Category: in the garden

The beauty of where I am right now

~ Maggie ~ 7 Comments

Last week we put in an offer on a house in The Netherlands. I know… I didn’t see that coming either. T. found this cute little ruin in the far North East of the country and when he hesitantly showed it to me (I’ve declared many times that I’m done buying fixer uppers) I instantly fell in love with it.

Sadly, they were already talking with other buyers, who lost their chain condition (thanks to our offer – sorry, guys!), but still want to buy it. So I have to let go of the dreams I already spun around it.

I try so hard to see Curaçao as my home. I am very careful not to call the Netherlands home or even my home country, because I am living here, by my own choice. And I used to love it. And yes, the island will always have a special place in my heart. I will never regret the years we spent here.

But something changed. I feel lost. I feel uprooted. And I want to move back. Back home to the Netherlands.

There. I said it. Not that it will change anything.

Moving back isn’t even a real option, unless we find another cute little ruin in the middle of nowhere within our very low budget. House prices in The Netherlands are insane (as they are in many parts of the world, but not on Curaçao). Average prices went from 287.000 in 2018 to 483.000 in 2024. We had some “what if” scenarios calculated and taken care of before we left, but we never expected prices to grow exponentially. We don’t have the money to buy a normal priced house there.

T. really doesn’t want to move back either, and it would be very bad for his health to live there permanently again. He just wanted to use that house the way we use the cabin (for visits), and to have the option to move back if it turns out it’s necessary (in case the “what ifs” happen). In his vision we would still live on Curaçao as much as possible, even if we made the official move back.

But me? I started thinking things like “I’m going home!” Not good. Not good at all.

So I have another resolution for this year. I’m going to make an active effort to figure this out and reconnect to this island, my home and the land.

The best way to do that? I don’t know. But I do know gardening always makes me feel better. So since today is a cold day (it’s only 25 degrees Celsius – 75 F), I decided to get some work done in the garden. My body needs to start moving again (after being sick for a while) and the garden needs some (ahem) attention.

Although moving my body and doing a bit of work in the garden did help lift my mood a bit (no afters yet, it’s still a mess, but I’m exhausted now), I think I also need to focus on the beauty. Because one of my problems (I realized this while working) is that lately the garden has been just another big task that will never get completed. It should be something that makes me happy. So here are some close ups of flowers. Because there is so much beauty where I am right now.

After the rain

~ Maggie ~ 3 Comments

It’s been raining a lot this past week. That’s normal for this time of year and we’re very grateful for it. It’s what keeps this island from turning into a desert. It’s mostly real tropical showers: extremely heavy rain for a short period of time. Between showers it’s still warm and mostly sunny. I like that. The Netherlands (where I come from) is worse than Ireland. Gray skies and drizzling showers that last days.

The garden is thriving. I’m happy about that too, although I’m still doing damage control after being away for so long. Thorn bushes and neem were taking over and trees are crowding each other out. But that’s okay. We’ll get it under control someday. And meanwhile, I’m thoroughly enjoying having to spend so much time outside.

Unless it rains. But that’s okay too. It gives me an excuse to pause and sit and knit for a while. Until it gets dry again and I happily go into the garden to cut back another tree.

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.

Garden doings

~ Maggie ~ 3 Comments

After trying to put things into words for over a week now, I decided to skip an update about the past two months. The good news is that we did get to have a family Christmas, we went to the Zoo with our grandson (and his parents), we visited my father a few times and we were able to be fully present at the wedding of our youngest. Let’s treasure that. The rest… not worth documenting.

I’m planning to write a longer post about my resolutions and/or goals for the new year, but one of the things I really want to focus on is the garden. It’s been doing very well the past few years, mostly since we water it automatically, but it’s a bit (ha!) overgrown. Up to a point where it’s no longer a garden. It’s a jungle.

Before. Just ignore that I already cut off a branch before I remembered to take a picture.

See that Moringa tree on the right? I planted it way too close to the house. But in my defense… a friend of ours had the same trees in his garden and they were tiny. Like only about 2 meters (6.5′) high. Ours are all at least double that height, probably even higher. And since this one is was so close to the house, the top branches hit the roof every time there was a little breeze. And that’s most of the time here. It also blocked a lot of light from our office. I already trimmed it back a few times, but it grows so fast that we decided to cut it down completely this time.

Sad, but necessary.

And then we had to clean up that mess and cut back some other stuff. It took me a while, but hey, look. There’s a path!

Isn’t it funny how patting yourself on the shoulder for results like this (although it’s a far cry from the perfect path I hope to have one day) gives you energy to work on the next thing on the list?

So I worked on this mess next:

Hmn, the photo’s don’t do it justice. But here’s another before and after:

And this one is the most visible improvement:

Far from perfect, I know, but that’s the way I tackle the garden when it’s getting out hand again. First I get the bigger messes done, then I go back for “fine tuning”. Well, that’s the plan anyway. The past four years I never got to finetuning, because there was always a reason for things to get out of hand again. But I have high hopes about this year.

Oh, and if you’re wondering what’s going on with the blue tarp and the partly white gravel… That’s where I got stuck last year with making the paths beautiful and easier to manage. We had a big mountain of gravel delivered in June (you can see it if you scroll up a bit – it’s next to the car) and we were trying to move at least a few loads in the wheelbarrow a day, but fell off the bandwagon when temperatures got abnormally high. I would like to have it all done by the time our daughter, son-in-law and grandson are coming to visit (in March!), so I need to get back to it.

But first there are lots and lots more big messes to tackle. Not to mention the fact that I need to remove that Moringa tree stump. These trees don’t give up so easily.

To be continued…

In my garden :: small steps

~ Maggie ~ Leave a comment

Such a nice picture to start this post with, isn’t it? But to be honest, this is what my whole garden looks like right now. Lots of rain, combined with the gardener (that would be me) being sick all the time makes a very good combinations for all the weeds.

Of course, as an (aspiring) herbalist and a nature lover, I really don’t see any plant as a weed.

I mean… how beautiful are these?

Look at that beautiful leaf!

But this little square space is more or less our front garden. We have a weird layout, but if you walk up the steps to the front door, this will be what you have to look at. So I really wanted to clean it up a bit and I thought this was the perfect little project to start with now that I’m feeling a bit better. You know, small steps.

Don’t worry, I made sure there were other specimen of the same species growing somewhere else in my garden and I replanted some of the ones I pulled out somewhere else.

So this is what it looks like now. I (re)planted (dug them up from elsewhere in the garden) two bromelias and some lemongrass to add a little bit of green. I am very happy with it!

Oh, for those of you who have been here a long time: yes, that’s the little palm tree we planted four years ago.

It now looks like this:

In my garden

~ Maggie ~ 1 Comment

In my garden…

:: my lantana really benefits from watering twice a day. It looked almost dead and now it’s flowering again

:: berbena is growing like crazy too, benefiting from the wastewater from my kitchen, shower and washingmachine. Those were never connected to the cess pit, but the water ended up on the path. I finally extended the pipes into the middle of my garden.

:: I’m growing more lemongrass than I’ll ever be able to make tea with

:: the tuturutu is blooming too

:: and the flamboyan trees that were completely bold are having a great time too, making leaves and even flowers (for the first time – I grew them from seed a few years ago)

So, all is great and my garden is perfectly kept? Ha! Nope. Reality check:

:: a thorntree that I usually cut back as much as I can somehow grew a branch that is so long that it’s hanging over my path (it’s hard to take a picture of, but you can spot it in the third picture)

:: devils thread is trying to invade my garden again (nasty stuff, it kills the plants it grows on and you literally have to unravel it carefully, because even half an inch will survive and grow out again)

:: we had a big pile of gravel delivered and we were half way making paths. Right now it’s too hot for that kind of hard labor, so that project is on hold until it’s cooler (that can take a while) or until I feel like I can handle the heat again (had a bit of a heatstroke last week, so I’m a little bit more careful now).

:: and I really need to do some weeding and pruning

But that’s okay. I still love my garden!

In my garden

~ Maggie ~ 3 Comments

I’ve slowly been reuniting myself with the joy I used to find in my garden. It still needs a lot of work, but I try not to get overwhelmed by it. I really do my best to focus on just being there and enjoying the beauty.

Sometimes you have to change the narrative of your life, don’t you think?. Instead of: “I have to do chores in the garden”, I try to tell myself: “I get to spend time in the garden”. It’s only words, but words do have power.

So yeah, I got to spend a lot of time in the garden last week and this weekend and I think I may be lucky enough to spend even more time in the garden today.

Wishing you all a great start to your week!

What I did this weekend

~ Maggie ~ 3 Comments

(Gosh, it’s so hard to take pictures from exactly the same viewpoint. But it’s close – watch that branch that crosses the horizon to the right of the middle of the picture. Anyway, you get the idea.)

Yeah, that was much needed. I’m far from finished, but it’s a big improvement. We can see our banana tree!

This whole area was pretty well maintained last year. But then we spent the whole summer in The Netherlands and it rained a wole lot and I was sick and exhausted most of the time after we returned. So yeah, it’s a mess. But I’ll get it clean. Someday.

In my garden

~ Maggie ~ 2 Comments

It’s funny (or I try to convince myself it’s funny – it’s also a bit frustrating); everytime I write a gardenpost I am so, so sure, that the next one will be a more cohesive and structured one, one with “see how much this grew”, and “look, I planted this”. But gardening here just isn’t structured, especially not when I sometimes leave for weeks (or months) and also sometimes just don’t have the energy to do all the work. Things get out of control pretty fast here.

So, I’m back to the chaos of digging out our driveway and the paths to my garden. I don’t really mind (it’s good exercise), but it doesn’t make for beautiful pictures and informative blogposts.

But wait! There is still beauty in the chaos. Flowers, buds, beautiful leaves. So let’s focus on that.

Ah, that’s better. My next gardenpost will be…
Ha, let’s not fool ourselves. It will probably be much like this one, and that’s okay. It’s real life. And isn’t it great that my life is full of beauty if I just look beyond the chaos?

In my garden

~ Maggie ~ 8 Comments

Still very much a work in progress… Some days I’m slowly cutting back useful herbs and trees to process later, other days I’m just pulling grass and other unwanted plants and filling up my wheelbarrow. But I’m getting there. And, more important, I’m enjoying every minute I spend out there.

Working in the garden has always (even in our small garden in the Netherlands) been a way for me to ground, to reconnect with myself. I know that sounds woo-woo, but it’s true.

Anyway, it’s quite rainy these days, and a bit cooler than usual, so everything is growing really fast and blooming like crazy. So beautiful!

(Do you want names with the plants? I always wonder if people prefer that or not. I do want to mention that the orange flowers are from a shrub called tuturutu. Got to love that name.)