On Tending & Maintaining A Garden

I

haven't been home much the past month or so because there are seasons when you're running a small business that you just get very, very busy. This is that season for me, or rather the start. It also happens to be an odd season for gardening, especially for myself as a newbie gardener. There are so many tasks and things I must get done in the garden that I just have not had time for and this brings a slight heaviness to my heart.

I have not been able to keep flowers pinched or bushes pruned. I haven't turned my compost in weeks. I haven't taken out the blistered and mottled leaves off my vegetables. I haven't tied and staked my ever growing tomatoes. I haven't planned my autumn sowings. I haven't even planned soil amendments. The list goes on and with each passing week of my absence in the garden I can feel my plantlings (I know that's not a word) calling for me. 

"Tomorrow, tomorrow, soon, soon," I say rushing out the door. 

But this morning, a particularly cool late August morning, I finally made the time. I arose earlier than usual (at 5:30 AM), quickly made a cup of coffee, and slipped on my Birkenstocks while still wearing my pajamas. I had my garden gloves, my large metal pail, and my small garden shears. And I started to tend and maintain. 

First there were the cosmos. Then the strawflowers. Then the asters. Then I trimmed back the salvias. I weeded the flower beds. I picked off dead leaves from my kale, my cabbage, the cucumbers, and the squashes. I saved seeds from the strawflowers into little envelopes meant for friends. What felt like only 20 minutes was in reality an hour and a half and my husband called out from the house asking if I was going to the office that day. 

I surveyed the work I had done, I looked around me, the garden didn't really even appear as if I had done any work. Oh bugger! But my nails (despite wearing garden gloves) were dusted with dirt, small beads of sweat were trickling down from my forehead, and I had filled my garden trash pail and several pots with the morning's work. 

A part of me wanted to say "I think I'll stay home today after all and tend to my garden" but of course because it is a busy season in my shop and I cannot do this. 

And so I put my garden gloves away, wiped my shears, emptied my pail (into the compost it goes! Spin! Spin! Spin!), threw away the diseased leaves and weeds, and got ready for work. 

I am learning that Adored Vintage and even my new venture Atèlëtte are my metaphoric gardens I must tend to and maintain. One cannot always be planting new things and creating new beds. The real work is the trimming, pruning, mulching, weeding, and constant surveying that the seeds you have planted continue to bear fruit and bloom. It is all so much work, but it is heart fulfilling work. Uplifting work. Life giving work. I wouldn't be doing any of this if my heart and spirit were not wholly in it.

Learning to balance all the tending and maintaining for my passions and endeavors will be something that remains a constant in my life. And that's ok. And it's ok that I can't get to everything all the time in the time I think I should be getting it done by. There is tomorrow and there is today and I can only do so much. But for now, I take comfort in knowing I have done my little bit in the physical garden and then in my metaphoric garden of AV.