Gardening for a Lifetime

I'm traveling for business this week to a warmer climate and can't help but to think about my home and garden back in Massachusetts.  I'm a homebody by nature and enjoy nothing more than puttering around the flower beds and tending to the vegetable garden.

Photo Credit:  Better Homes and Garden magazine

Lately work has consumed most of my time and when I'm not working life just seems to get in the way of what I really want to be to doing, which is diving into rich garden soil and letting all of my senses par take in the glory of mother nature.

Photo Credit:  Country Living Magazine

To pass the time on the plane ride I poured over gardening magazines and dreamed of a life where my only cares are deadheading a shasta daisy and pulling up weeds.  Right now I'm a bit of frustrated gardener as the vegetable seeds I intended to sow indoors have yet to be sown, the milk containers I collected for winter seed sowing sit empty in a back bedroom, and the tubers and summer bulbs I bought at the flower show have yet to be buried in potting soil.  Is it too late?.... Too late and the season hasn't even begun yet?  I know it's not, but I feel that way sometimes especially when I see the blogs of my gardening friends whose seeds have already sprouted and whose gardens are already bursting with blooming color... granted they are in a different zone, but I feel behind all the same. 

Am I alone in feeling so anxious? Do you feel that way as you peruse the blogs of others?  Do you wonder how they have time to do it all?  How everything seems to be done on schedule without life ever getting in the way?  Why should something that I enjoy so much make me feel so filled with angst? 

Then, in the throes of my anxiety I read a review of a gardening memoir, "Gardening for a Lifetime," by Sydney Eddison.  Althouth it focuses on the challenges of maintaining a garden as you get older, it's message is clear....  gardening should be enjoyable and easily fit into your lifestyle and if it's not... well for God's sake change it and don't worry about what other people are doing.

I can't wait to buy this book and dive into its pages.  In the meantime, I need to resolve myself to the fact that although I bought 15 seed packets for veggies and flowers not a single one may get sown.... and, well that's OK... because I can still garden and still have delicious veggies this summer.  Our local gardening center will have some fabulous seedlings in about another month and I can enjoy planting them all the same.  I may not have raised them since birth, but they will be my adopted rescues that I'll love.  After all my little dog Ellie is a rescue and look how wonderful she turned out to be!

Season of Change

"Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower."
by Albert Camus

With summer's passing comes autumn. Reminding us that change is constant. As the fall season dazzles us with its flush of vibrant colors I am reminded that life is a cycle with no end. What dies will soon be reborn again into another shape, another form.

This past summer was not what I had hoped for in both the garden and in life outside of the garden gate. The weather was a challenge for even the most seasoned master gardener and for me the novice it was a time to learn and to be patience.



As summer ended with the passing of 2 people I loved dearly the garden became a metaphor for what I was experiencing in life. As the flowers began to fade so did the leaves on the trees - turning from a soft, subtle green to a crispy golden yellow. The vegetable garden brought forth its final bounty as the once lush vines of squash shriveled back into the earth.

For me autumn always brought me a tinge of sadness. Even with its beauty I was always reminded that the long, dark, cold winters of New England were just around the corner. But, this autumn I seem to have a new perspective. Happy to say goodbye to the trials of this past summer I'm looking forward to the clean slate that winter will bring. Cutting back the dead stems in the perennial bed and cleaning out the vegetable garden has been cathartic for me. This winter will provide a must needed respite as I look forward to a new day, a new year, a new spring.


For now I will relish in the crispness of the autumn air. I will enjoy the sounds of leaves crunching beneath my feet and the wafting scents of burning wood, harvested apples, and homemade pumpkin pie.



Instead of this being the end it will be the start of a new beginning. A spring of sorts in its own right as life sleeps for a while in preparation of its rebirth.