You Grow Girl™

Over the weekend I stuck my head out of my hermit den long enough to notice that winter is coming. All of the signs are there, I’ve just been pretending not to see them. The first and most obvious being that it is cold. We haven’t turned on the heat yet but it’s getting there. The days are getting shorter, the trees are turning colour, squashes are showing up at all the corner shops, and the plants are dying back. And so, because I can’t go on putting it off and pretending that the world has stood still around me while I race towards the finish line with a big project, I spent some time over the weekend doing something about it. The biggest job I tackled was to empty out all of the terra cotta and ceramic pots, scrub them clean and then put them all away. Except for the pile that are still sitting on the kitchen floor. I don’t know where to put those yet. Seems that I acquired a few too many new containers this year and have reached beyond maximum capacity.

I had managed to take in the sensitive plants before the frost hit, however, this portion of garden cleanup is just as critical and had to be done sooner rather than later. Last year I put it off until it was too late and ended up rushing everything indoors at the last possible second, setting several pots of frozen soil in my “living room” to thaw. I must have the most patient partner in the world. I don’t think he complained about it even once. But letting it happen again would be taking advantage of his tolerance and patience. And kind of ridiculous if not impossible since we managed to squeeze a small couch into the living room this year leaving no space for frozen pots of soil.

The roof garden, August 4, 2008.

Yesterday evening, while doing some photo work, I came upon pictures I took of the roof garden during the summer months. Looking at the pictures hurt, causing an ache and longing for the garden even though it isn’t even done yet. I just hate this time of year. While I have come to appreciate the look of the garden as it decays and goes dormant I just dread knowing that I am about to enter a period of dormancy myself. That for the next 4 months or so I will only have the indoor plants to keep me going. I miss being outside in the garden. I miss the warm air and the smells. I miss touching the plants. I miss waiting for the tomatoes to ripen. I miss my dirty fingernails. I miss all of it. I even miss the difficult work.

Anyways, I think it’s about time I announced that I probably won’t be posting here for the next few weeks. I’m in the final throws of finishing the first big stage of this project and the schedule has been so demanding over the last few months that it’s been impossible to keep up. I think it’s been fairly evident for some time now considering how little I have posted here in the last while. I’ve put off saying anything about it because I keep telling myself that maybe I will have a moment but I have been kidding no one but myself. When I have a moment I want to spend it resting. The brain and the body are weary. So very weary. I might duck in to post a Daily Botanical. I’m going through a lot of photos and taking stock and often run into something that I had forgotten about. I’ll be fully back eventually, once I’m done this leg of things and my mind and body has had a chance to come down from the mania of it.

In the meantime, happy gardening.

We’re going camping! I haven’t been really, truly camping since I was a kid. As a non-driver I’ve never been able to get my feet wet in the world of tent pitching in the wilderness since getting out of the city into the great outdoors is a bit of a jaunt without a car. Sure we could take a bus and then hike it out into the forest or take an epic bike ride to the outer regions but I can’t say that any of those possibilities have ever entered my mind as options. I’m enthusiastic, just not THAT enthusiastic.

Anyways, we’re very excited about this trip and have been frantically preparing for it for the last two months. The very first thing I did was pull out “Let’s Get Primitive” by Heather Menicucci a book I blurbed a year or so back. Reading Heather’s book the first time ignited a spark in me to rekindle a childhood love of camping and the book really proved to be exceptionally handy as a second time read now that we’re really going to do it. Even my partner Davin gave it a read-through, taking notes along the way of items we might need, proving that books with “girl” in the title are useful for those of the male persuasion as well. I think he also liked that it gave him an excuse to indulge in his insatiable love for M.E.C. He’s always looking for an excuse to go in and browse or pick up some such piece of equipment for this or that, primarily bike-related. All I have to say is that we had better become avid campers after this because we’ve got a whole lot of gear and nowhere to store it. I have a feeling that we’re going to be sharing the living room with a tent, sleeping bags, and self-inflating sleeping mats for the next two months. Yes, we have self-inflating sleeping mats. We don’t have proper rain gear during the rainiest summer on record, but by god our backs will be “cushioned” on a pad that inflates itself with air. Unfortunately the mat does not deflate itself. Or generate heat. Or keep biting insects away. For that I plan to employ three brands of herbal bug spray simultaneously.

Of course as a gardener and plant lover I am most excited about the plants. I have already packed my Edible Wild Plants book and am considering creating space for a wild flowers field guide. A bug book might be handy too. And another that covers trees. Davin is packing a bird field guide. That should just about cover it.

We’ll be four or five days without internet access. I have set some photos and posts to go live while I’m gone. However, if you don’t hear from me by next Friday then all I ask is that someone water the plants.