by Sara Barry | Mar 25, 2015 | garden, grow, noticing, spring, writing
Today while I waited for the bus, I saw this:
Doesn’t look like much does it?
But it’s my garden.
A little more melt and the rhubarb will start unfurling while we watch. A little more snow retreating and I’ll sprinkle spinach seeds and look for hints of cilantro in the herb section. Overly optimistic? Maybe. Yeah, a little.
But closer to the house, on the sunny side, the ground is truly bare. The mounds where the hops grow, the ever weedy flower bed that runs along the playroom, the patch of daily lilies by the back door—clear of snow.
Today while I waited for the bus, after I spied that tiny patch of garden ground, I picked up the kids’ rake, which had loitered by the back door all winter, and started raking out brown leaves and dead debris by the back door.
Then I squatted in my winter coat and tugged dead grass from the border. My fingers wiggled into the cold damp earth and came out muddy and chilled. I only poked for a few minutes, but when I went in they smelled like dirt. Ah, spring.
Snow still covers most of my yard and almost all of my garden. Yet I yearn to get out there and start planting. Today I scratched in the dirt.
Call it desperation.
Or hope.
I have my seeds. I’m ready to plant them. I’m ready to grow.
What are you yearning to do? What baby steps are you taking?
I’m looking forward to the growing season, and to Grow, my online writing retreat for spring. Come plant your ideas and see them bloom. I’d love to write with you.
by Sara Barry | Jan 21, 2015 | garden, winter, writing
The garden is covered in snow and a sheet of ice. Stonework, fencing, the plants I didn’t cut back the only things showing where it should be. Garden books and seed
catalogs are stacked by my chair. It’s time to dream
I dream of green:
Lettuce and spinach
Peas
Cilantro
I wonder how my garlic, planted in the fall, is doing. I imagine where the tomatoes will go. I contemplate new beds for fresh strawberry plants.
My garden sleeps, and I dream.
This time of year, I read about new projects, new things to grow, new ways to grow it. I choose seeds. I just dream of warm days, moist earth, and green growth. And I wait.
This dormant time, this slow down, this dream time matters. The garden needs it. We do too. I tend to forget this. I need to turn off the computer and get outside for a walk (that one’s been tough lately). I find new energy as I move slowly through yoga again and go to bed earlier. I soak in hot baths and am mesmerized by the fire.
It looks like doing nothing, but a lot is happening. Resting, gathering energy, letting things move within you that are too busy when you are busy busy busy gogogo. Take time to daydream. Let yourself rest and go quiet like the garden does. Let your energy gather for more growth.
Take a walk, in woods or by water if you can. Mediate or do some yoga. Shut off your computer and tablet and phone. Let go of your list. Pour yourself a cup of coffee or tea or wine. Sip. Contemplate.
Then if you want, doodle, draw, or write in a journal.
For your journal
Try one of these prompts or words:
Imagine
I dream of
Garden
Grow
- Write the word or phrase at the top of the page and create a list or freewrite starting from it.
- Write it in the middle of the page. Circle it and add other words and ideas branching off it.
- Write it in the middle of the page and spiral your thoughts outward.
Be dreamy, be open. Don’t edit or censor. Just write and see what comes out.
What are you dreaming of these days?
by Sara Barry | Oct 29, 2014 | fall, garden, what I love
The other day I was out in the garden in a misty almost sprinkle.
I had to drag my self off the couch, away from the computer, out into the gray. I didn’t want to go out, but I knew the garlic needed to be planted.
For years, I’ve said I should grow garlic but come October or November, I’m not programmed to plant. I’m programmed to harvest and preserve. I’m pushing myself to get the garden cleaned up before it gets too cold. I’m ready to nestle inside with something in the oven to warm the house and meet my need for comfort food.
But this past weekend, I pushed myself out into the mess of weeds and the fallen leaves choking the bed where I planted late lettuce.
I looked at the carrots ready to be pulled and the potatoes ready to be dug. I noticed the three green pumpkins on wilted vines, dry grass, and wilted weeds, and the cosmos and zinnias that had finally succumbed to the cold.
“Garlic,” I reminded myself, and I started to dig.
I loosened the soil and dug weeds just where I needed to. I rolled the creaky old wheelbarrow over to the open face of the compost pile and pushed aside the mulched leaves my husband has started to pile there.
I added the compost to my beds, pressed the paper sheathed garlic into the soft, cold ground. I didn’t worry about watering. The weather would do it for me.
I worked until my glasses started getting to spotted, and I found myself smiling and relaxed and invigorated. Instead of a chore, I was doing what I loved. I was outside, moving my body, gettin my hands dirty. I starting something new during a time of wrap up, getting ready for winter and getting ready for spring.
I should get out there today. It’s not even raining.
Write with Me Wednesday
Write
What makes smile, even unexpectedly? Write about something you love doing even though it’s uncomfortable or messy or hard or mundane. You might start with
What do you love doing once you get yourself get started?
by Sara Barry | Jun 17, 2014 | good enough gardening, writing
I’m on the porch watching a butterfly and bumble bee dancing through the rhododendron. My knees (and shins and feet) are still dirty from the garden. The garden that I thought would never get planted is a sea of green, the peas and greens and broccoli lost among the weeds. I look at all those weeds and think of the laundry piled up and the bags still to unpack from my weekend trip and the make up work that got sidelined as I focused on my dad’s health and my mom’s retirement party, and I’m overwhelmed.
My kids are exhausted and volatile from staying up too late the past two weekends for family events. My big girl is at the end of preschool. I don’t know if this transition is more momentous for me than her. And they are out of sorts, not quite getting the seriousness of the situation with my dad, but sense my stress and distracted attention.
So I look at that weeding that needs to get done and the laundry piles and the bags to be unpacked. I look at all the items that got shifted from my to-do list to my do-later list. I’ve barely written the past weeks, and I didn’t run at all last week, even though I know these two things help keep me balanced.
I don’t even know where to start, so I start small: two loads of laundry in the morning, one bag unpacked and tucked away, the quick emails and check ins for work just so I can cross multiple items off the list. Then I went for a run because my body needed it and my mind needed it. I came back with less time to get things done, but more focused, less overwhelmed.
I look at the garden again and decide I’ll start with the peas because they need it most. I work my way through one row and start the next, while my big girl cuts lettuce for a salad. Every time I look up at all the weeds to pull (and the flowers to deadhead and the green beans to plant and . . . ) I take deep breathe and refocus on the row I’m working on. I take a sip of my ice coffee and savor the shade as I dump the weed bucket. I take a break to push my garden helper on the swing, and when her TV show is on, I sit on the porch and watch the butterflies and the bees and take a minute to write, because we both need a little down time. It will all get done—one row, one bag, one load at a time—or I’ll figure out that some of it doesn’t need to get done at all.
Take a minute to write, Just Write.
by Sara Barry | May 29, 2014 | garden
My garden isn’t as far along I’d like it to be. Memorial Day is our traditional last frost date, and I usually try to get everything planted by then. Right now I have peppers and squash sitting in tiny pots waiting to get into the ground. I still need more peppers and some eggplant from the farmers market. And then there are seeds: corn, pumpkins, beans. I’m late on the broccoli and kale and chard.
But today, those starts and seeds waited. The peas and greens I have planted went unweeded. Instead, I spent my day here:
I weeded and loosened soil. I tucked in some lily-of-the-valley and pulmonaria and a new lavender. I moved the mums that were lost under the lilies and found a spot for the rosemary.
I worked with my big girl chattering away beside me, taking my weeds away in her wheelbarrow, asking me again, “What’s that called?”
“Bleeding heart.”
Usually I do this job alone, but I having her with me made me smile. She understood that I needed to work this space today, and I love that she wanted to help.
Working in Henry’s garden has become a tradition for his birthday. Nothing is reall
y right on this day, but working this space comes as close as anything I’ve tried. Some years, I revisit the story in my own head of his birth, of his life, of his death. More often though, my mind wanders as I work. What matters is the act of being out here, clearing space, tending life.
I didn’t get everything done. I left plants that needed to be divided. I wanted to mulch with compost and put back all the heart shaped rocks I moved out. There are still, of course, more weeds. I didn’t have enough time in the garden today. We didn’t have nearly enough time.
Doesn’t look like much does it?
