Perhaps it helps take my mind of all the plastic wrapped things I’d like to be buying right now–yep, it’s official, I’m having withdrawals–but I seem to be all-garden, all-the-time around here. So believe me when I say I need a little…support. As you know, I’ve been reading all sorts of garden books. I’ve been talking to all sorts of garden people. I’ve been digging beds and sketching possible layouts and sorting through my seeds. Since I can’t distract myself with plastic pleasures (I know this is dumb, but I’m craving coconut popsicles), I’m just going to indulge this, er, healthy obsession. With a little help from my friends.
You are cordially invited to chime in for a little blog party. A garden blog party. What has your land taught you? (Or the potted aloe plant on the kitchen window sill?) Tell us about your method and philosophy, your tools, your bounty and losses. Tell of your favorite plants, what you say to weeds, the smell of rain on your soil. Tell us of the wild land you roam and how it strengthens the plot you cultivate and your own growing body. Tell us what your garden would say if it could speak, what it has whispered to you when you weren’t listening, but heard anyways. Speak practically or poetically. Whether you cultivate it or not, whether you have “success” with those efforts or not, whether you consider yourself obsessed with green growing things or utterly indifferent, I’d like to know what you’ve learned from your home-ground.
To participate, write your post anytime in the next few weeks. Link back to me or leave a comment with a link. By mid-April I’ll compile all the posts into one “annotated” guide, and we can all swoon over each others turf, and be reminded of the goodness of our own. If you’re not a blogger (what! some of you haven’t started your own blogs yet?) leave a comment of as long and descriptive a nature as you like, and I’ll incorporate the text into another post. Tell your friends. Let’s all speak our good green words in one joyful breath.
Kyce Bello 
for starters let me help you with your craving – have you tried mixing coconut, coconut milk and honey or agave and then freezing? just a thought
To satisfy your coconut pop urge – buy coconut juice (comes in a glass jar), add some shredded coconut and I have popsicle molds you are welcome to borrow.
Thanks for the popsicle advice. I’d gotten hung up on not being able to buy coconut milk in cans, but a jar of the juice will be much better! I have popsicle makers, and as soon as it stops snowing will give it a shot. Does this mean I can’t feel sorry for myself anymore? 🙂
I love my garden. It’s not really mine, its the property of another family, professional tractor farmers. Last year I put up flyers asking if anyone wanted to exchange use of their land for part of the harvest. My baby was four months old when I started. This year she is obviously much bigger and experiencing it in a different way.
Our garden gives us a space outside, a place to interact with the natural world, to literally dig in the dirt. But it has also opened me up to my community- I’m an odity here, an american woman with a baby in a sling keeping a garden in northern small-town Italy where mostly old men garden. In my garden folks watch me, stop to talk to me and discuss my strange ways of doing.
Last year I learned to let go of my perfectionist vision and to love the process of gardening, to accept with gratitude whatever I was able to grow in the moments I had in between nursing and the rest of life with a small baby. This was hard for me, and very very good.
We have no-dig beds with compost (crab grass is a problem and I also just feel good about this way after researching about soil ecology) and this year I am mostly doing transplants- no go for you because of all the plastic… We will have more flowers, too and a sandbox. And I will love every minute of it.
Good luck! Have fun! And I am loving your blog.
Thank you for sharing your garden story…it opened up a window into another part of the world for me. I love the image of you and your little daughter amidst the old men. I’m double-digging my new beds only, and leaving the established, well mulched and composted ones intact. That feels right to me, to.
Love your blog, I’ve been lurking for awhile but had to chime in because I’m also mid-garden obsession.
We bought our house 3 years ago and am just now starting to really get down to sorting out the gardens. We are lucky to have well established (although long neglected) perennial beds all over our property.
One of them, though, a stepped rock garden, has been overtaken by a very aggressive plant so this year I am dedicated to reclaiming the space and using it for vegetable beds. So, I am removing the stones and digging the entire thing up. The roots of this plant are choking the whole area, 8-12 inches deep, so a lot of the soil is going right into the compost so I can get rid of as much plant material as possible, hopefully it won’t come back!
So, digging up this whole area, then building probably two raised beds this year, covering the rest with stone pavers for this summer (hoping to discourage the regrowth of that plant) and then probably building more beds gradually each year. In the meantime, I’ll use the stone covered area for containers, growing herbs and tomatoes
In the beds I’m hoping to grow peas on a trellis, peppers, hot peppers, some lettuce, maybe some beans? Not sure what else.
Looking forward to reading the collected posts!
I am thinking Parsley in abundance– the soft easy to chew kind that gives the mega green healthy to eat anytime craving. Am inheriting a professionally permacultured keyhole garden that I can not wait to get my hands in to. and the iris, russian sage and chamomile I transplanted from a friends garden last year are showing tiny green leaves at the bases– despite snow storms every 5 days. Can not wait to see how my Mother Wort grows. Viva la verde!!
oh i have been thinking about doing a little post on herb friends! i am sure i’ll talk about veggies throughout the season, but i am not so experienced with planning in that. i’d love to hear from other gardeners and gain some insight though. i checked out gaia’s garden after you posted about it! looking forward to reading!
Thanks for the prompt Kyce. I got a little long with my garden description but just because I love it so. I love your blog.
I’m quite interested in this. For now, I’m planning on writing my more detailed/”technical” gardening posts for the co-op (though that may change because I can’t manage the comments there) and I wouldn’t be able to link to you directly, and I’d have to just leave a link in the comments here. If I write a post on gardening on my blog by mid april, I’ll include a link. PS I never had coconut popsicles, but now, after reading your post, I’m also craving them:)!