Buds are emerging on the trees, the snowdrops are making their appearance, and the grass is beginning to green up. Spring green is coloring the blackberry vines and the leaves of our climbing rose vines. Allium, tulip and anemone bulbs are pushing through the soil, and our first anemone is eager to flaunt its deep purple hue.

This week we’re taking a deep dive into all things gardening as we shed our winter coats and feel the sunshine of spring call us into the garden.

*If you see an asterisk next to a link, it links to a video with sound. Just a heads up in case you need to turn the volume down or pop on your headphones.

HOME

I’ve tried so many systems over the years to stay organized, but one thing I have discovered about myself is that I work well with a routine. I follow a regular routine of small tasks every day as a way to work towards a larger goal to be completed by the end of the week. I create windows of time in my day with a set focus.

As I mentioned in last week’s post, creativity thrives within constraints. When I’m able to apply the same boundaries within my daily routine, I find that I am able to focus my attention and experience freedom to explore within that window of time. Giving myself the gift of a routine rather than a rigid schedule means more mental space to dive deeply into the task I’m working on with the flexibility my life requires.

If I want to have the house clean by the end of the week, I choose a room or type of clean (windows, floors, etc.) each day to clean or tidy. Does that mean the whole house is sparkling at the end of the week? No. Does is mean that I know each room has had a “good enough” clean? Yes. At the end of each week I clean the detached workshop used for my writing and photography. Cleaning the workshop is a gift to myself to close up the week, to prepare for the weekend, and to give the workshop (and my brain!) a fresh start for the following week.

My blog posts are published every Friday. If I want to make sure the post is ready to go for Thursday night, I choose a task each day to complete. On Mondays I write the content for that week’s post, Tuesdays are for working with the photos I’ve taken, Wednesdays are for editing my content, Thursdays are for final editing, and Fridays are for sharing the blog with the community and finding new readers. Each day is a different task which keeps me focused. I know exactly what I’ll be working on each day, but it may look slightly different within those windows of time from week to week. Fewer decisions make for a happy brain.

Breaking up my day into windows of time to tackle smaller tasks works great for meal planning and prepping for activities throughout the day. As I’ve mentioned before in my posts, if I have something coming up in the day, I try to do one small step towards that task to help my future self. I might set out the things I’ll need when I walk out the door, put a few ingredients on the counter that I’ll need later when I put dinner together, or add ideas to my Trello chart for future blog posts. A little bit accomplished every day means that I’ll have the majority of my tasks finished to enjoy the weekend.

GARDEN

It’s looking like a garden nursery around our house.

Our laundry room table is covered with seeds germinating. Seeds need a temperature of 70 degrees Fahrenheit to sprout. Overhead light becomes important once seedlings emerge from the soil. If the seeds sprout without overhead light, they become leggy or point towards the light outside, so be sure to get the seed trays outside or in the greenhouse once you see the little green leaves saying hello. If you do end up with some leggy sprouts, here’s a fix.

Once the seeds sprout, I move them out to the greenhouse and cold frame in the backyard. We have temperatures over 70 degrees during the day in the spring, so I pull out the seed trays during the day to let them receive as much light as possible and to start to strengthen their stems with mild breezes (or you can use a gentle fan). I also check to make sure the soil isn’t too dry. The soil doesn’t need to be wet, but if it does dry out, I give the seedlings a little drink of water. This is all part of their training for the “real world” in the garden bed.

For seedlings that don’t mind the cool nights, they spend the night on pop up tables in the screened-in porch. This process of hardening off seedlings means that by gradually making their way from the comfort of the greenhouse, to the protection of the porch, to being transplanted into the garden bed, they will have a better chance at success having experienced variable weather conditions.

I’ve been using a *no dig method (read more about the no dig method by following this link) from Charles Dowding in the garden. No dig gardening is a method of gardening where instead of tilling your garden beds, you just add new compost each year to create a healthy soil web. This year I used his suggestion to multi-sow many of my seeds, and then pluck out the healthy ones to put in small seed cells nestled in these trays . Once the seedlings have grown enough to be planted in the garden bed, I put the biodegradable seed cells directly into the garden (I make a few small slits in the cell to give the roots a head start). If you re-use plastic seed trays or seed starting trays, just make sure you sanitize your supplies before planting any new plants in the same trays.

Be sure to check out *this video on no dig methods in dry vs. humid climates

It’s important that you watch the forecast for heavy rains or cold temperatures once you put the smaller seedlings into the garden. You may want to protect them from rains, wind, critters, or cold nights with a cloche, crop coop, row cover, and/or fleece during the early spring. You can even cut the container from a gallon of milk in half to use as a seedling cover in a pinch.

I’ve used a variety of seed sources this year and surprisingly, Etsy has been a huge source of my seeds this year. Two of the shops I’ve loved on Etsy are Moss Hall Seeds ($) and SowNoGMO. ($) The packaging from Moss Hall Seeds is just beautiful.

I went to a local nursery, Barton Springs Nursery, to pick up a few plants as well. This year we planted an Anacacho orchid, which is a Texas native. I’m looking forward to the beautiful white blooms this year. I’ve also filled in the garden with soil and a few transplants from Lone Star Nursery. They offer delivery which means I can spend more time in the garden. I’ve had good luck with everything I’ve gotten from Lone Star Nursery over the last year. All of my seeds have germinated this year, and I think the success rate has been in part due to the seed starting soil I used from Lone Star Nursery. The team there is helpful and friendly. If you sign up for their newsletter, you’ll know what plants and supplies are added to their inventory each week.

New to our garden this year are three varieties of David Austin Roses. It’s important to follow this planting guide when you plant bare root shrub roses in the garden.

Our new roses are all shades of oranges and reds. It should make for a beautiful grouping of blooms. I’ve already spotted some new leaves beginning on the stems after planting them.

Roald Dahl

Lady Emma Hamilton

Benjamin Britten

Climbing up our rose arch is a Monsieur Tillier rose variety from Antique Rose Emporium I purchased at Natural Gardener a few years ago that has produced several beautiful blooms. It seems to bloom despite receiving more shade than it probably prefers as our fig tree leafs out.

Roses have bare legs, so it’s nice to plant a few companion plants at their bases. A few good options are chives, garlic, rue, thyme, lavender, catmint, yarrow, oregano, culinary sage, and feverfew. Not only will your garden look more lush, the companion plants will act as mulch to keep out weeds and deter aphids. Roses like breathing room, so be sure to give a little space between the companion plant and the rose bush.

When I planted my new roses, I added a little compost and rose fertilizer into the soil as well. Luckily fertilizer becomes less important when you have a good soil web and use no dig gardening methods.

If you are using fertilizer, be sure to fertilize roses about every other month in February through August. Watering the roses well and deadheading throughout the growing season is important. Prune your roses in August and January/February.

This past weekend we installed an arch for zucchini and cucumber plants to climb this summer. It’s been a few years since I had an arch you could walk under in the garden, so I’m pretty excited about this one.

WELLNESS

It doesn’t matter how many times I put a seed in the soil it amazes me. How a tiny seed can turn into the most intricate, colorful, and life-giving or soul-pleasing plant is just magic. You can explain the biology to me and I’ll still see the magic in the process. It’s a surprise every time. The diversity, adaptability, and resilience of plants is breathtaking. If you need a moment of magic, just watch *this cherry blossom video and *this avocado tree video.

If you need a reminder to get outdoors and give your brain a break, be sure to read this article on gardening as a balm for difficult times. (Thank you to my mom for recommending that article!)

CREATIVITY

Playing with color, texture and form is a way that I infuse creativity into my gardening. This year, I’m using color theory to design the garden.

I’m grouping flowers by complementary colors as well as monochromatic groupings. I recently read this guide to decide whether it would be best to put darker hues at the front of the beds or at the back. The guide suggest adding complementary colors to create depth and adding darker colors to the foreground and lighter in the background to draw your eye and make the bed appear deeper.

I don’t have any rigid rules for gardening because designing, growing, planting, and harvesting in the garden is all really play for me even if it means plenty of hard work. I created a few watercolor guides where I painted the hue for each bloom. I’m a visual person and thought it might be nice to see which flower hues pair well together.

BOOKSHELF

In case you are looking to dive into some classics, but feel intimidated, I have a few resources for you. I heard about these resources in an event on Harlem Renaissance classics as well as a newsletter through Modern Mrs. Darcy’s Book Club this past week.

Lit Chart - For anyone like me who enjoys exploring a book the way you did in high school English literature class, you’ll love this app.

Middle Grade March - If you have a middle schooler in the house or just like to read like one, this list will get your shelves filled with some great book picks.

If you’re looking for book recommendations for kids (or yourself!), gift ideas for all ages or want to peek into my TBR List for 2021, head over to the 52 Seasons Book Shop on Bookshop.org. ($)

COMMUNITY

Gardening should be accessible to everyone in our community. Check out these wheelchair accessible garden beds.

School gardens are vital to our communities. We quite literally plant the seed early when we teach kids about how plants grow. When children put their hands in the dirt and interact with the process of growing their own food, they create a foundation for their love of nature. Gardening helps us all to better understand the intimate workings of the ecosystems that are a part of our daily life.

In my years of teaching and volunteering at my son’s school, I’ve helped to create several flower and vegetable gardens as well as a pollinator garden. There are many programs in every city that help to establish school gardens. Here in Austin, Texas, my favorite resources are the the SFC School Garden Program as well as Urban Roots, an organization that transform youth gardeners into leaders in the community.

"Do your little bit of good where you are; it's those little bits of good put together that overwhelm the world." - Desmond Tutu

If we all make a difference in our communities, that change will begin to happen on a global level. It begins at home. It’s what we teach our families and IT MATTERS.

Thank you for taking time out of your day to read 52 Seasons. I’d love to hear your feedback and ideas so that we can grow together.

Check out some of my favorite resources here.

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