The garden turns.

The world in the garden has consumed me now for the last three months, inside and outside. The emotions and excitement of planning and anticipating give way to the emotions of planting and preparing, then comes the emotions of tending and completing. It is the same process the Soul circles as it finds the next insight of its evolution and dives in to see what all there is to see within.

Summer is just beginning for us here in Maine and the preamble to it has been as exciting as the thoughts of warm nights under the stars and blue skies and precious days to be in the fresh air. I will relish these months of Summer probably more than I have since a child. This time will take nothing from the beauty and coziness of winter, but this will fill me with memories of a life well lived.

We have brought to ourselves this year more that will nourish us with play and atmosphere. Our garden sprung forth in perennials that amazed us all. Our Angelica is as tall as most of us here, and she promises to be even more amazing in the next months. In expanding more of the woods into the garden plan, the Goddess Garden is a visual pleasure of white and lavenders.
We have claimed more of the foundation of this home by turning the soil over for food. All the vegetables we love are flourishing and will provide us juicy morsels from the dark earth.

One of the really fun things we are doing this season is keeping accurate records of what Su.Sane has started in seedlings, what company we got them from, what soil mediums used, when started, when fed, when planted, where planted This is a reclamation of a process she lived by for 15 years with her business in Kentucky, Valley Hill Herbs & Everlastings. But the last 13 years we have been keeping records of our lives, our conscious expansions in words and art. So she and I have pulled up our chairs in the blooming garden and “aaahed” with much contentment. Many more words and art and photography and textile pleasures will come from this year’s Garden Plan.

Our family will fall into this Summer time with joy and ease, and sip lemonade in the screenhouse and pick bouquets and float on the Sea of Clarity.

Sandra

This has been the strangest weekend that I remember since we have been in Maine. We are expecting 1-3” of snow again tonite and through tomorrow, with potentials again on Thursday. Robert shook the snow and ice off of the greenhouse a little while ago, it was heavy stuff he said.

We brought the tender tall morning glories back in for the night, we’re not willing to take another chance with them! The greenhouse has served us well and more tender shoots came up throughout the weekend.

Today as I was finishing raking the new Sacred Garden plot that was cleared and tilled, the snow began blowing in. There I was working in the garden in the SNOW. It was an unbelievable feeling of joy. I felt like a pioneer in an emotion I had never experienced. Suddenly the land, the air, the sky, all looked different and fresh. I couldn’t stop what I was doing – it was too important in the scheme of my life, so I continued. After putting away all the garden tools, I wandered the property, suddenly seeing trees, rocks, plants I hadn’t seen before, and then I realized that there was parts of this property I had never stepped foot upon. I can’t get to all of them, as I would like, but I intend to before long.

This property still holds mystery for me and I cherish that gift. It still has plenty of room for our dreams to be fulfilled, plenty of land to see above the trees, and plenty of surprises of what it will yield to us. It has taken care of us and kept us safe and warm. This acreage has become our home for all our physical and spiritual dreams. Blessed Be.

In the changes made in our home over the last few weeks, our passion for doing has spilled over into all parts of our lives. Our meals have become even more delicious and light, and our energy levels to move out into the garden is amazing, our individual work levels have expanded, and our leisure time together has blossomed. All because we started “inside” first! We are the new seeds sprouting in the garden plan.

Our accomplishments have been easy to keep track of in my garden journal and garden calendar on Outlook. This will be valuable next year as well as a fun way to remember our journey this growing season.

Saturday was very busy, starting off with one yard sale – season opener! – but not very fulfilling! So with no loss of time or sorrow – we headed to the Green Thumb and shopped for plants with our remaining money. We got more starter soil and seeds. With such enthusiasm and an abundance of seed, I headed back 2x to Rankin’s for more soil and starter trays. The price of the seeding soil was much less at Rankin’s, as well as the trays. So now I know where we will START next year, and next year we will start with a bale of the soil.

Su.Sane has now planted 26 trays of seeds which average 32 plugs or more per tray, she has well over 1,000 babies out there in the greenhouse pushing their way up through that warm soil!!! Whew! I don’t know who is loving it more – Su.Sane or the emerging plants?

By the afternoon on Saturday, the sun came out, so we headed to the vegetable beds that Robert and Joseph had turned over last week. We planted three of the beds with root veggies, lettuces, etc. The beds look great. Su.Sane also planted the plants we got that day in the flower garden.

THEN, Sunday morning as we were loading the car with artwork to install a show at Carol Woodbury’s studio, I noticed the 2” high morning glories were hanging over with the droops. The temperature had dropped to 28 during the night and scared the heck out of those sun loving beauties. Suzanne brought them in, along with the moonflowers that are up, to the breakfast room. By our return at 5pm, they had recovered the shock, and have been fine ever since. But, boy, was that a horrid feeling in the pit of the stomach – they are so healthy!

Su.Sane is going to replant 2 of the flats with a newer tomato seed. The greenhouse has been great, but we did turn on the 2 -100w lamps as well as the heater to maintain the 60-70d during the night. We are so pleased with our greenhouse!

The art show went up successfully on Sunday. The opening reception is Sunday May 5, 2-5, and should be well attended. Carol has been so supportive and so excited about Clarity’s work. What a grand lift this has been to two very courageous, hard working artists. Her enthusiasm has generated interest in an audience we had not personally met yet. It will be very fun to meet them on Sunday. Her studio is amazing, very well equipped and very supportive to the body’s expansion as their artwork is received optically.

Joseph cut the grass – first of the season – Wednesday and it was delightful to come home to that sweet smell in the air. Snow is predicted for tonite and tomorrow – can you believe it? Probably not more that 1-2”, and hey, it is moisture after all. Then rain for Sunday. That should help push those little seeds into sprouting soon.

We still have about 3 weeks before we can put veggie plants out, like onion plants and seed potatoes. Those will go in the freestanding glass houses in the other two beds, as well as the tomatoes and melons. The seed potatoes are going into plastic containers. We are going to have so much fun this summer, whether we get an abundance of produce or not, the fun is in watching it grow!

We decided to enlarge the front area of the Goddess Garden to include a sacred garden. There are scrub bushes, etc. to clean out, but I hope to have that done before the blackflies arrive, so that will be my weekend focus.

Time for another cup of coffee and a good garden magazine……………

Sandra

WOW! What a week this has been. I obviously have had no time since last writing to record the construction of our greenhouse last weekend. It was a miracle that came together before our very eyes. It is now so much in place that I can’t imagine what was there before?



Su.Sane has planted 16 flats of seeds, and they are warmed up and germinating in the greenhouse. Robert put in a heater for night temperature control, and during the day we are reading temps between 70-80, depending on sunlight.

The rosemary’s, etc, finally made it back outside and they are very happy. They have their own little house of plastic outside the main greenhouse, so they can be watered and tended separately. The ground is still too cold for our root veggie seeds and seed potatoes, but we hope to get some spinach and lettuce in this weekend. Robert plans to till up a vegetable garden on the east side of the yard, it is level, and has wood ash and sand in the area.

I have gone wild on all my garden journals, calendars, and more calendars. Now the point will be to keep them straight and caught up, since I have so many to tend now – whew – I may have gone overboard, but each one does have a distinctive focus!

IT’S DONE!
Robert and Joseph got 5 new garden beds tilled this morning before the rains are supposed to come. They look great, of course Robert and Joseph looked a little tired around the edges….but they are proud of their accomplishments. Robert also tilled areas in the flower beds that had no perennials, and there was beautiful black dirt!! We can have 1/3 more flowers in that garden now – YES!

Su.Sane watered the flats this am, the morning glories in the incubator are already popping through the soil – what a joy to see. We got the water garden uncovered and filled. Lucky Ducky is happily floating in the flowing water and looking for a mate??? We are thrilled that the pond survived the frozen ground and is holding its water well.

All the beds are now raked of leaves and dried stems cut back, so now all we need to do is use the Cock-a-Doodle Doo, and then wait for the seedlings. Feels great!

Headed off for coffee now, with a good mornings work behind us.

Back in March in Su.Sane’s “Window of One’s Own”, she wrote, “Each day being an individual gift to life” (3/25/02). That one sentence has moved my senses in so many ways ever since. Within its words I have found comfort, discomfort, realizations, love, and compassion in every day that has followed. It is a very powerful statement that bears recognition by all who intend to live their life in fullness.

Since opening the space to BE in that sentence, I have been awake to so much more. I have joyfully watched our home become ours fully, with comfort and ease being our intent. With Clarity we have moved slowly through our home to relive spaces we hadn’t been to since we moved here.

Tuesday we built a greenhouse that came together in 2 hours, because the feeling of it was so clear that we could move into it, through it, around it, and Robert could put a roof on it, in one afternoon and voila! Our dream came true!!!

This weekend will bring time to plant our seeds (on Monday the Todd Flats came in) —- its all so grand! Patience and deep listening is bringing us what we want as a family, a truly sacred community with individuals.

We have decided to wait until next week to move the rosemary’s, etc outside, after looking at the extended weather forecast. I know they are very anxious, but we don’t want them to freeze their little tendrils off.

We had a beautiful, delicious, relaxing Easter with dear friends. The day couldn’t have been more perfect and we took in every bit of it.

There is so much I have had understanding of this week – whew! Like how the timer on the oven works (which has always seemed backwards to me); how to set up my “Garden Journal” on Outlook, so I can quick record data as we build our garden this year (that has been a real geek challenge); and that my slipping memory of some things is only because I have made room for so many more insights that I have been waiting for.

Lily is fully aware that Spring has sprung – just like her winter coat – so now I am off to comb her out, again.

Sandra

Tuesday 3-26-02

The Spring Equinox (20th) brought 8” of beautiful snow in the morning, so we didn’t have our fire in the garden, but we had a wonderful dinner to celebrate! A few more limbs were trimmed from the trees and the winds were powerful but we kept our electricity, others didn’t.

The weekend brought very little warmth for playing outside except for walks. The 8” of snow was still on the ground and tarps. But that has not stilled our passion for garden planning. We attended a lecture at Merry Springs on Sunday on Winter Gardening. Though it was scaled more for commercial growers, we gleaned what we wanted from it and returned to the plan Su.Sane used in her home in Kentucky, which we could expand upon here for year-round growing, studio, and relaxing space. It became very feasible to us after seeing what we didn’t want. We will wait for the where and when intuitively.

Su.Sane and Robert and I looked through the seed catalogs and found what the garden wants to start as seedlings and what we will plant as transplants. The intuitive process is very exact and helps eliminate all the confusion and guessing of what this garden wants to grow and what it doesn’t. One of Paul Parent’s suggestions for onions was to not plant “sets” but onion seedlings! That we would have more success up here with that form. Cool, eh??

After yesterday’s conversation with Rosa at Speedling, I think our flats will be here very soon. After a morning at the harbor we drove over to Green Thumb and pre-shopped their seeds and garden goodies. By the end of the week we will return there and purchase our seeds, etc. and maybe have them started this weekend. We found the horticultural oil and will have that on hand for trees, plants, and ground usage (spray surface around perennials to keep any insects, disease to come up through the soil with the new growth – per Paul Parent). We also looked at a rain barrel of heavy plastic that will work great in the garden for watering, and found the plant food we wanted, Cock-A-Doddle Doo (great stuff). We walked all the greenhouses and breathed in the fragrances and the humidity and the colors.

I want to get the plastic on the glass enclosure, if weather conditions permit, so that we can put the trays inside it with just about 6 hours of full sun each day. We have the seeds that Gale and Tommy brought over last week, so we will get those started too.

We will be making nail boards for the flats to release the plugs when they are ready for transplanting into the ground or larger pots. That will be a weekend project also before the flats are filled.

Had another wonderful breakfast at Hannibals this Palm Sunday, then a very creative day. Su.Sane and Robert have completed four canvases of their “Garden Plan” series, and began 3 more that afternoon. They are exceptional paintings and the desire for more, more, more runs through all of us. This is a story of their work and our lives, and we can feel the momentum of the coming time.

Be still my pounding heart……Spring is really Here!