Month: July 2024

Noticing, in the garden

~ Maggie ~ 1 Comment

Lately I’ve been trying to form the habit of taking a little walk in my garden each morning. I do bring a bucket and pruning shears to be able to remove a bit of unwanted growth here and there, but my main goal is to walk slowly, to connect to the garden, to be mindful and notice what is going on.

This morning I brought my camera with me to share some of the things I noticed.

Kokolode – Aren’t those tiny white flowers cute?
My guava is finally bearing fruit!
Green and ripe seedpods on the moringa
And of course there are moringa flowers too (if you water them they have both flowers and seedpods year round).
I don’t even know the name of this plant, but I love the shape of the seedpods.
Lantana, such vibrant colors

One of the benefits of taking a more mindful approach to the garden (instead of only going in to do the necessary big maintenance) is that I found things to harvest. I hate to admit it, but I have let bananas and papayas get overripe and eaten by the birds, just because I didn’t take time to really see what was going on in my garden.

Today’s harvest: guavas, green moringa beans (I’m going to try eating them for the first time) and soursop leaves (tea from the dried leaves is said to have a calming effect, among other things that I still need to research).

It was also the first time I tried guava. I really do like the taste. I’m not too fond of the seed though. It’s safe (and even considered healthy) to digest them, but they are very hard to chew and there are a lot of them. I am going to save them and see how if it’s easier to eat them roasted or soaked.

The rest of my morning was spent taking down that tree we removed in January. Yes, really. We left the stump in, since we thought it wouldn’t be able to grow back after being cut down so far. When growth did appear after a few weeks, T. sprayed it with Roundup. I wasn’t too happy about that (this is my orchard and herbal garden, I’d like to keep it safe), but it didn’t work either. The leaves died, but they came back soon and new branches started to grow within a few weeks. Now, after six months, all those new branches were high enough to touch the roof again. So yeah, I had some sawing to do.

I also need to remove some other trees. I planted way too many. And then there are cactuses and thorn bushes and… oh my, I do have my work cut out for me.

But I’ll start my days with walking around slowly and noticing the smaller things. Because that is what makes me feel connected to this land, grounded and happy.

The beauty I could find

~ Maggie ~ 3 Comments

I’ve been thinking about blogging a lot. I know, I know… I say that every time when I’m not blogging at all.

But it’s true. I have been thinking about it a lot.

I never stop blogging because I don’t want to blog anymore. I stop blogging when every attempt at writing a blogpost results in something that I don’t want to put out into the world. And as time passes, my inner critic grows stronger and stronger, until I don’t even attempt to come up with a post anymore.

I do miss it. I always do. And I want to get back to it so badly.

Today I told myself to pick up my poor neglected camera, take three pictures and post them. No words needed. Just look around and find some beauty to document and share.
That’s always a good way to start, isn’t it? Because no matter how I feel, there is always beauty to be found. I just need to look for it.

So, I did just that. Picked up my camera. Took some pictures. Sat down at my computer and… Well… Four hours later I’m still struggling with the words of this post. The words I wasn’t going to write.

I almost gave up, but I don’t want to. So this will have to do.

Here’s some of the beauty I could find.