If you simply want a few "plants" around to decorate your homeor apartment, or if you have a desire to harvest a fresh salad for supper, you can have a "victory" garden no matter where you live and how much space you can call your own.
There are kitchen gardens that produce fresh herbs to tantalize and delight gourmet dishes you make for family and friends. Windows are not only the gateways to the world, they can provide the sunshine needed for plants to grow and thrive. From African Violets to Easter Lilies, potted plants can bring color, and scent into your home for just your time and a bit of care.
Have a patio, porch, or even a deck? Then container gardens are a god-sent. You can line up sculptured pots filled with cherry tomato plants, berry bushes, and even line a long planter with herbs and spices. As you sit on your patio in the warm weather, you can delight as nature brings fresh ingredients and menu ideas right to your door. Small children can find adventure and education combined with fun and accomplishment with a small red wagon filled with just enough soil and drainage to produce lettuce, strawberries or even a cucumber or two. Don't forget that flowers can also bring enjoyment to a child as that tiny bud opens up to a gift for "mom". It is not the quantity of products, but the quality of seeing nature take its course, and good food as fun and tastier than boxed treats.
If you have a back yard or even ten acres, then the world is your oyster and you can pick and choose from catalogs glowing with pictures of perfect plants to taking a trip to a plant nursery and not being able to control the urge to buy one of everything. From sun warmed tomatoes, to fall squashes that will turn into autumn meals, you can accomplish a garden that will give "harvest" new meaning and will bring "victory" to your meal plans. Growing herbs, to growing flowers, you are joining with nature and as partners, each of you have a job to do. In the end, when it is time to gather in what all your hard work has brought about, then you can stand tall and know that life is good, the world is not such a bad place after all, and well, you just can't wait to do it all over again next year.
A great side result of gardening can be that your grocery bill will be easier on your wallet, and that fresh flowers can be yours, instead of passing by a florist and knowing that you just can't spend the cash for a vase that will dress up your table. Even bouquets of fresh herbs make your kitchen feel like a dining room of a fancy restaurant. When family and friends come around, your minted lemonade will find ready takers and your salad of just picked lettuce, cucumbers, radishes and chives is just the right touch for warm weather eating. The economy can take a back seat to lavish eating when you grow your own food and you know that you don't have to worry about additives and colors and flavors made in a laboratory with chemicals and even toxic ingredients. You can pronounce every item in your meal plan and well, food just tastes better, is more eye-appealing, and the scent of fresh herbs will take your love of food to new heights. Food you serve will be healthier and more fulfilling. Even children will enjoy eating what they "just picked" and what they watered, weeded, and planted. Meals can be real family events, instead of fast food containers and wrappers. Sound too good to be true - just get your rake, shovel, and give it a chance. Victory is yours if you want it and that's quite a deal for your money.
Something to think about
©Arleen M. Kaptur March, 2008
Showing posts with label vegetables. Show all posts
Showing posts with label vegetables. Show all posts
Thursday, March 26, 2009
Sunday, March 22, 2009
Nature As Teacher-Gardener as Student
Gardeners are really very sage and knowledgeable people no matter their skill at the past time that they truly enjoy. It seems that life itself is in that warm soil heated by the rays of a brilliant sun and cooled by gentle breezes that relax, yet invigorate, calm yet bring new enthusiasm, and allow the gardener to reach new heights by stooping low and picking even pesky weeds and dead-heading blossoms.
When you head out to your garden area, it really does not matter the acres, yards, or even feet that is yours to maintain. In fact, it could be containers set on your patio, or a table facing the sun lined with pots of your favorite plants - this is your garden space and it is special indeed. While the place, size, and choice of plants is important to you, there are lessons to be learned and messages to be understood and taken to heart.
Gardens are not only stepping stones to life lessons, they are ladders that raise the playing field and allow inner beauty, sensitivity, and creativity to emerge and help bring about bountiful harvests and succulent food, one of life's necessities. Flowers allow you to take in the aroma of spring mornings, and summer delicacies. It is something as simple as taking a petal from a brilliant rose bloom and placing it in waxed paper and using it as a bookmark. This small gesture is thanks to the patch that adds so much charm and elegance to your day to day living, no matter the cir-cumstances or the voices on the evening news. A garden is your space to stop running and truly take the moment to smell the roses.
Some of the lessons that a garden will allow you to learn and experience is the ability to observe and not just look. You can stop and look at an emerald green pepper, or a magical ear of corn, but do you understand the forces that had to come about in order to produce this perfection of nature? Water could not do it alone, nor the sun. The roots that are hidden by the soil are not forgotten by the plant nor would the plant be there if it's past of seed, soil, and growth were not part of its history. Anyone can pass by and "see" the plants as they reach toward the morning sun, but a gardener cannot put aside the mysteries and the awe of what nature and man together can accomplish.
Understanding comes right along with trowel in hand and fingers that carefully pull the weeds but delicately press the soil around a stem. This understanding is that work is not drudgery and can, in its own right, be enjoyable and pleasurable. The gardener truly understands that learning is an on-going process and it never ends with the season. Plans are truly made in heaven and optimism convinces the flowers, herbs, fruits, and vegetables to give their all. With effort, a dry patch of dirt can be transformed into a living, breathing work of art. Barren is not an option but abundance and overflowing are words that come to life, with a gardener's cup always half full and reaching for more.
If you are gardening for the first time or for the tenth or twentieth season, each page of the calendar year brings new challenges, accomplishments, possibilities, and discoveries. As in life, nothing stays the same and if wind and rain tear down and destroy, the sun, man, and gentle care can cure and rearrange.
Something to think about
©Arleen M. Kaptur March, 2009
When you head out to your garden area, it really does not matter the acres, yards, or even feet that is yours to maintain. In fact, it could be containers set on your patio, or a table facing the sun lined with pots of your favorite plants - this is your garden space and it is special indeed. While the place, size, and choice of plants is important to you, there are lessons to be learned and messages to be understood and taken to heart.
Gardens are not only stepping stones to life lessons, they are ladders that raise the playing field and allow inner beauty, sensitivity, and creativity to emerge and help bring about bountiful harvests and succulent food, one of life's necessities. Flowers allow you to take in the aroma of spring mornings, and summer delicacies. It is something as simple as taking a petal from a brilliant rose bloom and placing it in waxed paper and using it as a bookmark. This small gesture is thanks to the patch that adds so much charm and elegance to your day to day living, no matter the cir-cumstances or the voices on the evening news. A garden is your space to stop running and truly take the moment to smell the roses.
Some of the lessons that a garden will allow you to learn and experience is the ability to observe and not just look. You can stop and look at an emerald green pepper, or a magical ear of corn, but do you understand the forces that had to come about in order to produce this perfection of nature? Water could not do it alone, nor the sun. The roots that are hidden by the soil are not forgotten by the plant nor would the plant be there if it's past of seed, soil, and growth were not part of its history. Anyone can pass by and "see" the plants as they reach toward the morning sun, but a gardener cannot put aside the mysteries and the awe of what nature and man together can accomplish.
Understanding comes right along with trowel in hand and fingers that carefully pull the weeds but delicately press the soil around a stem. This understanding is that work is not drudgery and can, in its own right, be enjoyable and pleasurable. The gardener truly understands that learning is an on-going process and it never ends with the season. Plans are truly made in heaven and optimism convinces the flowers, herbs, fruits, and vegetables to give their all. With effort, a dry patch of dirt can be transformed into a living, breathing work of art. Barren is not an option but abundance and overflowing are words that come to life, with a gardener's cup always half full and reaching for more.
If you are gardening for the first time or for the tenth or twentieth season, each page of the calendar year brings new challenges, accomplishments, possibilities, and discoveries. As in life, nothing stays the same and if wind and rain tear down and destroy, the sun, man, and gentle care can cure and rearrange.
Something to think about
©Arleen M. Kaptur March, 2009
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