Just in time for the weekend though the jet stream moved north and sent us dry, cool Canadian breezes. I love you Canada!
This has made working out in the garden delightful this weekend which is good because the heat and humidity and rain showers on several days has sent the garden into overdrive. Unfortunately the weeds went into overdrive too. So gardening has pretty much meant weeding.But also harvesting. Pulled up some radishes that Bookman put into an awesome potato salad. This is not your alongside burgers and hot dogs kind of potato salad, this potato salad was a meal in itself. With some cold red grapes on the side it made a tasty lunch. Radishes from the garden, onion, potatoes, carrots and peas. My peas aren’t ready for picking yet but I have small pea pods. Maybe by next weekend. Next year we are going to try growing our own onions and a few varieties of potatoes you can’t get at the grocery store. We don’t grow our own carrots. Lordy, we eat so many of them that my entire garden would have to be nothing but carrots. But anyway, seriously good potato salad.
We’ve also harvested spinach this past week and will pick some more today for a big green dinner salad. Might be able to take some fresh lettuce to add to our store-bought lettuce too. Yum.
People think I am a little bonkers because I enjoy weeding. It isn’t the weeding so much, though there is something satisfying in that too, but the kneeling outdoors, close to the ground, touching the dirt. It’s meditative. Kneeling is also an act of worship, of prayer, of submission. By kneeling in my garden I feel part of something larger. Like a good pagan, my garden is my church and Nature is my god. It’s not for nothing that Christians often refer to God as a gardener. Even Margaret Atwood in her books Oryx and Crake and Year of the Flood has a radical group called “God’s Gardeners.”Kneeling in my garden and weeding also helps me learn about what is going on in it. So often the things that really matter
to a garden are small and if you don’t pay attention you will miss them. Like I discovered I have lots of tiny little baby crickets in the wood chip mulch around my veggie beds. Crickets are good food for bigger insects like spiders as well as birds and reptiles. I don’t have any lizards or toads in my garden — yet — so the spiders and birds can eat all the crickets they want. Also, tachinid flies use crickets as a host for their larvae. Tachinids are good to have in the garden because they eat aphids but they are also important pollinators.I’ve also been paying attention to bees this year and have seen a variety of different kinds I have never noticed before. Bumblebees are my favorite but I haven’t seen any yet, they usually visit my garden in late summer and early fall. But I’ve seen lots of small and mid-sized bees buzzing around with the tachinids.
And, I saw a gorgeous dragonfly. I tried to take a photo but they all came out blurry. The body was about 4 inches long (10 cm) and it had huge beautiful wings, mostly transparent but with stripes of black and blue. It hung out with me for awhile, sitting on top of one of the tomato cages while I weeded nearby. I also saw a pretty damselfly with a bright blue and black striped body. And a red admiral butterfly briefly visited too.Sometimes before I go out to work in the garden I briefly consider putting on my iPod but never do. I am glad because nothing can beat the soundtrack of wind in the trees and the singing birds.
All this keeps me from having a Nature Deficit Disorder. As the National Geographic article points out, you don’t have to go to someplace like Yellowstone to get your fill of nature. As of 2008 more people on this planet lived in cities than lived in the countryside. Living in a city doesn’t mean one has to be cut off from nature. Cities need to design with nature in mind, creating green spaces, community garden spaces, allowing for garden friendly ordinances, etc. Minneapolis is a wonderful and supportive city when it comes to nature. Not long ago the Trust for Public Land ranked Minneapolis the country’s best big city for public parks. In Minneapolis 94% of residents live within 10 minutes of a park.As the National Geographic article says, studies have shown “nature time” is good for you. It reduces anxiety and
depression, increases physical health, and also helps those with ADD. It also increases creativity and cognitive abilities. So be sure to get outside and enjoy some nature.New blooms in the garden this week: black cumin (with delicate, light blue flowers), butterfly weed, black-eyed Susan (a volunteer from I don’t know where), blanket flower, creeping thyme, beans, radishes (it’s good to let some radish go to seed, they attract beneficial insects), and Missouri primrose.
I’ve seen on the news the heat US is under right now. And we’re having 30C temp. too, which is good for drying up the flood. It’s Canada Day long weekend now, and the flood relief work is still going on everywhere. Glad it’s not raining any more. Your garden is gorgeous!
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Arti, thanks! The south western US is very hot right now. We’ve not gotten too bad here yet, though the forecasters are threatening that the heat wave will move our way. Not looking forward to that! Our humid heat wave had us up to 30C. I think we even got up 33C one day. But over the weekend we were a lovely 26.5. If summer could only be like that every day! Glad you are starting to dry out from the flood! Happy Canada Day!
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Such pretty flowers–it must be more lovely each week as new blooms open up! I have never thought of the insects that you need in your garden–I tend to mostly think of them as pests, but I guess they have their place in the larger scheme of things, too! Sounds like a nice weekend–and I am thoroughly enjoying the great weather, too. Usually the Fourth is miserable–hot and humid and sticky and I just want to sta in the air conditioning. I might actually be able to go outside and enjoy the day this year–I even have the air off and my windows open! Am enjoying it while it lasts!
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Danielle, thanks! It is fun to see what is blooming each week. Even my neighbor commented on how pretty the climbing rose was this year. I tend to think of bad bugs and bees and that’s it. But over the last couple of years I’ve been trying to expand my insect thoughts since a healthy balance is important to a healthy garden. The 4th looks like it will be nice here too, sunny and low 80s and comfortable humidity. A good day for gardening followed up by an afternoon vegan ice cream snack! 😉
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It was 100 degrees on Friday, but yesterday and today have been wonderful– cooler and lower humidity! I’ve been here at the cabin for a week now, weeding and harvesting. Have never heard of Nature Deficit Disorder, but I’m certainly not suffering from a deficit! Found a baby rabbit in the asparagus on Sat….so tiny, so frightened.
I transplanted milkweed seedlings from my home garden down here to the cabin, and they are doing well, Since they are among my favorite plants, I’d seed a pasture if I could! I have a fondness for “weeds” like asclepias and Queen Anne’s Lace and plenty of room if they want to become invasive.
Love hearing about your garden!
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Jenclair, ugh, that’s hot! I do like the bright orange butterfly weed. It took me years to find a place it liked. I want to grow more so will be searching out new locations to try. It sounds like your garden is going well. You’ll have to post some pictures soon! 🙂
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Thanks, I really enjoyed reading about your garden and its visitors. It sounds like you are living in a wonderful place with most people being close to a park, it adds so much to the quality of life.
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I like the phrase Nature Deficit Disorder which I guess is pretty chronic in the modern world. Parks are a great solution and I think there is a large recognition that being a bit more in touch with the natural world is a Good Thing. In UK books about natural history are very popular with writers like Richard Mabey and Pobert Macfarlane selling a lot of books while the BBC’s Springwatch tv programmes also reaching a lot of people. These are all nature-lite though and I don’t suppose it is very easy to have the connection with nature that a poet like John Clare had. Compared to Clare we are all disembodied and alienated.
I hope the weather does not get too hot for you and this appalling heatwave does not last too much longer.
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Ian, it’s a good phrase, isn’t it? The man interviewed in the article has a book about it I requested from the library so I’ll be doing some more investigating. I don’t know your Richard Mabey but I do know Robert Mafarlane and like him very much. The U.S. has a great tradition of naturalists and nature writing but I fear that more and more people prefer to read about it or watch it on TV than actually spend time outdoors. My and my husband’s families live out west and they are sweltering right now, but here in the upper midwest, we are quite comfortable for a change and happy as clams for the time being 🙂
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Pining, thanks! I do live in a wonderful city. It’s why when the opportunity to move elsewhere came up a couple years ago my husband and I decided to stay put. I’m glad we did.
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Love hearing about your garden (and the potato salad – does Bookman have a recipe he can share? Or did he wing it like many a good cook does?) Rain, rain, rain is what we’ve been having. My containers are loving it. I have a Japanese eggplant that is ready to be picked this afternoon, and another one well on the way. The zucchini plant has numerous flowers, so it won’t be long – although someone has eaten two of the flowers right off – as though they were cut off. Still waiting for the tomatoes to do their thing. I love bumblebees too, but have only seen one so far…buzzing around the lantana. Something else sprang up this year that I remember planting last year in a pot. It’s an annual with pink and white flowers that are shaped like a tiny tube…the kind of thing hummers like. The flowers are usually red, but I can’t remember what it’s called. I should take a picture and let you see it. Maybe you’d know. Happy weeding and gardening and eating what you’ve grown.
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Grad, I am glad because I am enjoying writing about my garden. Bookman put that potato salad together on the fly. I can ask him if he remembers what all he put in it but I am not sure he would remember! I’ve heard about all the rain out there and up along the east coast. I know how you feel having had so much rain for three months here. Do you have rabbits? They make a neat job of eating plants. So do squirrels actually. In spite of that it sounds like your garden is growing quite well! And how fun to have a reseeded annual surprise you! It sounds pretty 🙂
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Great post Stefanie. Your comment that “Even Margaret Atwood in her books Oryx and Crake and Year of the Flood has a radical group called “God’s Gardeners” has made me feel even more resolved to read those books. I have both here, but have not got around to reading them.
Nature Deficit Disorder. I like it. We don’t have that in my city — although new suburbs tend to be a little bare. We are called “the bush capital” and green spaces are throughout, though there is some talk about infilling some of them. Anyhow, as a result we have a lot of birds – and of course kangaroos not to mention feral animals like rabbits and foxes. We have a resident blue tongue lizard and I look for it every spring. Great for keeping the snails down. Nature … so important.
And I’d love to see Bookman’s whole meal potato salad recipe!
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whisperinggums, you know Atwood is publishing the third book in September I believe it is. The books make and interesting pairing and I am curious to see what the third, and I believe final, one will be like.
Nature Deficit Disorder is a pretty good coinage, isn’t it? I requested the book that came up with that phrase from the library and should have it soon. Hopefully it will be interesting! That is wonderful you have so many green spaces in your city I hope some of them aren’t filled in, they are important for people and animals. A blue tongue lizard sounds awesome. And I can’t imagine what it would be like to look out my window and see a kangaroo. I am sure a kangaroo in the garden would be a big surprise to everyone in Minneapolis but probably not so much to folks in your city 🙂
Bookman says he will try and remember what all he put in his potato salad and write it up for me.
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Thank Bookman in advance for me.
A third book? Oh dear, I am behind.
I reckon if people in Minneapolis say they saw a kangaroo in their garden their neighbours would want to commit them!
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I read on the web that America is having/has had a huge heatwave – is that so? Ugh. I am such a wimp I only like middling weather, not too hot, not too cold. But it must be amazing for your garden. On a tangential note, Mr Litlove has just come in from ours all hot and sweaty and grubby and what’s the first thing he wants? A kiss. Is it wrong to refuse him???? I do so wish our vegetables would come along a bit – they’re growing but nowhere near as fast and furiously as yours!
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Litlove, the southwest is having a bad heatwave–Arizona, southern California, Nevada. My in-laws in Las Vegas topped out at 47.7C at their house one day. Yikes! We are not that hot at my house. Even with climate change it is rare that we get over 37.7C. Thank goodness because I think anything over 29 is hot and over 32 I am a melty mess. Sadly my tomatoes and bell peppers are going nowhere. the spring was too wet and cool and I don’t think even the summer heat will be able to revive them.
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