in the garden

My husband took the weedwhacker to our backyard (our grass tends to grow into tall weediness along the edges of our yard) and, in addition, removed a couple of spider-inhabited, falling-apart old window boxes that had been sitting against a wall, and the resulting, clean-edged space inspired me.

I got out all the seed packages I had. Feeling a bit like I was in the parable of the Sower and the Seed, I sprinkled forget-me-nots that we got as wedding favors (hi, Sarah!) up in the narrow back terrace that's filled with dirt and concrete chunks. Maybe they'll be okay with the weird soil. I put more in our front flowerbeds, to grow up between the sunflowers. And the last in an indoor pot that already holds a tall plant.

I took that tall plant and tied it up with string so that it can grow up the bare side of my upper kitchen cabinets, green leaves against white paint.

I took the same ball of string, and tied up the jasmine plant outside our bedroom window. It's heavy with white buds, just beginning to break into blooms, and I want to coax it up the trellis covering our window, so we can breathe in its scent on the night air.

I weeded around the tomato plants that I couldn't get to before my husband moved the old window boxes. I planted thyme seeds in a pot. I put some geranium cuttings from our giant side yard plant in rooting hormones, then in pots, and covered them with a plastic bag to keep them moist while they (I hope!) root.

Laughing at myself, I took tiny bites out of my basil seedlings. I'd planted them from a seed packet that included seven varieties of basil, and I wanted to end up with one plant of each variety. I'm not sure I suceeded. How exactly do you tell lemon basil from cinnamon basil? At least the anise-flavored basil was obvious. (As was the purple ruffled variety. Did you know you can use it in flower arrangements? I didn't either!) I moved some of the seedlings to pots, stuck another few in the herb garden, and put a few between the vegetables. I wonder which will take.

I have two glasses of tap water on my desk. I'm going to let them sit overnight so that the chlorine evaporates, and then I'm going to put ivy cuttings in them. I have a big ivy plant I grew from cuttings from my wedding bouquet, and those cuttings came from a plant grown from cuttings from my mother's wedding bouquet. My plant is healthy enough now that I want to propagate it - I want lots of plants from it, so that at least one is around long enough that my daughter can use cuttings from it in her wedding, if she wants to. So, we'll see if I can get it to root. It takes awhile, I'm told. (Anyone know if you can use powdered rooting hormone for water-rooting, or is it only to be used with a potting medium?)

I dug up a square of grass next to my veggie garden. There was old, rotting wood just under the grass, and it was full of spiders, who weren't happy at being disturbed. They skittered up the wall in protest. But I dug it up anyway, turned it over, pulled out the most obvious grass roots, and planted sunflowers along the back, thyme around the other three sides, and butternut squash in the middle. I'll have to weed it furiously for awhile, but hopefully soon the squash will overshadow the weeds, and that will be the end of them. It'll probably overshadow the thyme too, but oh well, it'll be nice for awhile.

I found some old anenome seeds (bulbs?) that I'd gotten once upon a time, and planted them behind my nasturtiums, and a few between some sunflower seedlings near the patio. I don't know if they'll come up, but I figured I'd give them a chance.

Pretty haphazard gardening, but I figure, if I have the seeds, I'll plant them. I'm not a good enough gardener yet to know exactly what I ought to do with what I have. And then, sometimes, I'm just not a big enough gardener to do the right thing with every seed. Some of the thyme went where it should: in a pot, in good soil. But I had leftover seeds. So I put them where they're chances aren't so great. But, hey, better than no chance at all, right?

I used to save unplanted seed. But now I figure I'll just plant it. It kind of gives some suspense to the whole gardening process. I bet some plant, some time in the next few months, will surprise me. :)

peace of Christ to you,
Jessica