil, pineapple sage and to fill out the corners and spill over the bannisters, a large pot of magenta petunias and a small pot of ivy. And then there is the evolvolus hybrid or dwarf morning glory. A completely random purchase because the pickings were kind of slim at my Home Depot garden center but I needed to buy something even if it wasn’t edible.

Of late I’ve been pinching the basil and making little caprese salads. They are little containers of summer for Steve as he recuperates. The pineapple sage is flourishing but I can’t think of what to do with it. I see recipes for cocktails but I’m not making any cocktails to go. For now I’ll simply enjoy the green of its large leaves and hope that it might bloom though it is a bit late in the season.

I haven’t completely forsaken the larger garden … some things have bounced back after the recent rains but it is nice to have a tiny discrete spot to work with. Taking care of the plants is a bit like a morning meditation.

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harvest musings

Posted in Branches, Inspiration, tagged abstract, beauty, colors, edible flowers, edible gardens, edible plants, flowers, gardening, gardens, Inspiration, musings, nature, Photography, urban landscape on July 22, 2022| 1 Comment »

My dad used to say when he needed to pray he prayed in the garden. I don’t think I pray in the garden but the garden does provide respite as well as nutrition. For all sorts of reasons this year’s garden has been a source of joy … and a chore. In part I think I was too ambitious. I had no plan though I think I was pretty good about not planting things we didn’t actually eat. And we did try some experiments like kale that survived the bunnies and tasted so good cooked with store bought turnips … which inspired us to try planting turnip this fall. We’ll see …

The basement is full of hardneck garlic (which means that we were able to eat some garlic scape before the bulbs were fully formed). Tomatoes, tomatoes, tomatoes everywhere. I’m trying to find ways to preserve them. The Italian basil, planted all over the place, has thrived. Lots of frozen pesto (and herb butters) to be had later in the year. I feel bad that life situations happened such that the Thai basil could not be used to our favorite extent (e.g. in stir fry) but the beautiful purple flowers were a treat for pollinators.

Though we near the end of a hot dry July I can look out the kitchen window into the garden below and I can see tomatoes reddening. Roma and Big Boy (or Girl) and a cherry variety. A lot of things are withering in the current heat wave. Sunday will be 100. There’s a part of me, and I did confer with that fellow, that knows some things have had their run and so in the cool of the morning I will simply need to weed and clean and begin to prep the earth for our fall plantings. I must say I never imagined that indoor and outside watering could be an exercise. But I think it truly is!

That is the beauty of gardening … the transition of seasons … engaging with the flow of time … it has been a particular joy this gardening season to see perennials planted last year, just green leaves, return and thrive and for the first time flower. Yes!

From the kitchen window I can see the bounty of the coneflower. I cut some of the flowers for the house and now know the rest will wilt and the dried seed heads will feed the birds into the fall. I watched them last year but never had my camera in reach. Maybe this year.