To Plant a Tree

“One day is not enough to watch a tree, one life is not enough to love a tree.
I wonder when I see a new leaf, it was like a new born baby come to meet the world.” ~~ Karthikeyan V

It is high summer now and usually I would be writing about the floral offerings of July — and they are there — but this year all the interesting stuff is happening in the new mini-orchard area and in the expanded vegetable garden and in all the new construction that supports this growth.

Several new trees were planted last winter and I love to follow their growth.  This Italian Prune was nothing but a bare stick when planted in January and it is now taller than my head.

“The planting of a tree, especially one of the long-living hardwood trees, is a gift which you can make to posterity at almost no cost and with almost no trouble, and if the tree takes root it will far outlive the visible effect of any of your other actions, good or evil.” ~~ George Orwell

The new Fig (sorry, not a good photo) is establishing itself nicely.  These are not fast growers but will one day be bearing like its already established neighbor.

The Nectarine is growing nicely (that’s a Fuji Apple behind it).

“Plants are nature’s alchemists, expert at transforming water, soil and sunlight into an array of precious substances, many of them beyond the ability of human beings to conceive, much less manufacture.” ~~  Michael Pollan, The Botany of Desire: A Plant’s-Eye View of the World

Persimmons, Pears, Pomegranates are all bursting with new fruit.  And, in one of my favorite moves, the strawberry bed that was ruthlessly evicted from the garden area to make room for more tomatoes and peppers, was relocated in part to the corner of a flower bed nearest the office door — right where we can graze through each time we walk past!

“More grows in the garden than the gardener sows.” ~~ Old Spanish Proverb

Nooks and Crannies …

It is only when we silent the blaring sounds of our daily existence that we can finally hear the whispers of truth that life reveals to us, as it stands knocking on the doorsteps of our hearts. ~` K.T. Jong

I wrote last month about my love affair with the out-of-the-way back corners of Ray’s Garden.  Well, it seems I am still finding little nooks and crannies – small, quiet places, tucked away — offering just a moment or two of grace in a normally busy phones-ringing, people-talking, radio-playing world.  This little guy is one of my favorite garden inhabitants.  He lives under a shrub, as befits a proper, quiet rabbit.  I believe he is meant to be depicted as eating something but, to me, he always looks as if he is holding his paws to his face saying, “Oh, my!”

Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where nature may heal and give strength to body and soul. ~~John Muir

It appears one of these cherubs has lost a wing – which is certainly sad, but they do seem to be entirely content to be earthbound in their little piece of garden.

It’s tucked away in a quiet corner, shadowed and obscured… It doesn’t advertise and it doesn’t care if you habitually pass by on the other side. It’s just there for when you need it. ~~ Simon R. Green, Agents of Light and Darkness

There are little patches of grace and beauty all around us — just waiting to be noticed.  I guess it is my job to open my eyes and actually see them … instead of simply rushing past with my eyes set on the screen of my cell phone.

Welcome, wild harbinger of spring! To this small nook of earth; Feeling and fancy fondly cling, Round thoughts which owe their birth, To thee, and to the humble spot, Where chance has fixed thy lowly lot. ~~ Bernard Barton

Back Corners

Life is sometimes made of the small moments of contentment you find in the quiet corners of your day ~~ Anonymous

This may well be my favorite corner of Ray’s Garden.  It’s that back corner that is really no part of the garden — it’s just a waiting place — never static, always changing …  I check it out every day that I am here and, as you can see, I’ve been photographing it for quite some time, in many different seasons.  It is a small, beautiful piece of art in and of itself.  And you never never know what will pop up here:  house plants coming out for a breath of air, a pot with nothing more than a stick in it – until, against all odds, the stick sprouts one leaf at its very top — and later yet becomes a fig tree.  Sometimes its an old teapot used as a planter and often, stray toys left by the grandchildren.

The most noteworthy thing about gardeners is that they are always optimistic, always enterprising, and never satisfied. They always look forward to doing something better than they have ever done before. ~~ Vita Sackville-West

This is the corner where sick plants come to get better — or to finally die.  This is the “waiting room” where things go while a permanent bed is made ready for them.  This is that paradox:  a place of permanent transition …

Still round the corner there may wait, A new road or a secret gate. ~~ J. R. R. Tolkien

I think what I love the most is the fact that this corner doesn’t expect anything, doesn’t ask anything — it simply accepts whatever comes its way each day and offers itself, whether it’s bright and colorful or mostly quietly green.  It just is — for awhile — and then it’s something else  …

In this world without quiet corners, there can be no easy escapes from history, from hullabaloo, from terrible, unquiet fuss. ~~ Salman Rushdie

This one is a different corner — even less in public view — but another favorite …

I love the hodge-podge of shapes and colors and the fact hat every piece is ready — waiting to play its role in the larger picture.  I can only wish my life were this organized!

I look out of this window and I think this is a cosmos, this is a huge creation, this is one small corner of it. The trees and birds and everything else and I’m part of it. I didn’t ask to be put here, I’ve been lucky in finding myself here. ~~ Morris West

And Suddenly…It’s Spring

“The best time to plant a tree is twenty years ago. The second best time is now.”  ~~ Anonymous

We’ve been away from Ray’s Garden for quite awhile.  I was called away to other tasks, and besides that, the weather has been just too bizarre this past whatever-it-was-that-passed-for-winter.  Those of us who live here have been befuddled and I think the garden has been pretty confused as well.  Shorts and sandals in January, freezing temps in February, and drenching rains in the middle of a declared drought in March.  The garden plants very wisely just sat quietly and waited for someone, somewhere, to make up their mind.

The best thing to do in such conditions — it appears — is to clean up neglected areas and plant trees — and that Is what has happened here.

This is the new Fuji Apple.

A grape was made to grow on a vine, An apples was made to grow on a tree.  As sure as I know there are stars above, I know, I know you were made for me. ~~ Sam Cooke

And the Mission Fig.

And the Italian Prune.

They join the Nectarine …

and the White Fig …

the Pear …

and the Persimmon that were already here …

and most exciting of all, the old, established Grapefruit which was dug up and moved to make room for the others is showing every sign of flourishing in its new location — Yay!

 

This is our brand-new mini-orchard.  Already, the leaves are bigger than these photos show … and it is going to be a great joy to watch these trees progress throughout whatever else this very strange year chooses to bring us!

“…every year one day comes, when, although there is no obvious change in the appearance of trees and hedges, the Earth seems to breathe and it is spring.” ~~ Elizabeth Clarke

Blessed Spring, All!

Looking to the New

“The shortest day has passed, and whatever nastiness of weather we may look forward to in January and February, at least we notice that the days are getting longer.  Minute by minute they lengthen out.  It takes some weeks before we become aware of the change.  It is imperceptible even as the growth of a child, as you watch it day by day, until the moment comes when with a start of delighted surprise we realize that we can stay out of doors in a twilight lasting for another quarter of a precious hour.” ~~ Vita Sackville-West

It has been — it is still being the strangest of winters.  We had virtually no rain through all of December and January.  We had several weeks of freezing weather, which is most unusual around here — we get scattered nights with below 32 degree temperatures but they are few and far between..  We soft-living Californians were like hot-house plants suddenly thrown out into the cruel cold.  These freezing weeks were immediately followed by two or three weeks of such balmy warmth that we walked around in shorts and flip-flips. While that might be somewhat normal for southern California, this is northern California — no sandals here in January! On top of that we are now officially in a drought — yet it is raining outside today — glorious rain! — the first real rain we’ve had this long winter.  Last weekend we even had snow in the hills around us!  Again, a pretty unusual happening — something that comes maybe once every four or five years. ….. A very strange winter!

Here in Ray’s garden, almost nothing is blooming — the paper-white narcissus and the old-fashioned purple iris are the only winter faithfuls doing their job right now.  And so, clean-up and planning for future additions is about all that’s going on here, but goodness knows, that’s plenty.

Here they are “cutting a corner” — actually repaving a spot that a delivery truck destroyed one day.  While the location is often mistaken for a home, this is a business, and very large trucks come through making deliveries.  After the third or fourth time this corner was flattened, Ray wisely decided to cut it back and give the trucks more space.

The major remodel however is happening in that back area where things get dumped that you don’t want seen — every garden has a space like this.  This one has been cleared out and has some lovely new paving in place.

“Bare branches of each tree
on this chilly January morn
look so cold so forlorn.
Gray skies dip ever so low
left from yesterday’s dusting of snow.
Yet in the heart of each tree
waiting for each who wait to see
new life as warm sun and breeze will blow,
like magic, unlock springs sap to flow,
buds, new leaves, then blooms will grow.”
~~ Nelda Hartmann, January Morn  

The grapefruit tree once stood where the paving now lies, and the persimmon and pear trees are just around the corner.  The grapefruit, which was always in an awkward spot, has been moved to a back corner and we are all anxiously watching to see if it will survive.  The existing trees are now to be joined by a Mission Fig, an Italian Prune, and a Fuji Apple.  (That’s the heavily-pruned grapefruit under cover in the back corner.)

Now we wait.  These are the waiting weeks.  Clean-up has been done.  Pruning is finished for the moment.  The beds have been cleared of excess growth.  Everything is clean and bare — and now we wait for what this very strange weather-year will bring us.  And we dream of bright blossoms and fresh new fruit.

“I prefer winter and fall, when you feel the bone structure in the landscape – the loneliness of it – the dead feeling of winter.  Something waits beneath it – the whole story doesn’t show.” ~~  Andrew Wyeth  

One Year Ends …

I seldom end up where I wanted to go, but almost always end up where I need to be. ~~ Douglas Adams

This seems the perfect quote for a gardener.  In spite of all our plans and hard work, a garden has a tendency to go where it wants to go.  I know that I have never once achieved the garden I saw in my head as I did my winter planning.  Sometimes it’s fallen short of my image and other times it has turned out to be much better.  It is always it’s own thing.

Things are quiet now in Ray’s Garden.  We have been having strange weather.  Much too dry — we are starting to worry about another drought year — and unseasonably warm for December – even though the warm spells are interspersed with spells of freezing temps. lower than anything I can remember around here.  A very odd year indeed.

Looking back over the year that is now passing, it has been a profligate year in the garden.  The flowers never really stopped last winter and really exploded in spring and summer.  In the fruit and vegetable sections, the tomatoes bore more than anyone could keep up with, the strawberries were abundant, and the grapefruit were so plentiful they pulled the limbs down to the ground.  My favorite part of Ray’s garden each year is watching the full cycle of the fruit-bearing trees — from new leaf to blossoms to set fruit — to ripening and harvesting.

Persimmons are an especial favorite because they not only provide delicious fruit, but a season-long display of changing leaf colors …

But — as does all good fruit — this is where they finally arrive …

… harvested and ready — along with some equally beautiful pomegranates — for eating, out of hand, or baked as cookies or muffins or, in this case, Persimmon Chocolate Chip Bread!  Oh, yum!

Happy New Year, everyone!  And may your New Year be blessed with an abundance of green and growing pleasures!

What we call the beginning is often the end. And to make an end is to make a beginning. The end is where we start from. ~~ T. S. Eliot

Autumn Quiet

“During Prohibition hot claret wine gargle becomes popular “cure” for sore throats.”  ~~ Sonoma County Historical Society

This is the quiet time of year.  Nothing particular is happening in Ray’s Garden.  The bed’s have been cleared of summer’s excess, the persimmons and pomegranates have been harvested.  Now we wait for rain.  It’s a quiet time.

Mostly it’s quiet because The Crush is over for the year.  The wine grape harvest is in and it’s up to the winemakers now. Just a few weeks ago it was anything but quiet.  Trucks and tractors and gondolas clattering up and down the roads twenty-four hours a day in a controlled frenzy to get the precious grapes in at their sugar peak.

Now the vineyards are gold and orange — and bare of grapes.

Many  of the wineries in our part of the world bear Italian names, but it was a Hungarian, Count Agoston Haraszthy, who is credited with first bringing grape cuttings into our region, back in 1857, and in spite of changes in consumer taste, Prohibition, and Phylloxera-scares grapes have flourished ever since.

Other crops have had their day in our sun:  Wheat was the primary crop here in the years when gold-seekers and entrepreneurs flooded California — until the wheat rust epidemic of the 1890’s pretty well took out wheat completely from California.  Gravenstein Apples still are prized today and pears and prunes once ruled our valleys.  And we never forget that innovative horticulturalist Luther Burbank arrived and set up his experimental gardens in nearby Santa Rosa — giving us, among other things, Shasta Daisies and Santa Rosa Plums.

Today, grapes reign supreme here — and we are entering a time of relative quiet in our vineyards.  Soon the beautiful colors will be stripped from the vines and the fields will rest.

…

“That Plump Thing with a Navel”

How it all began: Tomatoes are thought to originate in Peru. The name comes from the Aztec “xitomatl,” which means “plump thing with a navel”. ~~  Fun Facts

When I first began this blog I thought it would be easy enough to find things to write about all year round.  After all, this is California, where bearded iris bloom in January and roses flourish all year round, but I’ve found out that there is almost too much happening at the peak of a season. I appear to prefer the change-over months, the in-between times — the times of beginnings and endings.

The flowers were abundant this summer — maybe too abundant — it proved difficult to focus on any one thing when there were color and pattern everywhere.  I loved spring, when the new plants were set out and enjoyed following the drama when an unusual late frost threatened the new seedlings.  The vegetable garden quickly took most of my attention once I recorded the promise of newly set fruits on the autumn bearing trees (they are coming very close now!).

Everything that slows us down and forces patience, everything that sets us back into the slow circles of nature, is a help. Gardening is an instrument of grace.~~ May Sarton 

The tomatoes became the story of the season. They flourished.  They became ridiculous! They threatened to take over the entire vegetable section.  The quickly outgrew their cages and escaped their plots and exploded across the disappearing pathways.  They grew so wildly that it was work to find the actual tomatoes in the center of the plots.

But Autumn is here and the vines are dying back.  Most of the leaves are gone now and the remaining tomatoes glow like fairy lights strung through the naked vines.

I love the color spread in that last photo.  And speaking of color, these below are the current stars of the garden:

Their bottoms are finally turning red, which means they are ready to eat.  They are a sweet-tasting fruit — nice but nothing special in flavor.  Just an ordinary tomato, despite their exotic appearance.

Heaviest tomato. The heaviest tomato on record weighed in at 3.51 kg (7 pounds 12 ounces). A “delicious” variety, it was grown by Gordon Graham of Edmond, Oklahoma in 1986. Gordon sliced the tomato to make sandwiches for 21 family members. ~~ Fun Facts

While this baby  doesn’t begin to compete in actual pounds, it does look more like a small pumpkin than a tomato —

I think we all have a dream of what it would be like not to work and grow heirloom tomatoes, and I do have that dream. It would be lovely. I do love gardening and all of that, but I do love my work. ~~ Helen Mirren 

I’ll end today with my favorite out of this current batch of quotes.  Happy October, all!

Just when you’re beginning to think pretty well of people, you run across somebody who puts sugar on sliced tomatoes. ~~ Will Cuppy 

Green, Green, and More Green

“It’s not easy being green.” ~~ Kermit the Frog

Well, with all apologies to Kermit, it seems it really is pretty easy to be green.  A walk through Ray’s Garden today shows me a seemingly endless variety of shapes and and shades of green.

I am not the gardener here — I am simply the chronicler of this lovely piece of earth where I am blessed to work.  I can’t tell you the names of most of these plants but I am endlessly fascinated by the colors and especially, the textures.

While not a domestic gardener, I do possess a Peterson’s Field Guide to Pacific States Wildflowers which is my bible for all wild things green and growing.  It is tattered and worn and scribbled in from being carried around in a backpack for years.  My favorite part is the back end-pages and the charts of leaf shapes.  Such a wonderful litany of Shapes:

Ovate, Delta, Lance, Heart, Kidney, Spatula, Elliptical, Pinnate, Palmate

and Textures:

Mealy, Rasplike, Smooth, Glandular, Hairy

and Arrangements:

Whorled and Basal

“The one had leaves of dark green that beneath were as shining silver, and from each of his countless flowers a dew of silver light was ever falling, and the earth beneath was dappled with the shadows of his fluttering leaves.” ~~ J.R.R. Tolkien

(Oh, I do love green …)

“ ‘Green fingers’ are a fact, and a mystery only to the unpracticed — green fingers are the extensions of a verdant heart.” ~~ Russell Page, The Education Of A Gardener

Grow a Rainbow

Red and yellow and pink and green,  purple and orange and blue — I can sing a rainbow, sing a rainbow, sing a rainbow too. ~~ Arthur Hamilton

I don’t know about anyone else, but when the temperature outside is hanging out at over 100 degrees, I am inclined to leave the garden to get along on it’s own for awhile (except for watering, of course) while I stay inside at my computer.  So this week I am sorting and categorizing the photos I’ve been taking for the past few weeks – and I have been struck – as I think I am every year – by the sheer profusion of colors to be found in one small garden.

There’s golden yellow:

and a charming peachy-orange:

and a profusion of purple:

The garden doesn’t really need a lot of words from me — it’s enough to just look …

There’s a heavenly blue:

and pink “naked ladies”:

and more purple:

and a small but present dahlia in an eye-piercing yellow:

And that doesn’t even begin to include the dozens of colors represented in the various roses around the place.  Next week I’ll be featuring the vast profusion of greens to be found when you look past the vivid colors.

Gardening is how I relax. It’s another form of creating and playing with colors. ~~ Oscar de la Renta

So Much Better When You Grow Your Own

“More grows in the garden than the gardener sows.” – Old Spanish Proverb

One of my favorite things about Summer is the anticipation of wonderful things to come…

There are so far only a couple of actual small unripe tomatoes, but the plants are overflowing their plot and it isn’t hard to imagine the juicy red riches they are going to produce — any day now.

And, of course, you’ll need lots of basil and rosemary to go with them.

“Why try to explain miracles to your kids when you can just have them plant a garden?” ~~ Robert Brault

It is ridiculously easy to wax lyrical about tomatoes — freshly made pasta sauce — the simple joy of a sliced tomato layered with fresh mozzarella and basil — or just a warm tomato straight from the vine– but I think the thing that provides the most anticipation in Summer is fruit.

This special feeling towards fruit, its glory and abundance, is I would say universal…. We respond to strawberry fields or cherry orchards with a delight that a cabbage patch or even an elegant vegetable garden cannot provoke.  ~~Jane Grigson

Strawberries may be the perfect summer fruit — they are beautiful to look at, fast-growing, and best of all — delicious.  For real anticipation, however, you need a fruit tree.  You cannot hurry a fruit tree along — you simply have to wait for it to produce in its own good time — imagining pies and puddings and jam.

Food for the body is not enough. There must be food for the soul. ~~ Dorothy Day

Eating a piece of fruit that you have watched grow from a blossom must be one of the great joys of life.  Eating it fresh and warm from the Summer sun may well be heaven, itself.  However we enjoy it, homegrown food is a blessing to be treasured.

Despite eating more than ever before, our culture may be the only one in human history to value food so little. ~~ Barbara Kingsolver, “Animal, Vegetable, Miracle”

Home Territory

 “The sun had already set behind the mountains, and the sky had been drained of color. The trellises of sauvignon blanc flowed down the hill in even rows toward the valley floor. Whatever I was looking for, it wasn’t outside. As far as I could tell, the grapes were minding their own business.”  ~~ Frederick Weisel, Teller

While running errands this week I was reminded once again that this place we live in is incredibly beautiful.

While this is a blog about the happenings in one particular small garden, the temperate climate here virtually guarantees that every otherwise unoccupied inch of earth will have something growing in it — so I decided to broaden the scope of this one post — to some of that beauty outside Ray’s garden.

This is wine country — premium wine country.  Our particular mix of valley heat and coastal fog is, they say, the perfect climate for wine grapes.  Some of the biggest names in wine originate here so we live and work in the midst of mile after mile of vineyard.  Whether we have have any direct connection to the wine industry or not we live in its midst.  It’s the language we all unconsciously speak.  Our year is marked with the rituals of the vineyard – new berries, “will it rain?”, sugar-content and especially The Crush.  Right now we look at  the new grapes and speculate on what kind of year it will be …

The sun, with all those planets revolving around it and dependent on it, can still ripen a bunch of grapes as if it had nothing else in the universe to do. ~~ Galileo Galilei

“What I aim to do is not so much learn the names of the shreds of creation that flourish in this valley, but to keep myself open to their meanings.”  ~~ Annie Dillard, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek

We tend to be a monoculture, but that does mean that we are always green and lush.  The vistas never get boring because all of this happens in small valleys divided up by rolling hills. We lie at the juncture of oak savannah and coastal redwood forest so the hills carry a variety of tree life, as well.  Grapes aren’t all we have here.  There are rolling hills for long walks…

and a river runs through it all …

And on top of all that, the ocean is only one short hour drive away…

“It is a pity indeed to travel and not get this essential sense of landscape values. You do not need a sixth sense for it. It is there if you just close your eyes and breathe softly through your nose; you will hear the whispered message, for all landscapes ask the same question in the same whisper. ‘I am watching you — are you watching yourself in me?’ ~~  Lawrence Durrell, Spirit Of Place: Letters And Essays On Travel

Given all this, it is a natural thing to want to continue and add to the beauty within one’s own patch of land — gardening becomes inevitable…..

But it is difficult, sometimes, to compete with Nature.

Into Each Life Some Rain Must Fall …

I’m singing in the rain, just singing in the rain; What a wonderful feeling, I’m happy again.  ~~ Arthur Freed

Into each life some rain must fall (at least according to Longfellow) but around here that has been a VERY little rain, lately — but we did get a nice shower a few  days ago.  It washed the leaves and cleaned the air.

Rain has been a largely absent commodity this year.  We’ve just left behind one of the driest winters I remember in awhile.  I fear it is going to be blisteringly hot this summer — the seasonal creeks that usually have water in them at least until July are already almost dry. That’s why it was so nice to spend some time in the rain-sweet garden –just breathing in the clean,sweet air.

When it rains on your parade, look up rather than down. Without the rain, there would be no rainbow. ~~ Gilbert K. Chesterton

Let the rain kiss you. Let the rain beat upon your head with silver liquid drops. Let the rain sing you a lullaby.   ~~ Langston Hughes

This rose looked unearthly in the overcast light- an eerie beauty … and no, it’s not photo shopped.

I don’t expect more rain for quite sometime, but — oh — it was a lovely gift while it lasted!

A Rainbow of Iris

In Greek mythology, Iris is one of the messengers of the gods, though less well known for this attribute than her masculine counterpart Hermes/Mercury.  She is more commonly known as the goddess of the rainbow — all the beautiful colors of the rainbow.

Once again, we haven’t a lot to say about Ray’s Garden — just a collection of photos of the plants that have been bringing us joy lately.  Hope you enjoy them,too.

“Thou art the Iris, fair among the fairest,
Who, armed with golden rod
And winged with the celestial azure, bearest
The message of some God.”
–  Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Iris

“Since Iris is the Greek goddess for the Messenger of Love, her sacred flower is considered the symbol of communication and messages.  Greek men would often plant an iris on the graves of their beloved women as a tribute to the goddess Iris, whose duty it was to take the souls of women to the Elysian fields.”  
–  Hana No Monogatari: The Stories of Flowers

As usual, we have no names for each particular variety here — since most Iris home-growers trade for colors rather than name.  [Oh, I don’t have that shade of blue.  Maybe when you thin them out I could have one?  I have a particularly gorgeous bronze I’ll trade you…..]

When I first moved to Sonoma County years ago I met an older woman whose Iris garden was the talk of the town.  On hearing that I was just starting my garden in a new home she offered me a few rhizomes when she thinned out the next day.  “Just come on by and I’ll give you a few.”   I went home that next day with three large shipping boxes filled with Iris!  It took me a week working full time to get them all into the ground.

One more photo …  This little guy does not have a  particularly large or showy blossom– though it is a lovely color.  It is most interesting for its wonderfully striped leaves.

Everything’s Coming Up Roses!

“I believe in roses. Oh God, yes! I do believe in roses! And I believe in lots and lots and lots of them, too!”  ~~ C. JoyBell

Lord, it’s been ages since I posted here!  I thought Spring would be such a great time to garden-blog — and I’m still sure it is — but things got more than a little hectic around here recently, with a loss in Ray’s family, and new personnel in the business — and Spring sort of had to make it on it’s own out there.  I do have dozens of photos but no blog to go with them.

Rather than try to play “catch up,” I’m just going to jump in with the biggest thing going right now — which is roses — roses everywhere!  Our Mediterranean climate here seems perfectly suited for roses, and they are everywhere you look.

I’d rather have roses on my table than diamonds on my neck. ~~ Emma Goldman

I unfortunately do not have names for  most of these roses, but here’s the one I do know — the Fourth of July climber:

I do love this rose!

“What’s in a name? that which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.”   ~~ William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet

“It is the time you have wasted for your rose that makes your rose so important.”  ~~ Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince

It May Be Early — but it’s Spring! (Almost)

“I love spring anywhere, but if I could choose I would always greet it in a garden.”  ~~ Ruth Stout

We’ve had an extremely weird winter, so far.  We had pouring, drenching rain through much of December — and not much since — which does not bode well for the latter days of summer this year.  Then in late January we had a week or two of freezing cold, which was most unusual for our part of the world — and the rest of the winter we’ve rarely needed more than a light-weight jacket or sweatshirt.

I read other gardening blogs and it seems that most of the ones I follow are still posting photos of snow in their gardens.  Wherever they are it is definitely still winter.  But here, this is an in-between time – a liminal time of year.  Winter is gone — and spring is oh-so-near, but not entirely here just yet.  The flowering plums and pears are almost finished with blossoming out.  The daffodils are almost gone for the year.  This is the time for setting out bedding plants – very carefully.  We can still get caught by a late frost.

… primulas, peas, and parsley … there ought to be a nursery rhyme in there somewhere …

Two of my favorite gardening quotes:

And when your back stops aching and your hands begin to harden…You will find yourself a partner in the Glory of the Garden.  ~~Rudyard Kipling

Spring is nature’s way of saying, let’s party!  ~~Robin Williams

The first acknowledges the plain hard-work that goes into spring — clearing out last year’s leftovers, turning the soil, mulching, planting and moving.  The second expresses so well the sheer joy that is spring — the happiness that comes with getting out there and getting your hands in the dirt, planning  new beds, finding new varieties to try.

Some plants just do their thing, winter or spring.  The six-foot tall rosemary  doesn’t care what the calendar says — and neither do the bees.  You can’t really see them here, but every day when the sun shines they’re out there — swarming all over the blue blossoms … busy, busy, busy …

Happy Spring everyone!

Garden Whimsy

Whimsy can be humorous to someone with time to enjoy it.  ~~ Anonymous

The weather is all over the place — heavy frost, spring-like warmth, sunshine, rain, and back to sun again — we never know what to expect these days.  On sunny days it’s obvious that spring can barely contain itself and yet it can all too easily be a snare and a delusion — a trap for the over-eager.  Rush those bedding plants into the ground and watch a heavy frost come along and sap all the energy out of them, leaving you with a bed full of weak, spindly trying-their-level-best-to-flower plants.  Best to be patient just a little longer.

There are a few leaf buds in Ray’s Garden but much of the flower garden is bare right now and this reveals unexpected delights for anyone with a sense of whimsy who might be wandering through in search of early signs of spring.

Little treasures that are hidden away much the year in all the fertile greenery — not great art by any means — just little things to make you smile when they are discovered.

“A garden isn’t meant to be useful. It’s for joy. “    ~~ Rumer Godden

I hope the tenant of this tidy home is enjoying the early primulas …

An invitation to have a seat and dream for awhile…

“A garden without its statue is like a sentence without its verb.” ~~  Joseph W. Beach

Sea and earth and human creation, all together under the ferns …

I love this little bright-blue creature — one of my absolutely favorite discoveries …

And then, because this is Ray’s Garden, there are angels everywhere.  Here …

and here …

and this rather stern fellow who watches over it all from the main doorway …

Garden additions — whether true art or whimsy — share a bit of the gardener’s soul with all who are lucky enough to be invited in to look and discover.

“From there to here, and here to there — funny things are everywhere.”                 ~~ Dr. Seuss

Happy almost-Spring, everyone!

BRR-R-R-R-R

Within the circles of our lives
we dance the circles of the years
the circles of the seasons
within the circles of the years,
the cycles of the moon
within the circles of the seasons,
the circles of our reasons
within the cycles of the moon.
~ Wendell Berry

Well … it seems I’ve been absent from here for way too long a time.  I last posted in early December and it was never my intention to take such a long break, but life sort of got in the way.  First, the holidays and then the New Year’s rush … and then the flu.  Somehow time to blog seemed to keep getting bumped to the bottom of the pile.  But, we’re back!

It’s been the time of pruning and re-digging, raking and composting.  Even here in California the garden has been largely bare — the leaves have fallen and the last blossoms dropped away.  But then there is the winter garden — this year’s experiment — new and different winter vegetables!  Cauliflower and Brussels sprouts and kale in incredible colors!

The sun is riding so low in the sky that the harsh cross-lighting almost wipes out the color some days, but the colors here in the small patch of experimental garden defy even the high-contrast sun.  It has to be investigated every day to see what new shades are appearing in the emeralds and rubies and amethysts.

That time of year thou mayst in me behold
When yellow leaves, or none, or few do hang
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,
Bare ruined choirs where late the sweet birds sang.
~ William Shakespeare

But then the unthinkable happens — maybe only unexpected here where our coldest days rarely break the low 30’s.

Temperatures drop into the low 20’s and stay there for two weeks.  Yes, I know, this doesn’t sound so unusual for many of you, but this is California, not northern Michigan!  We simply are not geared to temps like these.  And all those beautiful purples and crimsons – what is happening to them beneath the ice?

Well, as it turns out, nothing so very terrible, after all.  The young plants are still there, strong and beautiful and tasty!  Ready for creamy soups and hearty stews.  Even the grapefruit are snug and well within their plastic sheeting.

All is well and we relax once again and plot and imagine and dream of Spring and new growth.

All winter long
beneath every snowing
guess what we saw!
—- beneath every snowing
a thaw
and a growing,
a greening and growing.
~ Native American song

Dreaming of a White Christmas

I’m dreaming of a white Christmas
Just like the ones I used to know
Where the tree tops glisten, and children listen
To hear sleigh bells in the snow ~~ (with thanks to Irving Berlin)

We all know the words and we can all sing along with the movie,  but for most of us in the western part of California– that’s all it is — an image from a movie.  A “White Christmas” has a very different meaning here in Ray’s Garden.

We don’t have a lot of words today, just some pictures we hope you enjoy, all taken within the last week or so …

And just ‘because’ — after all, most things look better with a little contrast thrown in …

To quote from the movie once more: “Unless we make Christmas an occasion to share our blessings, all the snow in Alaska won’t make it white.”   All of us here at The Office Spot wish you and yours all the blessings of the season.  Happy Holidays!

The Tree of Life

What is this contradiction called a pomegranate? The pomegranate is sweet, but the pomegranate is tart. The pomegranate is tough and wrinkled, but when cut open it glistens with ruby-like seeds.  In the Greek myth of Persephone, the pomegranate is called the fruit of the underworld, yet in the Muslim Qu’uran it is called the fruit of paradise. ~ Diana Viola

There is a pomegranate tree in Ray’s Garden — not a big tree, almost more of a bushy shrub — but early  this past summer it became obvious that it was going to bear a very good crop this year if all went well.  Hard little green lumps at first, the fruits soon took on their traditional pomegranate shape.

• Distribution: Native to Persia and the Himalayas in Northern India. It has been cultivated in the Caucasus since ancient times, the drier parts of southeast Asia, the Mediterranean region of Southern Europe, and tropical Africa. Introduced into Latin America and California by Spanish settlers in 1769, pomegranate is now cultivated in parts of California and Arizona.

They began to turn pink, and then red …

They became a topic for conversation as the whole staff seemed to monitor their progress … “have you checked out the pomegranates lately?”

Not only were they growing redder, but the small tree was, by October, filled with dozens of very large fruit — ready to burst with ruby-colored goodness.

The Prince:  I do not like pomegranates.  Farah:  What is wrong with you?   The Prince:  They’re messy, impossible to eat with dignity. SO much work for a few small seeds.   Farah:  But isn’t it the effort that makes them that much sweeter?     ~ quoted from Prince of Persia

Eating a pomegranate is definitely a task that is better accomplished in the kitchen than at one’s desk.  They take work, but they are most certainly worth the effort. There are options:  We can return to our childhood and just dig in and enjoy, not minding that we become a mess in the process.  Or we can do all the work at once, near a sink, gathering an entire bowl-full of glistening red seeds to eat tidily with a spoon at our leisure.

Or — we could try something like this: www.simplyrecipes.com/recipes/kiwi_salsa/  — that sure looks good to me!

The inner beauty of the pomegranate has inspired design since Biblical times, and there are some who believe it may be the fruit on the tree of life. ~ Anon.

After the Rain

“There’s naught as nice as th’ smell o’ good clean earth, except th’ smell o’ fresh growin’ things when th’ rain falls on ’em.”  ~~ Frances Hodgson Burnett, The Secret Garden

We had rain here last week.  Nothing like the rain the poor people back east have been through — no hurricanes, just a nice cleansing rain, washing off the accumulated dust of summer and early fall.  Right now everything smells like heaven must smell.  The colors are brighter and all the folks with allergies can breathe for a day or two.

There’s something about the look and feel of the world after an early autumn rain that seems less like the ending of things and more like the beginning.

“Though I do not believe that a plant will spring up where no seed has been, I have great faith in a seed. Convince me that you have a seed there, and I am prepared to expect wonders.”  ~~ Henry David Thoreau

And speaking of new beginnings, there’s a new bed in Ray’s Garden  – winter vegetables — garlic and cauliflower and kale.  They don’t look like much right now …

…but there’s that whole ‘promise of things to come’ look about them.  With our mild winters here, these little babies should have plenty of time to mature and provide good tastes and nourishment on the table.  And small as they are, they too looked beautiful after the rain.  Just take a minute to drink in the incredible range of colors here — green and blue and purple — all sparkling with the left-behind rain-drops.

Let the rain kiss you.  Let the rain beat upon your head with silver liquid drops.  Let the rain sing you a lullaby.  ~Langston Hughes

Greening

Let your life lightly dance on the edges of Time like dew on the tip of a leaf.
Rabindranath Tagore

Summer is definitely winding down, even here in California.  Before much longer, the leaves will be turning color and begin to fall.  Already the bright flower colors of the summer months are fading away.  Right now, though, there is still time to soak up the many delicious shades of green that fill our world.

Jade, Olive, Moss, Mantis, Laurel, Pine, Teal, Fern, Emerald, Celadon … even the names for green are delicious.

There is always Music amongst the trees in the Garden, but our hearts must be very quiet to hear it.  ~Minnie Aumonier

Never say there is nothing beautiful in the world anymore. There is always something to make you wonder in the shape of a tree, the trembling of a leaf. ~~ Albert Schweitzer

There has to be something in the very fact of “green” that touches something deep inside us — so much has been written about is.  Some association with hope, with newness …..

Spring flew swiftly by, and summer came; and if the village had been beautiful at first, it was now in the full glow and luxuriance of its richness. The great trees, which had looked shrunken and bare in the earlier months, had now burst into strong life and health; and stretching forth their green arms over the thirsty ground, converted open and naked spots into choice nooks, where was a deep and pleasant shade from which to look upon the wide prospect, steeped in sunshine, which lay stretched out beyond. The earth had donned her mantle of brightest green; and shed her richest perfumes abroad. It was the prime and vigour of the year; all things were glad and flourishing. ~~ Charles Dickens, Oliver Twist

So many shades of green.  So many forms …..

For in the true nature of things, if we rightly consider, every green tree is far more glorious than if it were made of gold and silver.  ~~Martin Luther

Seasons Change

For man, autumn is a time of harvest, of gathering together.  For nature, it is a time of sowing, of scattering abroad ~~ Edwin Way Teale

You could be forgiven for believing we are still in high summer around here — for one thing, it’s 100 degrees today!  And there are summer blossoms galore all around the garden…

…but if you look closely you can find signs that change is coming …

So while the work of the garden will still involve a lot of clipping and watering to maintain summer’s blossoms for awhile yet, the clues are there — that it is time to start planning for next year.

Garden time is always right now, next month, next season.  Enjoy the fullness and bounty of summer, while planning the work of fall — and all the while dreaming of the spring to come.

Reaping a Harvest

It is only the farmer who faithfully plants seeds in the Spring, who reaps a harvest in the Autumn. ~~ B.C. Forbes

Beauty comes in many forms and there is no question but that the roses and lilies and chrysanthemums are beautiful, but then there is something beautiful about growing food for the table, as well.  Living here in northern California, in our perfect climate, many of us grow vegetables and fruit — just for the joy of seeing them grow.

For a long time, most gardening books came from the East Coast and they always made vegetable gardening seem like such a next-to-impossible task — wintering-over beds, digging out from the snow in the spring, pampering plants through a short, steamy summer.  It’s so easy here that almost anyone can grow something – even if it’s only one small tomato plant on an apartment balcony.  The hardest job is keeping enough water on your plants in the hot days.

While some folks go the whole distance with peas and beans and corn, most of us make do with the basic necessities of life:  tomatoes, peppers, and basil.

and even if you get a little behind in keeping the blossoms pruned away, if you look closely, you can see that the bees LOVE it!

Medicine for the Soul

Luther Burbank is quoted as having said: “Flowers always make people better, happier, and more helpful; they are sunshine, food and medicine for the soul.”   It’s good to take a moment and spend it among green and growing things — and sometimes, if we can’t get outside to the real thing, photographs may have to do.

So many of us today spend our days in offices, sitting at computer terminals, with only occasional daytime glimpses of the world outside.  Those of us who work at The Office Spot have the gift of Ray’s Garden right outside the door — waiting for us to look up and notice.

We invite you to take a turn through Ray’s Garden throughout the year and the changing seasons.

Hello world!

This is the journal of a garden — one man’s vision and sanctuary from the pressures of the business world.  Here there are no office supplies and no delivery schedules.  Over the years, Ray Palacio, owner/manager of The Office Spot, has designed and implemented this garden spot – a place of beauty and peace in a busy world. We’ll be following what’s new in the garden and occasionally taking a look at other gardens, as well.

Welcome!