architheque

Started my summer garden last weekend! Pulled off the mulch and landscaping paper of last year, turned over the patch with a shovel, and then smoothed it out with a rake. I’m longing for some sturdy attractive edging, but it’s not in the cards. After the bed was prepped, I laid out a soaker hose that runs the length of the plot, and then covered everything with landscaping paper - the kind that draws water down, but doesn’t let it evaporate into the air, and also blocks weeds. The soaker hose will be attached to a timer that turns on in the early mornings for half an hour or so. After I get my plants laid out, I’ll then cover the paper with mulch to provide sun relief (the paper is black) and weigh it down.

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The sprouts have forgiven me for not marking which seeds are what and are doing a pretty little show for my entertainment and edification.  Happy cilantro and spinach on this end of the tray!  In a few more inches, I’ll transplant them to pots, or perhaps straight into my freshly prepared garden bed.

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Hope, Faith, and Gardening

Took the labels off my toothpaste and face wash.

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I pulled the lid off, and lo and behold, I have seedlings! Failed to properly mark them, though, so I no longer know which end is what. Give it a few more weeks, though, and I’ll be able to id them based on more mature foliage. I’m excited though (maybe improperly so). I planted both basil and cilantro, and those are the two herbs I have the hardest time keeping alive when bought as mature plants. I’m hoping raising them from seeds will somehow make them hardier and harder to kill.

Related Posts: Hope, Faith, and Gardening

Gardening is probably the very definition of “Hope springs eternal.”

Here’s hoping this tray turns out cilantro, spinach, basil, and morning glory seedlings in a few weeks.

Also, I’ve realized the planning and doing of growing my own food is quite meditative for me, in a get-sweaty-and-dirty kind of way. I have absolutely no thoughts in my head at all while working, not even what the next step should be. It’s lovely medicine.

I purchased a kitchen scale last fall. Now that I have it, I wonder how I lived without it. In addition to now being able to make recipes from the rest of the world and be confident in my grams, there are some serious benefits that can be filed under the realm of economics, environmentalism, aesthetics, and the pure pleasure of simplification. The domino effect goes something like this:

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I’m starting a new category of tips (that I either live by or aspire to live by) that contribute to living mindfully. Living mindfully could encompass many things, but the following quote covers about 95% of it for me.

Tending the things around us and becoming sensitive to the importance of home, daily schedule, and maybe even the clothes we wear, are ways of caring for the soul. When Marsilio Ficino wrote his self-help book, The Book of Life, five hundred years ago, he placed emphasis on carefully choosing colors, spices, oils, places to walk, countries to visit - all very concrete decisions of everyday life that day by day either support or disturb the soul.

[The goal of caring for the soul] is not to make life problem-free, but to give ordinary life the depth and value that come with soulfulness.”

- Thomas Moore, The Care of the Soul

The 5% that the quote doesn’t touch on, but that I feel is also vitally important, is the environmental aspect.  By choosing to do things purposefully and carefully with an eye towards waste, resources, and sustainable actions, I’m being mindful of both the earth and my soul.  That’s important!

I’d love to know what conscious decisions you make to live mindfully within your own daily routine.