Letting Go

Last summer my journal seemed to focus on garden scenes and produce. This summer's garden has been productive, but for some reason I haven't written about it or posted photos.

We've had beautiful English peas, fresh herbs, garlic, shallots and broccoli.

Now Dennis has dug some of the potatoes.

Also, this summer my left hand -- my dominant hand -- has literally fallen apart. My right hand isn't much better than the left. I haven't spent much time in the garden, just enough to observe progress and harvest broccoli and herbs. Dennis has done almost all the garden work.

This morning, against my better judgement, I decided to harvest the Mother of Pearl garlic. Gingerly, carefully, slowly I went about the task of loosening the soil with a potato fork, pulling up the garlic plants and removing dirt from their roots. My hands began to hurt.

Then, an epiphany! I can't do this any more, I realized, not even a little bit. I literally can't handle it. Peas were ready for picking and carrots are ready to be dug. I had to leave them in situ.

I came in the house, feeling sad and downhearted. How I have loved gardening! I've loved starting tiny seeds indoors in the very early spring, then transplanting them to the garden. I've loved watching green beans start to bloom and corn tassel. I've loved harvesting, storing, canning and freezing the produce. I've loved it all and now must give it up forever.

Dennis and I had a talk about this and he confessed that his thumbs are giving out and he doesn't know how long he will be able to do garden work. We agreed to give it up.

After a shower and a nap, I woke feeling strangely elated. How odd that seemed, but I felt suddenly freed from worry about how I would manage canning tomatoes, for example. Freed from frustration over being unable to shell peas and snap green beans. Free to explore other avenues of creativity.

Letting go rather than grieving seems to be the best approach to aging, and I feel very fortunate to have so easily let go of something dear to me. Now, what shall I do with the extra time? 

Today's Gifts

Today's first gift was the will to put on my walking shoes and hit the road with Annie. I would rather walk on the beach, but finally settled for our gravel road. The air was heavy with moisture, the sky overcast. We walked to the Timberline Acres sign and checked out Gwen's Winesap apple tree. She doesn't use them, and generously allows us to pick the fruit. It looks like a good crop.

After our walk, a big thunderstorm rolled in. Annie had to hide out in the house for safety.

Two hours and three-quarters of an inch of rain later, I ventured outside. Right away I spotted a second gift, this newly opened coneflower with several additional flowers forming. Coneflowers don't form buds, they just grow from small to large.



By the garden fence I spied the third gift, the boundary between wild and semi-tame – ripening raspberries, larkspur and daisy fleabane snuggling up together. Fence decor by Cleo is almost completely concealed by raspberry canes.


We are especially watchful in this area where a copperhead snake bit Dennis last summer. A hoe hangs on the fence as a handy weapon, if needed.

Next came the gift of seeing the pod-laden pea vines still glistening with raindrops.

At that point I came to my senses, realized that I hadn't protected against chiggers, and fled to the shower.

Current Events In The Garden

So innocent, so full of promise, the black raspberries that started as three-inch plants last year are forming fruit. It's a great mystery how each plant knows what it is and what it is to become. If only we humans could know our destiny with such certainity.




Three weeks earlier than last year, the broccoli is forming heads. Dennis picked cherries today, two weeks earlier than last year. Here's hoping it's just a normal weather variation, and not a manifestation of global climate change.

Cold Frame Gardening

This is the cold frame on a sunny morning. The lids are open to keep the greens from getting too warm. Most greens like cool weather and will "bolt," or put up seed stalks in hot weather.

The straw bales were put in place last fall to insulate the cold frame through the winter. Despite a bitterly cold winter, spinach planted last September yielded leaves for fresh salad from mid-February on, thanks to the straw bales and heavy snows. Soon these partially-rotted bales will move to the garden as mulch between rows.


Last fall's spinach grew in the front part of this side of the cold frame. The spinach was replaced by arugula seedlings along the right side, and endive and romaine lettuce transplants on the left. I keep a few lettuce and endive seedlings in newspaper pots ready to plug into cold frame vacancies.

Along the back are young buttercrunch and romaine lettuces. They were planted in March while the spinach was still growing. We're eating the thinnings from them.



The right side of the cold frame has three rows of greens – lettuces on the left and right with spinach in the middle. Lettuces on the left grew from seeds I saved from last spring's cold frame lettuce, some of which I let go to seed. Black-seeded Simpson is on the right. The spinach is Bloomsdale, my long-time favorite. Its slightly-savoyed leaves give great texture to a salad.

We eat salad from this section every day. I harvest by thinning. Early salads were made of lots of tiny plants but now just one or two lettuce plants make a generous salad for two. Eventually the remaining lettuces will become heads or thick bunches, depending on the variety. Spinach is harvested leaf by leaf, always removing the oldest leaves. Eventually, depending on temperature, each spinach plant will begin to put up a seed stalk. Spinach leaves become more and more arrow-shaped as the seed stalk forms, as if they were reaching to cast their progeny to the sky.

Also, see later posts on this subject:
March 31, 2011
November 26, 2012
January 22, 2013
April 14, 2013