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Gateway Gardens: Are you in danger? We want to know!

Pea SeedsAre you or is someone you love at risk because of a Gateway Garden?

Maybe you tried gardening for the first time within the last year, and now you just have to go back for more. You find yourself lingering around every seed display, and you are sneaking more and more of those brightly colored packages into the house. Although the ground is still frozen, you are already making notes and plans about which plants are going where and possibly toying with the idea of perennials.

Or maybe your “friend” started with just a couple tomato plants, and everyone thought “that’s no big deal.” But now, he or she is anxious for the snow to melt and keeps talking about getting his or her “hands dirty again.” Maybe he or she is hanging with a new crowd, which includes the man down the block who grows roses or that helpful woman at the garden center. Perhaps your friend is even talking about starting a compost pile!

These are just some of the possible signs of a Gateway Gardener.

What exactly is a Gateway Garden? It’s the first gardening experience that leads to the desire for more. Unlike those nasty types of “gateways” we hear about, a Gateway Garden is a positive experience that lays the framework for a continuing exploration of the realm of growing one’s own vegetables, herbs, fruits, and flowers.

In all seriousness, the only real “danger” to the new gardener is over-extension. Being too ambitious can led to making a first garden too big to handle, resulting in a one-time gardening effort. A Gateway Garden is a successful garden that makes a person want to come back for more.

To get the word out, we would like to talk by email with Gateway Gardeners — first-time ever or first-time in a while gardeners — about their experiences.

If you’d be interested in providing some insights into your garden, send us an email at jaysquare @ 20minutegarden.com. We will send about 10 questions for you to answer via email. Depending on the level of response, we plan to write brief posts about what we hear from local Gateway Gardeners. If you wish, you can use a first name or a gardening handle for the purposes of a post. Just let us know. We’d also love to get a picture or two to share, again with your permission.

Our ultimate goal here is to give new gardeners a chance to reflect, dream, share, and maybe even brag about their gardening stories with others and also to inspire the next wave of Gateway Gardeners to give gardening on some small scale a try. We’re pretty sure you’ll be hooked.

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By Jardinier – March 9, 2013

Meditation: On The Newel Post

Newel Post

Jan and I participate in a twice monthly quiet meditation at the First United Church Green Wood.

The location is nestled amid a woods, and the wall-to-wall windows make me feel surrounded by nature yet cozy. The sessions run about an hour and are held on the first and third Saturday’s at 8:30. They consist of about 20 minutes silent reflection, 20 minutes walking meditation, and then a brief devotion time where someone shares a reading and we each take turns reflecting on the passage.

I led a session recently, and I shared these reflections on, well, mail.

In our household we don’t have the most efficient method for dealing with mail — and by mail I mean the good old fashioned pieces of paper that are delivered to our front doorstep. Our usual letter carrier is well tanned and wears a blond ponytail and loads our mailbox full nearly every day. A typical collection includes bills and notices, special offers and sales fliers, reminder postcards from our dentist. From time to time, a magazine arrives about one or another pastime activity we enjoy and, even more infrequently, there are printed catalogs. In January, we eagerly await the arrival of the first new seed catalog of the year since, even in the cold dark days, they remind us that there is a garden out there hiding beneath all that snow. Every few months, maybe twice a year, I’ll receive an actual letter. Some mail is treasured, some tolerated, some merely annoys, but regardless of our attitude, mail happens.

I find that I really look forward to the mail. Frequently my first words upon arriving home are “Did anything come for me today?” It’s an unfair question, I know, since it’s hard to scan the envelopes with someone else in mind.

We have an adequate system but one that’s not overly efficient. We typically bring in the armload of mail and rest it on the newel post at the foot of the stairs. Right at the foot of the stairs is an antique copper pot where we drop the pieces that are destined for the compost. On a small table, we have boxes for our children who still occasionally receive mail at our address.

But all too often, the mail is just brought in from the post box and stacked on top of the post at the foot of the stairs. Depending on how much mail comes on any day, this accumulation can stretch on for several days, maybe a week.The stack grows taller and more precarious until, inevitably, the slightest breeze makes it tip over and scatter to the floor.

That distinctive sound of the mail fluttering to the ground can be heard throughout the house when it happens. It makes a mess but it’s hardly a tragedy.

It struck me today that meditation is a lot like sorting mail.

Some folks speak about “insight meditation” as if the process of meditation directly creates insight. Others speak of “answers to prayer” as if contemplative devotions are like an actual, real-time dialogue. For some folks it might be like that, but for me, meditation is more like sorting mail.

I definitely receive insights and answers when I meditate — so tangibly, in fact, that when I started meditating I kept a clipboard beside me so I could scribble down all the amazing things that occurred to me while I was trying to sit quietly. But the sense I get about these realizations is that I’ve already received them days ago.

They’re like pieces of mail that have been buried in that stack on the newel post.

If God talks to us at all, God is probably chatting away constantly. The Psalmist puts it “The heavens are telling the glory of God.” It’s constant. It’s all around us.

Meditation is a time when I can quiet down the noise floor, the jitters and pre-occupations, the inner drama and, in that quiet, I can listen. I can shut off the situation comedy of my life for a few moments and sort through what I’ve received.

And it’s not even a conscious sorting. Contemplation for me isn’t cogitation. I try to quiet my mind and then when something pops up — because it always does — I pick it up, hold it at arm’s length and consider it. Sometimes, I decide to discard the sensation. Sometimes, I put it aside for another time. But sometimes, and this occurs more frequently than I receive a personal letter, I’ll realize something.

Maybe it’s not a message. Maybe it’s an awareness– addressed to me.

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By Jardinier – March 2, 2013

20 Minute Garden Getaway: Ripe Currants

Need a break?

Travel back to the height of summer with a quick peek at our sturdy black currant bushes loaded with nearly ripe fruit.

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By 20 Minute Jan – February 20, 2013

How much space counts as a garden?

Potted BasilA story on NPR in January focused on a study of urban gardening in Chicago, the purpose of which was to discover the amount of space being used for growing food. The researchers tried to verify the community garden projects from compiled lists and found them inaccurate and not comprehensive. They turned to Google Earth to examine satellite imagery of the city and, over a period of eight months, found 4,648 sites of food production or a total of 65 acres. They counted everything– backyard gardens, vacant lot gardens, rows of plants.

The definition of what makes a “garden” has to be a flexible and generous one. Although some grand gardens may require a staff to care for them, a garden is basically a plot of land for growing flowers, vegetables or fruits. A garden can be any shape or size, depending on the time, energy, space, desire and dedication of the gardener.

Sometimes the “ideal garden” that exists in a person’s mind sabotages the garden that could have been. I know people who have been overly ambitious in planting a first garden, motivated by the idea of having some of “everything.” By mid-summer those gardens are usually a bitter disappointment, their upkeep exceeding the time or energy the gardener had to spend. Those gardens are usually one-hit wonders that quickly fade into history and back into lawn.

The winter gardening season — the time of dreams and plans — seems to be the best time to assess how much space to devote to a garden. A gardener needs to make decisions based on available time, space and energy. Is summer going to be busier than usual or less busy? Was last year’s garden too big, too small or just right? Now is the time to make plans and choices– not when standing in front of the seed display tempted by colorful packages, not when filling one’s arms with seedlings.

For the new gardener, these questions of garden size are harder to answer. My advice is to start small. A 4’ x 4’ garden, for example, of favorite vegetables will not feed a family all summer long, but it can be the first step in the adventure of gardening. Growing a couple of potted tomato plants or herbs on the patio may be all the gardening a person can do this summer, but it’s a fine place to start with growing food to enjoy. A successful garden is more fun than an abandoned bed overwhelmed with weeds. Starting a garden with reasonable expectations and commitments is the surest way to succeed.

The answer to the question of how much space counts as a garden can be as small or large as a gardener wishes. The wise gardener is the one who knows how much garden fits in one’s life rather than how much garden fits in one’s yard.

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By Jardinier – February 9, 2013

Watering house plants with tea?

Watering with Tea

My late mother-in-law was an inveterate indoor gardener and tea drinker.

Mom could grow just about anything. In her care, any leaf that dropped soon took root and found itself in a pot of its own or cozying up and sharing a pot with an established plant. Every holiday plant outlived “normal” expectations. Potted plants thrived in her care. The plant populations of terrariums did so well that they needed to be transplanted. Mom was able to keep more than 100 plants at a time green and growing, and she was always ready to divide and share her plants.

When she moved out of her big house and into an apartment, she went through serious deliberations about how to cut back from the whole gang to a smaller representation of her favorites. “Extra” plants were donated to her colleagues who were still teaching to brighten up their classrooms. It turned out to be a fairly big chore for her to transport her gifts to various classrooms in different school buildings.

Even in apartment living, she often had more plants than windowsills to put them on. Mom just couldn’t help growing great plants.

One of her tricks was to water her house plants with leftover cold tea. Mom drank a lot of tea, and she liked it piping hot. Later, usually the next day, she used any tea left in the pot or cup to water her plants. She said it was good for them.

It’s a habit that I’ve picked up. Even though a cursory internet search hasn’t yielded any solid evidence about the benefits of using tea for watering plants, I plan to keep up the habit. My plants seem happy enough. Just as important, it makes me happy to remember a favorite gardener and tea-drinker as I tend my indoor garden.

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By Jardinier – February 5, 2013