Observe, interact, and plan

Early on Monday mornings I look at all our gardens, harvest the day’s veg, and think through priorities for the week. Apart from being practical, it’s beautiful out there.

There are a lot of choices in the garden where there is no single right answer. Sitting with questions can help you decide what to do, rather than jumping frantically into action.

For example, We have tons of veg flowering right now. Much more than I can harvest for seed. I am letting things flower, cross pollinate, and then only keeping a couple of each variety to complete the cycle. I allow many things to flower for the sake of the bees and other insects. And for the sake of beauty. Yet I also need the space for a new cycle.

In the observing, I realised it’s a last moment to harvest and dry nettle before it goes to seed. I have to imagine my future self, on a cold day, drinking warm nettle tea. Nettle tea is a really good easy crop, but I have to psych myself up to do the drying, because right now I don’t feel like drinking nettle tea.

I see a lot of garlic chives, and will cut and dry them today, because taking a special trip (a whole 20 steps) out to the garden for garlic chives is one I’ll often skip. Yet if they’re dried in a bottle, we’ll eat a lot of them.

Sometimes these small things add up over many years to a big change in our palates and preferences.

Summer growing part 2 3 Nov 10-11:30 R250 While the first summer veg workshop was to get you prepped, the second part will look at how things are growing, check what we can improve, and make plans for the rest of the season.