{"id":3270,"date":"2017-06-04T18:45:42","date_gmt":"2017-06-04T22:45:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ordinarylegacy.com\/word\/?p=3270"},"modified":"2017-06-04T18:45:42","modified_gmt":"2017-06-04T22:45:42","slug":"gardening-rituals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ordinarylegacy.com\/word\/2017\/06\/04\/gardening-rituals\/","title":{"rendered":"Gardening Rituals"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

You don\u2019t have to be a gardener to benefit from these rituals, they will fit almost anywhere.\u00a0 In fact, they already reside in kitchens, business and just plain daily living. They are born from common sense, you remember that right?<\/p>\n

Start Early<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a>If you\u2019re going to get anywhere in the garden, or any of the above alternatives, you\u2019ve got to start early.\u00a0 Plant at the optimum time.\u00a0 Seeds and seedlings (or ideas for that matter) have an optimum time to go in the ground not just to survive but to flourish.\u00a0 It makes no sense to defy your cleared frost date or you\u2019ll find yourself starting again.\u00a0 It makes no sense to plant fall crops at the beginning of spring.\u00a0 You\u2019ll want a progression that builds on the changes of the growing season (or the market\u2026) to take full advantage of the varied conditions.<\/p>\n

You\u2019ll also want to start early in the day.\u00a0 Before the sun beats on your back and exhausts you and burns you (or burns you out).\u00a0 Pace yourself to the environment you\u2019re working in, be aware of the changes and use them to your advantage.\u00a0 For example, get your plants in before the rain so they get a good soaking and weed after the rain when the soil will yield to your hoe.<\/p>\n

Gardening Mise En Place<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a>There is no difference between kitchen mise en place<\/a> and gardening mise en place. \u00a0Everything must be in its place in order to conserve your energy, insure good flow, prevent injury, and make this gardening work a pleasure.\u00a0 Another part of mise en place is to clean as you go.\u00a0 At the end of your morning in the garden when you\u2019re done you\u2019re done, no back and forth and diminishing the joy you\u2019ve just experienced with gathering and cleaning the multitude of tools you\u2019ve used. \u00a0More than anything this insures nothing will be left behind in the garden. There is nothing worse than wondering where the hell that damn trowel went\u2026<\/p>\n

Protect Against Intruders<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a>In a community garden there are a different set of intruders.\u00a0 There are the rabbits.\u00a0 There are the deer.\u00a0 There are the birds.\u00a0 There are the residents…and yes there are the other gardeners.\u00a0 It\u2019s true there are times we just can\u2019t help ourselves.\u00a0 Just one seed pod.\u00a0 Just one cutting. Just one clump of this overgrown name the perennial.\u00a0 We don\u2019t mean to steal, in fact I don\u2019t think any gardener considers this stealing but just the same we sometimes forget to ask first.<\/p>\n

Fencing becomes one of the most popular ways to protect against intruders and many a community garden becomes strewn with ingenious and elaborate fencing. Most gardeners prefer not to use chemicals to keep pests away, especially if they are growing edibles, so any number of home remedies can literally stink up the place.\u00a0 This too might keep away the human poachers.<\/p>\n

Rest and Pace Yourself<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Gardening, especially at the beginning of the season, can be back breaking work.\u00a0 I\u2019ve learned from the elder gardeners to set small tasks for myself and assign them over the course of different days. I can see the changes in their gardens each week when I return.\u00a0 It is incredibly hard to do but in the end it prevents me from becoming debilitated too early.\u00a0 I do get there eventually (not debilitated)\u2026and by that time the garden just needs occasional grooming and then of course harvesting.<\/p>\n

Sing<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>This is the equivalent of whistling while you work.\u00a0 Gardening is like many pastimes in that it is at once joyful and frustrating, you know like golf. But occupying all the areas of the brain can reduce the frustration part of whatever pastime you call your own while increasing the joy centers. Science says so and despite the recent maligning of scientific findings, I still believe in it wholeheartedly.<\/p>\n

This woman was clapping her feet together to release the dirt from within the treads of her shoes just moments before I took this picture.\u00a0 All the while singing in her native language delighted that she had completed her morning in the garden.<\/p>\n

Our lives are full of rituals, they are a combination of habit and proven technique.\u00a0 Without them we just go face first into one thing or another without a compass or guidebook.\u00a0 They are ordinary and brilliant and give us comfort and guidance especially if they are handed down by those who have become experts.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Enjoy your week.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

You don\u2019t have to be a gardener to benefit from these rituals, they will fit almost anywhere.\u00a0 In fact, they already reside in kitchens, business and just plain daily living. They are born from common sense, you remember that right? … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[6,1],"tags":[764,241,845,844],"class_list":["post-3270","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-pause-points","category-the-elders","tag-elderbeautyproject","tag-gardening","tag-gardens","tag-rituals"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p27hQ5-QK","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ordinarylegacy.com\/word\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3270","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ordinarylegacy.com\/word\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ordinarylegacy.com\/word\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ordinarylegacy.com\/word\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ordinarylegacy.com\/word\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3270"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.ordinarylegacy.com\/word\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3270\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3272,"href":"https:\/\/www.ordinarylegacy.com\/word\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3270\/revisions\/3272"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ordinarylegacy.com\/word\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3270"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ordinarylegacy.com\/word\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3270"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ordinarylegacy.com\/word\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3270"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}