Category: garden

chronic illness, garden, gratitude, Health, life, mental health, MS

Garden Tour – May 2021

Amanda, walkamyelinmyshoes

Well, hello there! It’s been… a while, to say the least. The blogging and writing has been overtaken by the garden. It keeps me busy and (mostly) out of trouble but doesn’t leave a lot of time for other pursuits like writing. But that’s a positive, as it keeps me moving – “Motion is Lotion”, as one of my favourite MSers loves to say.

It has certainly been a peaceful and hopeful place to spend time during the pandemic, and I am grateful for that every single day. The pictures really don’t do it justice, and things are just starting to come together after years of redesigning and refiguring, but I hope you can experience even a fraction of the joy that I find here every day.

Much more interesting than the sloped lawn that was here when we moved in.
Twelve years later and the beds have finally stopped moving. 😀
  • do you see her?
Our driftwood ‘tree’ is a favourite climbing post for the cat but is sadly getting a bit wobbly as it slowly decays. Smudge could get quite the surprise one day soon!
  • our Tiki in “The Outback”
    (get it?)
  • the artichoke finally found a happy home
  • the current pond lol
  • lilies will bloom soon!
  • bachelor buttons and cosmos from seed are taking their time
  • morning coffee spot
    (ugly TEMPORARY pallet fence keeping the deer out)
view from the bottom of the garden where we mostly sit

The Working Garden – The Vegetables

As you see, I like to mix it up and stuff many different vegetables into a container or raised bed. I’m not sure it’s the most efficient or productive method but I like the variation. Not only does working in the garden keep me physically and mentally healthy, growing our own food has been a huge factor in getting my symptoms under control.

The Orchard – apples, lemon, kiwi, onions, radishes, kale and kohlrabi
  • potatoes, garlic, onions, lettuce
  • lettuce, spinach, garlic, onions, carrots
  • cucumbers, dill, garlic, tomatoes, basil
  • cucumbers, chard, lettuce, scallions and zucchini
  • peas, beets, garlic, lovage, comfrey
  • garlic, leeks, kale, lettuce
  • broad beans, blueberries, garlic, leeks and monster calendula
cucumbers, beans, dill, celery, cherry tomatoes, peppers and potatoes
  • onions
  • onions everywhere!
  • carrots, broccoli, onions, garlic
  • cabbage, garlic, onions, kohlrabi, chives, radishes
  • radishes, onions, scallions, kohlrabi, carrots, beans and potatoes
  • potatoes
  • garlic, peas, lettuce, onions, cilantro, sweet Thai basil
  • Greenhouse peppers and watermelon
  • Greenhouse Roma tomatoes and peppers
  • outside tomatoes are much smaller

Gardening is a lot of work, and can become overwhelming if it gets away from you. I’m very lucky that my husband and I share the passion and the work. Adding a chronic illness to the mix can make it seem impossible on some days, with crushing fatigue, dizziness, pain and brain fog making the simplest tasks insurmountable. Those are the days to rest and enjoy, meditate and reflect.

Just like housework, the weeds will always be there and there is always more to do than time to do it. But that’s a gift. And, like everything in life, it’s all about perspective and what you choose to focus on. On my good days, I move slowly, take lots of breaks and hydrate constantly. On my bad days, I focus on what’s blooming, what’s growing well, and the overall beauty of the garden. There is always something to appreciate.

Wishing you peace, love, hope and joy, today and every day.

Amanda

P.S. It’s always interesting to see the changes from year to year. So, here’s the May Tour from 2020. Also the Vegetable Tour.

garden, life

July Garden Tour – on two feet ! 💃💃💃

Amanda, walkamyelinmyshoes

I can walk! After doing the June tour on crutches, I finally got an X-ray and found out that what I thought was a sprained ankle was actually a spiral fracture of my fibula. So, I’m madly rehabbing my ankle constantly and being very careful but I’m thrilled to be mobile again. I have even more appreciation and compassion for people with permanent mobility difficulties. I tried not to whine, really.

Can you say ‘atrophy’?

Vegetables and irrigation

Needless to say, the garden isn’t quite where I envisioned it would be pre-wipeout. Although I give my husband, who is more of a landscaper than a gardener, full credit for managing single-handedly as well as he did. Hand watering the vegetable containers alone could take an hour or more to do properly, so in the last few days I finally built a drip irrigation system. Hallelujah!

It’s not pretty (yet, but the tweaking is half the fun) but it only takes four minutes per zone to get everything watered through. It’s mind-boggling to me, I wouldn’t believe it if I wasn’t seeing it but the plants are showing the difference just from two days watering, and plants don’t lie. Why did I wait so long???

Tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, beans, carrots, leeks, lettuce, dill, etc.
Peppers!
Cucumbers and tomatoes. I was amazed at how quickly these tomatoes ripened after I removed the leaves beneath them, and others, in order to direct all the ‘power’ to the fruit.
Onions were not bad, but I think I can do better next year. Leeks still to come though!

The Garlic Experiment

I grew garlic for the first time last year, not altogether successfully. I didn’t know that the ‘flowers’ that garlic throws up are called ‘scapes’, and beyond being my new favourite raw vegetable to snip over my salad, now I know that you need to clip them so the growing power goes into the bulb, not the flower. One of those duh-in-retrospect moments.

This year has been much more successful, due mostly to better planting, fertilizing and watering – and snipping the scapes. There is just no comparison with grocery store garlic when you slice into it. So satisfying!

But check this out, last fall I planted some of my garlic in the ground (left) and the rest of it in half gallon containers (right). I transplanted the container garlic into the ground in the early spring, and the difference was unreal. It was all absolutely huge, whereas the in-ground garlic developed into several smaller heads. I’ll also wait longer to harvest it next year because I just pulled out this monster (bottom right) the other day! I intend to use the bigger heads as my seed garlic in the fall.

And now for the flowers…

The sunflowers are lovely but I’m rethinking my decision to try to use them as trellises. While kind of amusing to go bushwhacking hunting for peas, beans and cucumbers, it’s not especially efficient – or user-friendly. So the vegetables will stay in the containers close to the house in future, and the back garden will be for perennials, annuals and herbs.

Sunflowers everywhere!
Dahlias on Ilam Road, named for our house in NZ where we first fell in love with them.
Gladiolus, here there and everywhere. They always make me think of my oldest BFF, who has given them to me on many special occasions.
Echinacea
Lilies
I would have enjoyed eating this artichoke, but the flower isn’t a bad consolation prize.
Wild kingdom – not ‘the spider on the fly’ but the ‘fruit fly on the crazy translucent spider on the honey bee on the cosmos’.
I grew these cosmos from seed. Check out the mutant on the left – it’s taller than me! Easy for a person, tougher for a flower!
The calla lilies have finally found a home.
This is an orange calla lily that hasn’t flowered yet but I love the sunshine and the petunias surrounding it.
View from the shady spot.

Alright, we’re off to our favourite spot on the west coast for my 50th 😱 birthday holiday. Be kind, stay calm and stay safe.

❤️ Amanda

garden, life

June Garden Tour – on crutches 🙄

Amanda, walkamyelinmyshoes

We all have them. Those moments in life, often a split-second, we wish we could go back and do differently. But we can’t, so we have to chalk it up to Lessons Learned.

So yeah, I’ve sprained, possibly broken, my ankle.

Lesson Learned: Pirouettes and garden clogs are a terrible combination. No matter how chuffed I was that our daughter asked for choreography help for one of her videos, it was just plain dumb. And I will never forget the sound. 🤢

Anyway, the garden has been neglected for several days and I’m not loving the crutches so we’ll see how this goes…

The deck – My poor potatoes have been flattened by the almost constant wind.

Peas, lettuce, peppers and tomatoes

Peppers are coming along nicely.

Holy tomatoes! Some peppers and cucumbers too.

The tomato on the right is the one that broke right off when I transplanted it. So it’s much shorter but still growing!
Carrots, onions, beets and a tomato branch that I poked into the middle that’s now a new plant. Tomatoes are amazing!

The raised beds- The kohlrabi will be ready soon, and more peas!

View from the bottom ‘entrance’ – Check out the spaghetti squash, it’s enormous! These sunflowers (left) aren’t growing fast enough to be trellises for the beans, even though I started them early from seed and transplanted them. Uh oh, could get messy.

The everlasting sweet pea on the driftwood tree needs tying again too. This is the first time it’s been able to flower because the deer kept eating it last year. Yay!

View from the bottom sitting area.

Potatoes, peas, beans, lettuce, kale and camomile.

These sunflowers are doing better, they’re the same height as those first ones but I direct sowed them much later. I think sunflowers prefer not being disturbed. The alstroemeria finally gets to flower too, another deer favourite when they get in. So far so good!

Cucumbers, peas, kale, dill, beans and quinoa.

This bean has the right idea! I’m hoping the sunflowers will be big and strong enough to support the cucumbers growing in front too, but I’m thinking that’s probably too much to ask. We’ll see…

Check out this onion! 😁

Middle garden.

The zucchini and cucumbers are doing pretty well but I’m a bit surprised that the cucumbers are flowering already even though they haven’t grown very tall. 🤷‍♀️ The carrots and leeks will still be a while.

The oldest part of the garden – I plan to make lavender oil with some of this lavender. My first batch didn’t work too well, it smells like pesto for some weird reason. I think I needed more flowers. It’s all a big experiment.

These steps are also the most established part of the garden. The daphne (right) is in full bloom for the second time this season and smells heavenly. I love the tiny light pink flowers.

The other side of the oldest part, and the lily and hollyhock bed.

Calla lilies coming up and bachelor buttons from seed are starting to flower.

View from the other entrance.

The apple tree bed, with the oh-so-attractive, temporary deer fencing. At least it seems to be doing the trick. And the buggers are around, our daughter had to step over a tiny fawn sleeping on our doorstep one night, and got charged by mama another night!

More potatoes, carrots, onions, leeks, kohlrabi and beets. And some self-seeding lettuce that I hope will naturalize in the garden.

Top garden – I’ve waited too long to harvest this artichoke now. Boo. Lemon tree is doing well even though we’ll have an ongoing battle with the crabgrass up here for the foreseeable future.

Blueberries! We’ve had these bushes for almost ten years but they’ve been moved around so much they’ve never really produced. This is the most we’ve ever seen. I’m so glad I got them protected with bird netting before The Incident.

There are more blueberries hiding all over this bush. Yum!

View from top deck.

Buddleais (butterfly bush, right top) are starting to bloom.
The hummingbirds love them!
Cosmos from seed in the planter. Hopefully some flowers soon!
The ‘Ring of Fire’ pepper plant in the tub has tons of blossoms on it already. I’m hoping to make my own chili flakes.

This deck area was the original, overgrown garden when we moved in and we’ve never done too much with it. My husband is finally tackling that project and has cleared out a ton.

This was a full garden bed a few days ago.

Sadly, our previously stunning, well- established, huge orange rose picked up some weird infection and basically rotted away. The stump is still there so maybe there’s hope. 🤞🏻

So there we go, a gimp tour of our backyard. I’m almost afraid of what things will look like by the end of July if my ankle doesn’t start healing faster. X-rays on Tuesday will hopefully give me a better idea of how long I’ll be hobbled. I really feel for people with chronic mobility issues, it’s a royal pain in the arse to not be able to do for yourself. I’m so fortunate, I won’t whine. Much. 😏

Good times.

Thanks for joining me. Wishing you peace and calm.

❤️ Amanda

garden, life

May Vegetable Tour

Amanda, walkamyelinmyshoes

I can’t believe it’s the last day of May! I wanted to complete my May Garden Tour with a record of how the vegetable beds closer to the house are looking. It’s a crazy windy day – again, ugh – so I snapped them quickly, but such is life.

Unfortunately, the damn deer got in again last night. We can mostly thank our nature-hating, pavement and power tool-loving neighbour for basically killing the hedge on his side. Okay, vent over. Check out the temporary fence – it’s like living in a junk yard! 😂

On the back deck we have potatoes, peas, lettuce, spinach, arugula, leeks, peppers, tomatoes, strawberries and mint. My potatoes have never been this tall before. I’m hoping for a better yield this year, so fingers crossed.

In the raised beds we have potatoes, garlic, radishes, beets, lettuce, peas, carrots, kohlrabi, leeks, peppers, beans and cucumber.

We bought these 20 gallon containers for cheap this year. They’re amazing for tomatoes, peppers and cucumbers and big enough to stuff in some basil, dill, parsley, cilantro, spinach and lettuce.

Tomatoes are so satisfying to grow. I planted these from seed and was horrified when I broke the first one when transplanting. But I pinched off the bottom leaves and stuck the stem deep into the soil and voilà! I also stuck the root ball into the garden and it’s started sprouting new growth. Life will out. 🥰

Alright, I hope this finds you well. Any gardening tips always appreciated!

Be kind, be calm and stay safe!

❤️ Amanda

garden, Health, life, mental health

Deer Decimation 😣

Amanda, walkamyelinmyshoes

Well, yesterday was DD day at our house. Apparently, the deer around here read WordPress, and my May Garden Tour post was an invitation. Whoops.

They ate the kale…

They nibbled the potatoes …

And snarfed ALL but two of the bush beans!

And that’s not all…

The hostas, alstroemeria, lilac, everlasting sweet pea, lupin, the biggest sunflower and the apple tree for dessert.

So when the deer come chomping, the gardener(‘s husband) builds a fence.

Fingers crossed…

But there’s always something positive happening in the garden. I’m thrilled that this method of interplanting worked. I planted radishes and carrots together so the fast-sprouting radishes shade the finicky slow-sprouting carrots until they germinate. Now I’ve pulled the radishes and the carrots are perfectly thinned and ready to keep growing.

Radishes, carrots
There’s always something positive in the garden.

❤️Amanda