And yes, May flowers bring pilgrims but this time of year they also bring bees to the garden. And bees bring pollination. And pollination brings a bountiful harvest.
Well, that’s the theory of gardening anyway.
When that theory is proved right you feel so successful. You feel like the queen cultivator out to provide food for her family from the dirt of the earth. Crowned with your over-sized sun hat and your trusty trowel at your side. You envision an ever vigilant summer where weeds tremble at your hands, beetles and aphids have retreated in terror and the neighbor’s dog has banished any thought of digging in that fresh smelling dirt. You can and freeze and dehydrate. Fresh salads are fixed every night. And your kids no longer snub the dark green vegetables from days of yore because they have been enlightened and now know where their food comes from and will eat it happily.
Sorry to burst your bubble but the dream of gardening nirvana just doesn’t exist. Not even for professional farmers and gardeners. The reality is a garden, like anything worthwhile, is hard work. It’s dirty work during the hottest most humid times of the year. But don’t let the fear of failure or the harsh conditions stop you from pushing on.
I have only been gardening with minor success for maybe the past four years. I say minor success because each year I learn some things I need to stop doing and some things I need to start doing. So this is my garden confessional for this year.
Things to stop:
I’m a hopeless over-planter. I envision myself harvesting and washing and cooking and canning every evening during the summer when the reality is I’m lucky to give them a quick rinse and blanch and pop them in the freezer.
Don’t get angry at my family when they don’t share my gardening passion. I can get grumpy being the only one that ever waters or mulches or shells peas. Even if they do enjoy the eating.
Things to start:
Keep a better journal. I use a fantastic online journal with the website SmartGardener. It is very easy to use and helps with your garden floor plan and even sends email reminders.
Prune! I’m terrified to prune. So by mid summer my over-planted, over-grown raised beds resemble a small jungle.
Compost. It’s time I gathered all the chicken poop and tossed it in with the eggshells and other matter and get some composting bins started
Plan our meals around the harvest and give our abundance to food pantries.
I am always asked questions about starting a garden and when you’re supposed to do what when. The truth is I’m still learning all that too. I ask questions. I look things up and most importantly I just go ahead and do it. Start simple. Don’t get discouraged. Pay attention. And have fun. Happy gardening!
I recently opened a letter that I mailed to myself last fall. Inside was a dried up leaf that I saved to remind myself of powerful lessons that I didn’t want to forget. But to understand the story behind this leaf, you have to know that growing up in Nicaragua the first 18 years of my life, I never saw a pumpkin outside of an American storybook. I thought trees of different colored leaves were only found in fairy-tales. We have many tropical trees in Nicaragua, but their leaves don’t turn fiery red, burnt orange, or lightning yellow nor do they fall in autumn! We seemed to only have 2 seasons… rainy and non-rainy, and either one is always hot! When I moved to Fort Worth, Texas to attend TCU, I eagerly anticipated snowy winters and those orange leaves that captured my imagination…but the Texans said, “In Texas, if you blink, you miss the Fall.” They also said crazy things like, “If you don’t like the weather here, just wait 15 minutes…” “TRUE.THAT!” I later thought as I shoved the gas pedal all the way down trying to drive away from a tornado hitting downtown Ft.Worth!
Many autumns have passed since that first Texas one. A couple of years ago, I was preparing a talk for a women’s silent prayer retreat. I found myself nestled in the beautiful woods of Chenal Valley inside the inter-faith Arkansas House of Prayer. Alone. Quiet. Searching. I found more than I was looking for. What I learned was a profound lesson, a lesson in the leaves of the trees, a lesson available to all, regardless of our spiritual status, a lesson of hope and growth. The lesson is in the leaves of the trees & available to all.
My heart waited in expectation inside a monastic, silent room at the AHOP on October of 2011. Shoes off. Socks off. Cell phone off & left outside. I started slow, tapering down my breathing, getting quiet enough to hear my heart beating, beating for a word from God, a revelation that there’s still hope for this struggling heart. I thumb through my Bible, slowly, not wanting the pages to turn too loud lest I miss a still small voice. A curiously random question arises in my mind…
Why do leaves fall?
Huh? Wait. What does that have to do with anything? I’m trying to center myself around the holy written words but missing some words hanging on a branch. Again…
Look up, why do leaves fall?
I look out the giant window at the turning leaves. “Well DUH. Leaves fall because… they fall! That’s why it’s called Fall, right?”
Go home & do a search on why leaves fall.
Fast forward to a search at a website called “Science Made Simple.” Because Lord knows I need simple. And the revelation came alright. It came after digging through some scientific mumbo jumbo about the intricate processes between summer & winter, between the tree, the sun, water, roots, food, and leaves. Simple. Yet hard. And I had never paid attention. I was looking down & not looking up at the trees. Not listening to their message. Over and over. Thousands of leaves singing a message.
During the winter there’s not enough light or water to produce food for the trees, so the trees enter a winter rest and live off of the food they have stored up in the summer. The brown color in the leaves that fall is made up from wastes left in the leaves. Leaves fall and when they do… they let go of this unnecessary waste. If they don’t fall, they weigh down the tree inside and out. They stunt the tree’s growth. Therefore there’s no room for new growth come spring around the corner. I sat and looked at this explanation, flabbergasted…all these years living in the USA and nobody told me that:
Trees poop through their leaves when they fall?! *GASP*
Deep sigh. Maybe I’m entering a winter in my soul—a time to rely on my reserves and let go of things weighing me down. Don’t we all go through these times? Don’t we all need to throw off unnecessary weight that keeps us down? Waste that doesn’t belong in our hearts? I make a list in my head of toxic emotions, worry that paralyzes me, fears that consume me, shame that tags along. Haven’t we all had to cut-off co-dependent relationships that spiral us down? (Please tell me it wasn’t just me)
So next time you get a chance this Fall as it falls upon us, step outside & under a tree that’s losing its leaves. Look up. Breathe slowly. Slow down. Search inside you. Behold the fallen leaves. Behold those soft gusts of wind that clip the brown leaves from the branch. Watch that leaf tumble around and fall. My toddler son loves watching this. The process is beautiful. Some things…some people…just have GOT to go if we are going to move forward in life. In the wise words of one unnamed brotha’ “I think I’ve been *constipated* for a long time”. Sister-friend: release those leaves in your life! Release and make room for things & people that build you up. We are all designed to grow & bloom.
I mailed myself a letter last year to arrive this Fall, with that wrinkled up fall leaf that fell onto my lap when I opened it. Today, I’m living off of last year’s truth that was stored up in the mail.
Con amor (with love),
Inés
P.S. Sorry to all who thought this was going to be a post about Pumpkin recipes. I’ve never done that in my life, but I have a pretty good Black Bean soup that’ll make you wanna slap your mama.
Don’t let the Irish-married-last name fool you. I was born in Spain, but grew up in Nicaragua eating beans & rice. I married a pale-white blonde guy from El Doray-do. We have a toddler who keeps us laughing in stitches. I work with immigrants at the local children’s hospital. I dance to salsa music. I travel. I hate injustice. I dream in Spanish.
“…accountability is the acknowledgment and assumption of responsibility for actions, … encompassing the obligation to report, explain and be answerable for resulting consequences.” Thank you, Wikipedia.
Frenetic Fitness is my way of holding myself accountable for working out regularly and for recording some of the results of my frenetic/disorderly/chaotic style of working out. That includes admitting that I’m a middle to back of the pack runner, that I love to ride my bike but won’t ever be racing time trials, and that at the end of the day, the fact that I have the energy to be as active as I want to be is what truly matters. I want people who read my blog to recognize that there are so many ways to incorporate fun fitness as well as tough workouts into even the busiest of lives. I enjoy participating in organized athletic events but so far have refused to concentrate on one type of training long enough to be competitive at them. I do not consider what I do “training”. Training implies a goal. While I sometimes berate myself for my inability to concentrate on training for a specific event, I do consider working out as training for my Life. To paraphrase 80’s icon Cyndi Lauper and that movie Sarah Jessica Parker probably still regrets, this girl just wants to have fun. And eat lots of good food.
If you check my blog you might find a week’s worth of circuit workouts, a story about a road or trail running race, photos from a weekend bike ride, hike or backpacking trip, or the occasional oddity like the Warrior Dash. Much like my personality and conversational style, my blog is a little schizophrenic. I write about fitness as a lifestyle, not as an end product of effort. It’s not always about the gym workouts or what equipment I use, but about how fitness ties in to life with my family.
I live in Little Rock at the top of a long steep hill which means that any time I so much as walk the dogs, I count it as a workout. Besides the two dogs I share my house with my husband and my teenage daughter who just started driving, God Love Me. Occasionally, we have the two oldest kids around but they have their own lives that are usually much more interesting than ours. However, the promise of bike rides, mud, food or backpacking usually brings the middle one around.
When I’m not writing about the stuff that makes me sweat, I write about stuff that makes other people sweat at Arkansas Outside where my husband and I, yes a staff of two, try to keep a calendar of, photos of and stories about as many of the participatory sporting events in Arkansas as we can cover.
