Ecological Gardening and Other Creative Pursuits
Life and Gardening. Can the two be separated?
January has brought a roller coaster of weather, from unseasonably warm to freezing cold and snow in the PNW. How will we face the storms ahead? Take a lesson from the birds.
The end of the year is often a time for reflections. Here are a few I found this morning. Enjoy!
A photo tour of what is growing at Barbolian Fields while I try to get some leaves raked up and put down for mulch, but mostly just get sidetracked!
This is a heartfelt post about facing death and also new beginnings. This solstice is an opportunity to join fellow creatures in saving the planet and all its miraculous wild places.
I might not have written much on the Blog in 2021, but I took a lot of photos. The pictures tell the story of what was a very busy year! In a sense, it is a Phenology Wheel in photos – a great way to track the changing seasons and interactions in the plant and animal world. … Read more
What happens if at the height of harvest, you just leave the garden to fend for itself? Garden burnout – and overwhelm with life, politics, and everything else – is a real thing. Put down the to-do lists. Let it go. Escape to wild places. Live in the Now. Return renewed. It is possible.
30 Things that Make Me Happy – Because we need happy things right now more than ever… so – coming to all of us in the northern hemisphere – here are some sure signs of spring!
My dog, Barkley, taught me about having a sense of place. This happens, he said, when we develop a sense of belonging; it becomes an extension of ourselves. When we connect, we care; when we care, we protect; when we protect, we try to heal, nourish, and help grow. It becomes our personal truth.
November Gatherings – it’s a great word for this time of year. A gathering of fruits, roots, herbs, seeds, friends, thoughts. Here is a recipe for Black Hawthorn Syrup made with fir needles and assorted herbs. Happy Holidays!
If you are like me and some 19 million other people out there (or more), you might be experiencing Garden Overwhelm. This time of year when night equals day (more or less) is a good time to think about our own equilibrium. This post explores how to get back on track, and when all else fails, your dog just might have the answers. Happy Autumn Equinox!
Such a busy time of year! Sometimes, though, we need to set aside our To-Do lists and take a moment to breathe in the air of spring. Miracles all around us! I just wanted to share a few photos of some of the spectacular flowers blooming right now. SO gorgeous! So very much appreciated after the deep snows of this last winter! Take a quick look, and then go out in your own backyard and take a moment to wander and linger.
It is that time again to reflect over the year’s ups and downs, an exercise that has become cliché but that can still be quite helpful. It was a busy year! Here is a quick summary of what went down (or up, as the case may be) at Barbolian Fields, along with a few goals and strategies for the coming year. What will 2019 bring? What will we be able to do to make the world a better place? How will we help one another? How will we heal our planet? We can start by getting back to the garden.
The rest of the story… the late summer garden has turned out nothing like what I envisioned in the spring, but in some respects, is so much more. It’s hard not to get discouraged when once again, I’ve truly lost the battle against grass, thistle, and bindweed. Garden chaos rules, but neatness and control are so overrated, are they not? Here were my “Ah ha!” moments.
Walk along a soaked garden path in early March and what do you see? Raindrops, birds, insects, and the world waking up. So amazing, it drove me to write poetry. Herein a poem for March, the wondrous transformations in a garden, and the miracles of spring. They’re everywhere. If we build it, they will come.
There are times in your life when you are blindsided by events that turn everything upside down and inside out. The path forward is not at all clear; the only thing you know is that things will never be the same. This post is about how a cup of herbal tea can help us cope with grief, get some rest when we need it most, boost our immune systems when we are most vulnerable, and get ourselves recentered. We dedicate this post to the memory of our good friend, Andy, who was hit by a drunk driver. Please don’t drink and drive.
Rain! This post was written after we had gone 3 full months without a single drop. Living in the Rainshadow of the Olympics in the Pacific Northwest is sometimes a challenge for the garden. Now we begin our transition to a time of drizzle and gray…and I couldn’t be more thankful!
The fact is, the greatest changes come from people, not from government. Now is the time to bring back the Victory Gardens of yesteryear. We can change the world, one garden at a time — together.
One of my main goals for the garden this year is to do a better job of tracking things. This post is about ideas for a garden journal, and I would be very interested in hearing from my readers as to what works for them.
It seems that garden journals fall into two categories: those that are more like Planners and serve as guidelines, schedules, and a means of recording results for production gardens and small farms – and those that are more like Art Journals that document not only observations but also a spiritual journey, sometimes with a bit of flair and whimsy thrown in for good measure.
In the past, I have been on the practical, production side of things – make that, borderline fanatic about recording stats on the garlic crops, but I have always fallen short on keeping track of other things. This year, I’d like to try something different and make something that will be fun to look back on.
Happy New Year from Barbolian Fields! We live in “interesting times.” This year, we are incorporating Holmgren’s Permaculture Princples into our New Year’s Resolutions. Our goals, in general, focus on reaching out, buying local, being prepared for uncertainty, optimizing our backyard ecosystems, and keeping things in balance by also taking time to enjoy life. We hope you will join us in making a difference!
Cornelian and Nanking cherries, forsythia, daffodils, nettles and purple deadnettles, the first dandelions…
It seems that only yesterday, it was still quite wintery, and on a blustery day, I was picking the sticky cottonwood buds from the nubbly branches that break off in the wind, littering the forest floor, just begging someone to come along and recognize their significance.
Why isn’t the Winter Solstice the beginning of the New Year? Where are the birds & the bees? How many different fruits can we find in the garden in mid-December? Pondering these questions and more…and wishing everyone a season of light and hope!
Early December already! I realize I have not posted anything on here since May, and the picture of those creepy-crawly caterpillars greeting me every time I went to the blog site was enough to make me turn away. I was starting to feel guilty. I had let down “my people.” I watched the site visit statistics drop precipitously.
Earth Day! Such an opportunity to do something positive for our planet! Whether you recycle, upcycle, bicycle, reduce your footprint, make a footprint, go for a simple walk, plant a tree – so much we can do to celebrate another day of living on this incredible planet that supports life as we know it.
Sometimes I just have to step back in amazement that any of this exists at all!
I’d like to share a little identity crisis I went through recently that ended up being quite useful.
It started in mid-January when I signed up for a booth of my very own at the Soroptimist Gala Garden Event. It was the first time I had ever done such a thing, and it was one of those after-the-fact flashes: “OMG – what have I done?” Nothing like laying out cold hard cash to make you feel committed!
Ahhh! At last! Whether it looks like it outside or not, we are assured that warmth is on its way! We have reached that tipping point: the day of the Vernal Equinox – when day and night are held in equilibrium. Symbolically, it provides a moment to think about balance in our own lives, too – and what we might do to bring tipping scales back into alignment.
Not to worry – I won’t delve deeply into the woo-woo here.
Dear Friends,
I thought I might write you all sooner. At the time of the last full moon of the year, for example, would have been appropriate, but the great white orb managed to boldly rise in the cold night sky and then set in quiet serenity the following morning without any website fanfare on my part (although I admit to a certain amount of cavorting in song and celebration, which is usually what happens when I whip out my harmonicas under a full moon….). (Not to draw correlations, of course.)
The end of November! How did this happen? It appears that we were so busy during the flurry of harvest activities and making sure things were getting tucked in before the coming chill, we forgot to look up! The days are not as long, you know; they are gone before you know it! We hardly noticed just how swiftly one turned into another while the sun skated low across the sky. What happened to high noon?
Barter Fare!
This picture is of my three most recent trades: a pottery dish made by Linda R. Hughes, three bottles of raw, unheated honey, and 3 dozen fresh eggs. Quite an assortment! And each one special in its own way.
The Willow Room in spring takes on a life of its own. Individually, the reeds are supple. They bend with the forces that shape them. Together, however, they are strong – forever interlocked. Recent events in Boston remind us how together we are stronger, and, too, how each of us needs an inner garden sanctuary in which to find peace and make sense of this world.
What? Looking for shadows to predict weather? I’d say the bees are better indicators! As well as the snow geese, the pussy willows, and the Cornelian cherry…not hard to find things that say Life is Good! Happy Groundhog Day!
Personally, I think New Year’s resolutions are over-rated and goal-setting can be counterproductive. A To-Do list, though, Yes! Break it down into action items! Here’s what’s in store for the garden!
Wow. What a transformation! Here are 12 accomplishments and lessons learned in the 2012 garden. It’s all good! And 2013 promises to be even better!
I had to throw out my words today about crazy holiday gift ideas. The recent news of innocent children slain in Newtown make us all question who we, as a human race, have become. Maybe it’s time to get back to the garden…
Wishing you abundance in your life, however that may be defined! Have a safe and happy holiday – and may it be full of love and laughter!
Grass, to me, is Orchard Enemy #1. I talk about how to get rid of it, how to turn an orchard into a food forest, and what to do to get your orchard ready for winter, thanks to tips from Michael Phillips’ book, The Holistic Orchard.
Welcome to my secret garden: the Willow Room. It didn’t start out as much – just a few twigs; but it has transformed into something truly magnificent! A place to dance and celebrate autumn!
Before we coined the word, “Permaculture,” Nature was already perfecting it on her own. Here, Paul Gautschi describes his methods of mimicking nature by applying mulch in his garden. The results? Absolutely amazing! His approach has recently been featured in a film, “Back to Eden.” Happy International Permaculture Day!
Has winter exposed your garden as a bunch of boring rectangles and squares? Do you wish it more replicated real life, running in circles? There is help for people like us. Work WITH nature to transform your labor-intensive squares into a self-supporting food forest.
Winter doldrums got you down? Beware of March Madness – when everything goes a little crazy – and not just the weather and the weeds. Indulge your compulsion to “buy more plants.” They are good for you.
Mid-February and the garlic is UP! Tallest in the patch is the Chinese Pink, a Turban variety, but all varieties are making a showing. These hardy little bulbs can handle the rough weather ahead. Just be careful with the mulch!
February is a weird month – we get a little bit of everything in the weather department. We do a lot of fantasizing through seed catalogs and are anxious to get our hands back in the dirt. When the winter blues & blahs get you down, our latest kale recipe, “Death by Garlic, Revived by Kale,” is sure to bring you around.
Got pruning phobia? Never fear. This 5-step approach to fruit tree pruning will help you get those old apple trees back into shape in no time! (Well, maybe in a few years, anyway.)
Do you make garden resolutions? I’m going to keep it simple in 2012 – going to make it a year to slow down, linger awhile, and smell the flowers. A garden teaches us so much if we just stop, look, and listen.
Ok. We’re in countdown-to-Christmas mode. We love the idea of handmade gifts, but finding time to make them is another matter. Here’s a strategy on how to manage your time and achieve your wildest dreams. Ok, maybe not that exactly.
Hope your Thanksgiving was full of giving thanks. A few thoughts on gratitude, abundance, and how fortunate we are. Thank you, readers, for following my posts!
Did you grow a giant pumpkin this year and are now wondering what to do with it? We’ve got some ideas…
I tried a little unconventional approach to this year’s garlic garden. I built the beds in a series of circles around nitrogen-fixing shrubs and a meandering form that looks a lot like my life – er, I mean, a whirligig. Whatever. I was lost.
We planted my mother with the dogs in the pet cemetery. It’s true. She would have wanted it that way, right next to her best friend, little Lambchop. It’s not as bad as it sounds. The cemetery, which we affectionately call “Boot Hill,” sits on a little knoll with a view of the Olympic Mountains, … Read more
If you’re looking for a really good book on permaculture, check out Toby Hemenway’s “Gaia’s Garden, A Guide to Home-scale Permaculture,” second edition. This book was life-changing for me – and could be for the world, if we would only apply it.
I’ve hit a turning point. Actually, several of them. In the process, I’ve been examining my self-imposed limitations, my concept of sustainability, and why now is the best time to break a few rules. Another lengthy psycho-analysis post of how our gardens teach us much about life and visa versa – and what to do about it.
Want to grow more food in less space with less effort? The “All New Square Foot Gardening” by Mel Bartholomew has the approach you might be looking for. With gas headed skyward, putting away the tiller and growing what you need makes a lot of sense. 100% of the harvest at 50% of the costs, 20% of the space, 10% of the water, 5% of the seeds, and 2% of the work – that makes it a no-brainer.
Did you make any gardening New Year’s resolutions this year? Do you have a strategy when it comes to keeping up with your garden? Last year, I used goal-setting and time-management techniques to try to get an upper hand on the weeds. My mission was to “Establish Boundaries” over which no weed should dare cross! Lesson learned: weeds do not respect my boundaries. Many things – particularly the garden – are beyond my control. This year, I’m working more from an attitude of cooperation rather than conflict. We’ll see whether Mother Nature agrees.
A happy Thanksgiving to one and all, and a few thoughts about abundance, gratitude, supporting family farms, and thinking about what is important in life. Thank you everyone for all your support, and may you have a wonderful and safe holiday! Remember to buy local!
A sad farewell to my garlic crop, which did not do well this year. And a thank you to all the frogs that spontaneously joined me in my song.
A little retail therapy helped offset the dreary weather and having to face a very poor garlic crop. Sad day. Looking for some bright spots amidst a lot of bulbs that rotted in the ground. Looking for reasons why. Even after over 30 years of growing this stuff, gardening is always such a learning process, huh.
Progress reports from Pennsylvania and the Mojave Desert: Barbolian garlic is thriving across the country! Plus a little philosophical wandering into how the Internet, gardens, and garlic can reconnect old friends and make new ones!
A cold winter’s night beneath a blue moon: December 31 and it’s that time of year again: time to evaluate what worked and what didn’t in the garden. Once you complete this year-end ritual, you can dive into all those seed catalogs. But don’t skip this pre-garden planning step: a realistic evaluation now might prevent you from making crazy impulsive purchases based on glossy photos, mouth-watering descriptions, and a human tendency to forget the bad and remember the good. Or not.