my garden

It seems that there is always a reason to keep me from sharing too wide a view of my garden. Grass that needs cutting or plants that haven't gotten quite big enough or that aren't blooming. The wrong lighting for photography or laundry on the line or a sprinkler in the way. Some reason to only share a little bit. A flower here.





Or maybe a few.





Sharing the excitement of something new blooming or a nearly ripe fruit. Sharing my joy at growing corn for the first time (and in a container).





The excitement when I discover the first ears forming.

(Too me they look like a pale green Bert from Sesame Street, so cute nestled against the stalks).

Yet for the garden as a whole I'm always waiting for "perfection" before sharing it. In reality, perfection doesn't exist. So, would you like to see some (imperfect) photos of my imperfect, in-progress garden? Even without that elusive perfection, I love it.

Every single day I love the joyful chaos of it. The abundance of flowers. The riot of colors.

I love that we eat something from it just about every day and that I fill the house with flowers cut from it (and have constant painting subjects just outside the door).

I'm endlessly fascinated thinking about the whys of how things are performing (or not performing), making note of what I'm enjoying and what I want to include next year. I love watching the hummingbirds visiting the scarlet runner beans (and just about everything else, testing it all out) and the chickadees hopping from tree to plant to tree.

I love finding toads on the compost pile or by the back door.

I am loving our last-minute (hastily imagined and created) tomato garden that's been turning into a forest on the side of the house.

Now the tallest plants are nearly up to the gutters. So fun to look out our bedroom window and see a wall of tomato plants. I planted cosmos and sunflowers behind the tomatoes, but they're totally obscured. 

Earlier this summer when I was talking to a friend she asked me why we were putting so much work into creating all these gardens here when we were also growing so much at the farm. This is why. I can't imagine living without a garden. A garden to spend time in every day. A garden I can see out the window first thing in the morning. A garden where I can slip out and spend a few quiet moments, even when the bugs won't leave me alone. A place where all my worries fall away in the peace and beauty and joy of it all. Yes, there are many unfinished (or not yet started) projects, but that's always true in a garden, I think. That doesn't keep me from enjoying what's here, now.