The patio so far
With my day job wrapped up for the [school] year I find myself with most of my mornings completely empty. Today I took advantage of some of that time outside on my patio working with my plants. It’s been a lot of fun to begin cultivating a container garden and I’m excited both with what I have and plans for future projects out there. It’s a little bit sparse right now, but it is getting there. Would like to add a Rose bush, maybe two, and some Columbine. Also as some of my seedlings grow bigger they’ll need to move into their own pots and fill in some of the empty spots!
These were seeds!
I declined to have any music playing while I was out there and instead just took some time with my thoughts. Personally I think my generation does not do that nearly enough. We seem to have this need to fill every silence with something. That’s not the purpose of this post though. During the conversation with myself I got to thinking about growth. Hard not to when you’re surrounded by it everywhere. For most of the vegetables this year I started with seedlings and now they’re growing into gorgeous plants. Then, because I am sadly not a super patient person I did buy some seedlings in order to speed some things along lol.
Nom nom nom
Most notably the strawberries are doing awesome. It’s probably all the rain! Very much looking forward to those ripening into delicious fruits and enjoying them with Minime.
Of all the plants I have they are doing the best. However the other seedling I bought, a tomato plant, has not been very happy with me. For some reason it just hasn’t thrived. Likely due to lack of sunshine and way too much rain. About a week ago I nearly gave up on it. The leaves were all looking very sad and it seemed like a lost cause. Honestly the plant just looked dead.
Life!
Glad I didn’t! Instead I pruned off most of the dead leaves, more even than I thought was good for it. But I figured it was worth a shot.
When I went out this morning I found this little guy. I’m going to name him Henry, Henry the little tomato that survived against all odds.
It’s still not the healthiest tomato plant I’ve ever seen and I will continue to watch the leaves, pruning off the dead bits where I found them. But it got me thinking about how growth works.
There’s a good chance if I hadn’t pruned off the dead bits Henry would have never made it. At the time it seemed so counter productive. Remove a bunch of the plant, cut it away to save it?
It’s one of those odd paradoxes that is gardening, and in my most humble opinion, life. Often times in order to grow we have to be ruthless with things. Most of us have things in our life causing a lot of stress, drama and fatigue. Some of things might be needed, but I challenge you to take a good look at them. Are they really needed? Are they truly worth the energy you’re putting into them? There will be a few where the answer is yes, but perhaps a few where your answer is a resounding no?
We all have limited time and energy just like my tomato plant. Once I freed it of the dead weight that was sucking up valuable resources it was able to produce fruit. There’s a common misconception that we need to accept every task thrown at us. To decline could be awful! People need us to handle it!
Wrong.
People need us at our best. Is it better to do a dozen things just sort of ok? Or maybe a few select things really well? In my life I’m finding that I’m better off putting my time and energy 100% into things that really matter instead of cluttering up the landscape with a million and a half things that aren’t needed. As a result I have to say I’m seeing some growth. Not a lot, but some.
For one I have more energy, I’m a lot more relaxed than I used to be, and I enjoy every day a lot more. Time spent with family is great and I’m able to just relax and chill with it, rather than stressing about what isn’t getting done.
So that was my deep gardening thought this morning! What do you think?
This picture of my herb basket serves no purpose other than I thought it was cool!
I had to make a point:
