It was warm yesterday and then in the late afternoon it began to drizzle on and off. So i was gardening in the rain. One of the most beautiful sights is gentle rain on the gardens. The plants grow as you watch them here. Literally. The season is short and almost tropical.
By evening it was raining. So ignoring the dishes, we sat out on the verandah to listen.
My flower beds were designed to imitate the big farm gardens in New Zealand. So the house is surrounded in deep beds of perennials. There is too much garden for one little woman farmer but I cannot help myself, I love to dig, so I am very forgiving about weeds. I call my gardening theory Cleaning the Moat.
I start in one garden and then I work in a clockwise direction around the house, like the hands of an enormous slow clock, weeding and watering. I move in the same direction all summer. No garden is free of all weeds all the time. Ah well. No plant is always perfectly pruned and trained all the time. Ah well. No amount of wildness is too much. Well. Of course. Holes are always being dug and plants are being divided and moved from one garden to the other. And no garden is finished, flower gardens are fluid, always evolving. This is why gardening is so addictive. Gardeners see what they are going to create as often as they see what they have already created. We live in a colourful dream world. Such a nice place to be.
The same rule applies to the mowing! There is no time when all the mowing is all done at the same time. The flower gardens, orchard and vegetable gardens are scattered over a big acre. So the job is divided into sections and I will mow and finish one section a day. I spend about an hour a day on one of the nine huge flower beds (they all have names) and adjacent lawns and collect three big buckets of weeds for the chickens and one for the pigs. Then I move to the vegetable gardens to do the same. For me the flowers are as important as the vegetables.
There are many many jobs on these eight acres. I think it is important not to try and get it all done every day. Forgiving myself the weeds is critical to my personality. Perfection is only a vision it is not a reality to a person with an imagination. And everyone has an imagination. We are always thinking of the next plan and the next plant to flower, and what would happen if we took cuttings from that shrub and plant them along the back over there. Just leaning on the fence watching the animals graze is as important as pulling that bloody creeping charlie out of the Bird Garden.
Good morning. I know some of you cannot have a little garden, let alone a big one and those of you who can are eternally grateful. And there have been times in my life when I was just as happy with a window box of geraniums and a few pots of basil and thyme in the kitchen. One of the pieces of advice my grandmother gave me as a young mother was to put my hands into the soil every day.
Today I am digging up some day lilies in the way of the construction and bringing them around to Donna’s garden where they can spread out and fill a gap. The soil will be damp and the day will not be hot, perfect for gardening today.
Have a lovely day.
Your muddy friend, celi
The Kitchen's Garden 
57 responses to “Gardening in the rain”
it may have been yesterday or the day before when you were talking about planting corn and you mentioned that the field had been sprayed with Round Up..sure;y this is not ‘green’..it would kill the worms and all earth insects and what about the birds pecking at the soil..surely it does harm>??? Not that I am a farmer or even a gardener but it just struck me as being ‘odd’.
Nothing wrong with your garden it looks natural, I do hope that you leave the dandelions alone.cos as you said before bees like the dandies…see I do take note…and remember most of what you tell us.. Have a great day xxxxx
celi does not use round u, oh no! But the farmer whose fields surround the farmy does, and there is not much to bedone about that.
It is not me spraying the Round Up. It is the farmer on the land next to us, I can only control my own land. These guys are cropping thousands and thousands of acres of land a year It is a whole different world outside of my gates.. c
sorry I misunderstood….could not imagine why you would want to do that when you are so clean with your farming… please accept my apology xxxx
I have a brown thumb, so I take frequent walks in the woods to visit nature’s garden. I cannot explain how a person (me) can love plants so much, but not take an interest in a garden. There is something magic about wild flowers (and if you know what you are looking at, wild vegetables).
I would love to learn more about wild vegetables.. c
I can’t imagine dealing with so much ground, but I very much like how your garden grows. Our tiny walled garden keeps us busy, and you’re right, there’s always a plan:)
I was in a huge walled garden in Kent once,at some great house, Oh my it was beautiful but they had a small army of gardeners! often i think of making a tiny walled garden just outside the french doors to the bedroom and i would plant roses. Though roses do not do so well out here so it is another of those gardening dreams! c
i attack my place about the same way. i pick an area to work on each day. getting from my house to that area is the tricky part. i tend to see things that must be tended to on the way. i planted most of my land to look like a forest so weeds are welcome. i never saw a weeded forest!
I hope to have one of those one day too! a weedy forest! c
For a second I thought that red fire hydrant was a gnome and I had to go back to the top to check who’s blog I was on 😉
Laugh!!! morning mad! c
“Perfection is only a vision it is not a reality to a person with an imagination.” Amen, sister!
Your description of how you tend to your farm is a little like how I do housework: at no time is the whole house clean 🙂 A super clean house is for people who don’t like to garden 🙂
morning lacey, i house keep like a butterfly, pausing here and there as i wander through and out into the garden.. though of course deep down i would love to have a beautiful tidy clean house and garden.. just imagine… not a real thought though.. c
So that is why my house is so messy all the time LOL. With wet muddy feet from the dogs, cats and some days even the chickens try to sneak in, keeping my floors spotless would take up too much time, time I would rather spend in my garden!
Good morning, c, and happy spring to the farmy! The weeds in my borders are growing as fast as the perennials. I’m sitting in the conservatory, and just noticed that where I weeded yesterday new weeds are sprouting. Goodness me! But obviously, nature can’t tell a flower from a weed, so everything grows like it’s supposed to at this time of the year.
It sure does, and so much more fun to watch than last years dry sluggish growth..!
My mother gave me the same advice about putting my hands in the soil. A wise woman with a black thumb, she was. And I so agree about the wildness. My ex-husband did not agree.Perhaps that’s a symptom of why he is an ex.
Why do I think of lilacs when i think of your ex husband. .. c
So enjoyed visiting with you in your gardens
Hahaha, I too have names for all my garden spots. And I lot the shot of Sophies garden with the buckets just lying there……….just like my place.
Have a lovely day!
Those are the water buckets I use for the cleaning after milking! they are always hanging about in the wrong place! c
How odd….I garden just like you! Clockwise and always moving…never getting all the weeds. We are not as lush as the tropics here, but I try. I really do try to have lots of wondrous things growing. I try new things every year. But I am slowing down. from 175 containers and lots and plots and grass on my one acre yard, I only have 75…for now that is enough. Next year maybe less.
I love me a wondrous garden!
Linda
http://coloradofarmlife.wordpress.com
http://deltacountyhistoricalsociety.wordpress.com
It really does not surprise me that we garden in much the same way, we are strangely similar. Though I don’t have a lot in pots, is that because of the soil that you put plants in containers? I remember you saying last summer that you had cut down. I have things in pots this year because of the pup though.. c
Really for the ease of it. I made all my beds raised and then added in pots. The watering is what gets to me. I’m thinking of getting back even further this year. I think 25 containers or less. I do so enjoy the yard work, though.
Linda
A lovely lazy rain….mmmm. We had storms yesterday, and it came down in buckets. I’ll be calling the banners this weekend for a weed-out, just to get off on the right foot. After that, it gets done when (if) it gets done!
I can understand your gardening theory and views on perfection etc. I used to garden in much the same way. Nowadays I am unable to do very much at all, and the smothering weeds do niggle away at my conscience. I shall be very glad when we can move, so long as I can take ,my pot garden.
Vx
You are moving? I would find it hard to watch my garden get covered in weeds and not be able to dig here and there each day, i am trying hard to have these gardens at forest and shrub level for when I am a bit older. And that is the good thing about pots.. mobile! c
see my 6 word Saturday: http://vivinfrance.wordpress.com/2013/05/04/space-patrol/
Funny, you’ve just described how I clean my house.
Oh you are a butterfly too.. excellent! c
Celi,
I’m enjoying getting to know you, your animals and your property, each morning. I too love watching the garden in the rain, and dearly miss rain while living in Los Angeles! I have fond childhood memories of sitting on the porch listening to the thunder and watching the storm roll in. And, I love your grandmother’s advice about getting your hands dirty daily; I try to do that!
I am glad you are out there reading Sam, I love the thunder here too.. fantastic.. c