Low motivation is a gardener's curse. You ignore trouble in your flower beds and before you know it, those flower beds are suffocating under a dense weed blanket. You let the weeds go to seed and you're guaranteeing an even stronger presence in the future. All this is happening under cover: you dont really see trouble until it's too late. And here's the thing: the threat of a jungle is not necessarily enough motivation to get you to do the needed work. For one thing, even if you devote many, many hours, days even, to clearing the gardens, it's not as if, to the naked eye, it looks better after all that work. The before and after sort of look the same, unless the weeds and grasses had shot up above the tips of the flowers (which, at this time of the year are spent, so they're never going to be splendid anyway, not until next year). And one more disincentive to getting you out there: the bugs. The wretched mosquitoes that have stubbornly stuck with us all summer long.
So, to weed or not to weed -- that is the question!
At this time of the year, working hard outside is like taking a long walk in Paris: I don't necessarily set out to do it. I step out and see where the day takes me.
After my morning chores of course.
(this rosemary struggled inside during the winter; in the summer -- it grew into a bush the size of a bear!)
(phloxes aren't just purple...)
And after breakfast.
And today, the day took me into the thick of those flower beds, where I worked all morning long, slapping bugs left and right. And of course, I only made a dent. Nor can you see much in the way of improvement. But I do feel better about the care I gave to those plants that were put in with such affection and hope, back in spring, or in years past.
(I also did some path mowing. You don't see anything that resembles a lawn anywhere on farmette lands, and you rarely see the western edge of the Big Bed, because we rarely mow there and so it looks rather messy. But today? Looks good enough to be in an ad for lawn services!)
In the afternoon, Ed and I venture out to our local market -- me on Rosie, he on his own motorcycle. There isn't much that I need today, but Ed is a regular trader (our eggs for John's cheese curds, our rhubarb for a Sugar River Bakery sweet loaf), and a total fan of a black walnut cranberry sourdough loaf baked by this guy:
(he brings just four loaves to the market...)
I go to say hi to Natalie, and check out the flowers.
I haven't raved about the weather, but I should. It really is beautiful outside: not too hot, plenty of sunshine. I've been taking walks daily -- nothing ambitious, just along the prairie and the new development, while Ed has been busy with his machine design. Those walks have been gorgeous! It's the ultimate luxury, really: to be able to step outside and find yourself on s path bordering a prairie, with the gold of late summer flowers, the breeze that blows across those fields, and the drying plant life all around me, giving me that first taste of autumn. If someday I have to move back to the city (and I may, because I can't count on being able to manage all that the farmette requires of us), I will miss this even more than the flowers that I grow in the flower fields: that ability to step out and walk along that path, or at our local county park, without the noise of traffic, or anything at all, inhaling deeply, taking in each new season as it slowly paints a new canvas for me of a beautiful day.
with love...
