The season we’re in
Yesterday, I met up with a friend who is pregnant with her second child. Our daughters are just one day apart in age and had their 3rd birthdays last week. We were talking about this season of life we’re in its chaotic energy. We both took equal parts comfort and sadness that this is just a season, and it will pass.
A wonderful client sent me this image yesterday from her garden. We installed it this spring, and in the same breath, she said, “I am obsessed with our garden” and “ [The tomatoes] are out of control!”
I feel similarly about this part of the growing season. My garden feels equally a sanctuary and a chaotic mess. There are as many things to-do as there are degrees on the temperature gauge in the heat of the day. The abundance of produce at the market is at its peak when my desire to cook is in a deep trough.
But, the promise of fall and winter is enough to wake me early in the morning, knowing that this season is already waning, and I will long for it when the daily inversions leave me dreaming of sunshine, peach juice dripping to my elbow, barefoot in the garden.
I’m writing today to tell you two things: fall is coming and summer is here. We need to prioritize our time and energy, and here’s how I’m doing that:
Plant some fall veggies.
You might not think you have any space, but I promise that you do. Prune up the bottom 1/3 of your tomato plants, removing leaves from the main stem and training them to your trellis (if you don’t have one, contact me so we can change that for next year - it’s truly the only way to grow tomatoes in a backyard garden). Then, go to the nursery and pick up a back of organic compost (NO MIRACLE-GRO! please!) and a few fall vegetable starts. I bought a four-pack each of curly vates kale (we roast it every morning for breakfast), spinach and lettuce. Then pop in those tiny seedlings in the shade of your tomatoes and pepper plants, close to a water emitter and voila. You are growing fall veggies.
Go to the farmers market.
The Boise Farmers Market drive-thru is my favorite thing since irrigation was invented. Each week, I submit an order for my must-haves: sliced bread, breakfast sausage and any/all vegetables I do not have in my garden at the moment. Last week, I picked up pints of blueberries, raspberries and strawberries (the BEST I have eaten in Boise), along with 1/2 dozen sweet corn, a pint of delicious peaches and a cantaloupe melon I could smell each team I walked into my house - it tasted even better than it smelled. If you’re garden isn’t producing something, I promise the farmers market has it now, and it is at its peak Seriously, now is the time!
Sit in the garden.
By now, we have all seen the videos of gardeners trying to enjoy their spaces, but then they see a weed they need to pick or a vine out of place and they get up to tend to it and never sit down. I mean it when I say, set a timer for 20 minutes, get a tasty, icy beverage from your fridge, and sit in the garden for 20 minutes. Take deep breaths, look for the bees you’ve created a habitat for, watch the birds flit by and thank yourself for taking the time to sow those seeds and grow a sanctuary for more than just you.
I was reminded yesterday just how meaningful gardens can been for people, and I am so grateful to be doing this work. Our plans for fall include making the gardens we grow even more accessible to everyone in Boise who wants to grow one, so stay tuned on that. And thank you for following along. I hope you learned something this growing season. I know I did.