Thursday, August 15, 2013

Everyday Beauty

Despite my intellectual attraction to farming, it may be a good thing I don't live off the land. By mid-July, I struggle to maintain my enthusiasm for the garden. It hasn't even been hot this year, by North Carolina standards, but mosquitoes keep me indoors far more than I'd like. So I confess - I've slipped in my resolution to take one good backyard photograph daily. Still, here's 10 of my favorite photos from the last month.

Chocolate pepper, just starting to ripen


Coreopsis after the rain


A coneflower rescued from the bunny, now potted
and in the recovery ward on the front porch


Bees adore butterfly weed (and pretty much everything else
in the butterfly garden). 


One of the last brandywine pink heirloom tomatoes,
calling for mozzarella.


Finally -  a butterfly (black swallowtail) appeared in the butterfly garden!


My new orchid


Magnolia


Zinnia and friend in the late afternoon sun.


Common buckeye butterfly - a first sighting


Tuesday, August 6, 2013

Gardening: Love Made Visible



Gardening is “making love visible.” I had never thought of it that way before, but when I read that quote recently in an essay on faith, food and gardening, it struck me in my soul.

Of course. That’s what has drawn me into the garden these past 12 years, digging, weeding, planting. But mostly what I have been doing is marveling at small miracles.

In the garden, I only play a small supporting role in making love visible. God is the lead actor. I think I knew that at some deep level even before I was led back to my faith, in the years when I could not even bring myself to say the word “God.” In perhaps my second year as a gardener, I noticed an unusual plant growing and resisted the urge to pull it. By midsummer it was a six-foot tall datura with blooms of angelic white trumpets, perfectly positioned at the back of my new perennial bed.

Since then I have always liked better the plants that seed themselves in unexpected places, almost always looking more beautiful than where I would have chosen to plant them. Each day these past weeks I look out my office window at a courtyard where a rainbow of zinnias seeded themselves in the gravel. Tiger swallowtail butterflies and other smaller butterflies I do not know dance there in the afternoon sun.


The landscapers used to poison this gravel with herbicides. Have they not yet found the zinnias? I prefer to think that even the landscape crew knows how to respond to graced beauty.

Before I gardened, in the rare times I attended church, I could not understand most of the Biblical parables. I would quickly become irritated at agricultural references from ancient times that seemed to me to have no relevance to life today. I was cut off from the source of life, on many levels.

But now, loving the miracle of the seed, how beautiful it is to read the following passage:

“This is how it is with kingdom of God; it is as if a man were to scatter seed on the land and would sleep and rise night and day and the seed would sprout and grow, he knows not how. Of its own accord the land yields fruit, first the blade, then the ear, then the full grain in the ear.” (Mark 4: 26-28)

God is acting in the world now, performing small miracles, if only we have eyes to see. We don’t have to labor that hard. In fact, if we work too hard, if we try too hard to control and manicure the garden, we risk blighting the miracles.

On my porch, a tropical sword fern now is in its second life. It appeared dead between January and June, as I expected because I left it outside over the winter. Yet one day after a period of heavy rains, I noticed small green fronds lifting out of the soil. I don’t know how many times I thought of dumping the pot in the compost, yet something in me refrained.

When we try to control too much in the garden, we end up as agents of death. I think of all the pesticides sprayed by gardeners trying to protect their favorite plants from harm that instead disrupt the ecosystem. Bees are dying everywhere; monarch butterflies have been decimated. Yes, the causes are multiple and complex, but pesticides are a big part of the puzzle.

One beauty of gardening, however, is it is nearly impossible to dwell on big unsolvable problems while digging in the soil. All that matters is the hole to be dug, the weed to pull, the vegetable to harvest, the flower to admire, the bird to enjoy. And the sun shines, and the rain comes, or doesn’t come. The seasons pass. Plants leaf out, flower, set seed, go dormant. Some thrive. Most grow slowly. A few die. The cycle continues. And almost all of it happens quietly, out of sight, untoiled for.

Yes, gardening teaches faith.

Sunday, July 28, 2013

Manifestations at Sunset

"The world is charged with the grandeur of God." - Gerard Manley Hopkins





















I took these photos on the last evening 
of a staff retreat at Salter Path, N.C. 
Transformation was the theme. 



Saturday, July 20, 2013

What's Peaking in Mid-July

Two cherry tomato plants (Sun Gold and Sweet Million)
are producing a bowlful per day. We've begun bartering them for eggs
with a neighbor.


The new butterfly garden looks lovely,
with a nameless salvia, crocosmia and coneflower,
but I've seen perhaps two butterflies there. Lots of bees, though. 


Cosmos in the parsley


It rained nearly every afternoon for what seemed like weeks.


The cucumber trellised itself on the cherry tomato plant.


This brown thrasher spent several minutes rubbing its belly
and preening on the top of the Prius. 


This bunny thinks he owns the garden. He's been eating coneflowers,
coreopsis and on the plus side, Johnson grass. 


Crepe myrtles are peaking.


A small milkweed bug on the butterfly weed.


I can't decide if this combination of two unusual kinds of coleus
and basket grass is creatively inspired or hideous. 

Wednesday, July 10, 2013

Praying Mantis to Mystery Flower: 10 Days

A praying mantis waits for prey on a nasturtium in the veggie garden.


I'm glad I photographed this butterfly
 because I haven't seen one since. Where are you, butterflies?


The veggie jungle


Bees of different varieties are obsessed with the flowering oregano.


The red hibiscus flowers turn into umbrellas. Rain, rain, rain -
we've been getting late day storms nearly every day.


Daylilies remain stunning.

We took a spontaneous 24-hour trip to the beach at Salter Path, N.C., 
when we got the last room available at our favorite retreat center. 
Swimming held by the waves and walking the beach is a prayer.


Beach at sunset


Beach at sunrise


Blackberry picking


A mystery flower emerges from a tall plant with iris-like leaves.
Can you identify it?

Saturday, June 29, 2013

Summer Drama

I thank an unknown former gardener
for planting dozens of these fragrant happy daylilies.


A raw swiss chard salad with decorative edible nasturtiums.
Young chard is not that bitter and raw greens
are said to be more nutritious.


An indescribable pink lily


Titmouse fledglings splashed in the bird bath.
This one then basked in the sun on the roof of the shed.


The surprise of new life after months in which this sword fern,
left outside all winter, appeared dead. 


First sungold cherry tomato of the season


Hydrangea after rain. I am developing a preference
for the varied shades of pinkish purplish blue flowers
that emerge in the absence of acid fertilizer. 


A hibiscus with blooms bigger than my hand drapes over the driveway.


We've been having frequent late afternoon thunderstorms,
and I'm rarely having to water the garden. 


I came home from work to find this top-heavy heirloom tomato plant
collapsed, breaking the stake. Miraculously, its stems were not broken
and my husband was able to prop it up and restake it.