BEAUTY OF FLOWERS
My Garden
THE GARDEN IS AWAKENING
I guess it is – or rather – the gardener is awakening! Because a good crop of herbs and vegetables was growing all winter long in our little garden. But today I started getting organized because there is lots to do, and I cannot wait to get going!
Young Foxglove plant
Thistle and Mullein 
An almost ready crop of Kale 
Andive
Much of my space is still taken up by winter vegetables but some of the beds are ready, one for potatoes, and another one for flowers, this season the emphasis is going to be on food for the insects, that is so important today.
Helleborus 
Primroses among the grass 
Oxallis
Oca is another crop I’ve tried over the last few years, not very successfully. 
Wild growing three cornered leeks 
Green leaved celery grows very well here during the winter 
Wild growing Cleavers in my garden
So yes there is lots going on even as early in spring as right now. We have enough food coming from the garden, and that helped me make the decision to grow a lot more flowers seeing that insect population is under such threat. But personally I am also very happy with this decision because I am very fond of flowers.
Grass needs cutting 
A few of the raised beds surrounds are in need of repair! 
I planted a Forsythia bush today!
Dear friends, followers, and readers of my blog, I would like to thank you for all your encouragement. I’m coming up to 800 followers now and I treasure everyone of you.
MINDFULNESS
Below follow some quotes from people I admire. I have put them among photos of our garden showing how lush it is at this moment, a moment to relish and savour, a moment to be thankful for and to enjoy to the full. Yes another summer is in full swing ~~~~~~~~
“Walk as if you are kissing the Earth with your feet.” Thich Nhat Hanh
“Acknowledging the good that you already have in your life is the foundation for all abundance.” Eckhart Tolle
“The present moment is filled with joy and happiness. If you are attentive, you will see it.” Thich Nhat Hanh
“There are a thousand thousand reasons to live this life, everyone of them sufficient” Marilynne Robinson
“Life is a dance. Mindfulness is witnessing that dance.” Amit Ray
“If the only prayer you said was thank you, that would be enough.” Meister Eckhart
“Happiness is your nature. It is not wrong to desire it. What is wrong is seeking it outside when it is inside.” – Ramana Maharshi
“You have a treasure within you that is infinitely greater than anything the world can offer.” – Eckhart Tolle
MINT
“Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.” – Victor Frankl
“Mindfulness is about being fully awake in our lives. It is about perceiving the exquisite vividness of each moment. We also gain immediate access to our own powerful inner resources for insight, transformation, and healing.” Jon Kabat-Zinn
MIDSUMMER IN OUR IRISH GARDEN
Well it is midsummer now, there has been a stillness in the air all day, now as the sun slowly disappears behind Mount Gabriel, the swifts are making merry above the houses here, probably the coolness of the evening has allowed the insects to dans around making easy prey for those happily swooping birds.
It is wind still.
How nice after the emotional and exciting last two days after voting results came out, Brexit is out….. will chaos follow, or not!
I was out in the garden today, looking at what is growing, and was pleasantly surprised with the flowers and the herbs, there is not much else growing as I did not plant any vegetables, but there are quite a few wild edible plants which I am using. I did not sow nor did I plant this year because this coming autumn we are going away again, but more about that another time. There are some berries growing and producing, strawberries, red currants, raspberries, are all doing really well. The herbs too have never grown better, makes me very happy.
Though I am leaving every single flower wild or not, I am disappointed with the lack of bees and other insects, despite there being a beehive just in next door’s garden! I still have to see my first butterfly too this summer, even though I spent days in the midst of nature last week. I hope that will change soon.
Evening Primrose
DISTRACTED BY LIFE
As it was an overcast but still very nice day, I decided to do some work in our own garden. I cleared one raised bed ready for growing some plants, but I am delighted with what is growing there already, there are plenty of herbs, such as rosemary, lemon balm, lavender, evening primrose, oca, oregano (two types), and of all things some Jerusalem artichokes have come up too. So I just took out some grass and some other stuff that was smothering those plants. Ian decided to come and work with me, so he cleared the path on his knees with a small little knife, no easy task to be sure. Now and then we took a rest, either for tea or chat, or to admire the creatures flying or crawling around. Meanwhile I took a few shots of them.
These are three wild plants that I am keeping my eye on very closely, number one is a huge thistle, it is almost in flower, I know that the seeds are what the gold finch feed on and that is why I want to keep it, to attract these birds and see how it goes. The second one is our comfrey plant, it’s flourishing and what I am watching is the amount of insects that are using it, most of what I see are the bumblebees and I would love to see some honey bees on the comfrey too, of course. The third plant is two years old, I grew it as a salad plant but it was so beautiful that I did not want to eat it, so I let it grow, and when we returned from Gozo it was so large and I recognised it as a plant you see a lot around here in the wild, a type of sorrel perhaps. These three are on my watch list.
And this is a view of our garden, we have had the pleasure to sit under the hawthorn tree all week for our meals, in the dappled sunlight with the garden scents all around us and the birds singing, what a perfect summer weather, aware that for people in other lands, not as lucky just then because of rains and floods.
Always nice to appreciate what we have in the moment.
LILIES OF THE VALLEY
While doing some gardening today I discovered that the lilies of the valley were flowering, such a heavenly scent. I picked some for the house and got to play around with taking photos, then experimenting with editing, it is after all the weekend, we worked hard all day, and anyhow I have got writer’s block right now. I have one favourite among these pictures, I wonder would anyone guess which one. 🙂 Have a lovely weekend everyone.
A LITTLE FROSTY, BUT SUNSHINE
Some of these mornings lately are frosty, and the garden looks a little white, but the nice thing about it is that we get sunshine along with it, so very much needed here in West Cork. Clear the air too. The garden is waiting for attention, but my mind is on other things right now, and it’s all good. All will be in order for a fabulous growing season.
FROSTY MORNING
This morning a glorious sun rose over the hills to the East, a bright blue sky welcomed me from my dream-filled sleep. The grass fields across the valley looked like well ironed patches, smooth and very green. And in the garden there I found jewels. Jewels because it had frozen during the night, but already the thaw had set in, some of the vegetables and little plants were still beautifully laced with ice. Texture and colour, a feast for the eye.
A precious new morning, a beautiful new day.
I feel energized from this sunshine,
something to be very grateful for.
WINTER TREES
With the very wet winter we are having here in West Cork, it is rather showing up some beauty all of it’s own, it is how the trees look fresh, bringing out the colours of the trunk and branches, stark against a sometimes grey sky but now and then against clouds and sunsets. We have five trees in the garden, and these photos I took either from behind the glass if heavy rain, or outside, each brings out different aspects in the photo. Some bring out a rather foggy mood, some are melancholic, but some others bring out a bright clarity, it reflects the way that the mind is affected by the dampness, and according to Chinese traditional medicine, the mind is affected by the spleen, and the spleen is in turn very much affected by dampness, cold dampness, and that is what we get here in winter. It follows then that during these winter months the mind might become a little foggy if not careful, CTM advises us to eat warm stews made from root vegetables, with plenty of ginger to counteract this dampness inside… but that is going away from the trees a bit.
I love trees, I might even be a tree hugger, always want to touch their bark and admire their beauty, and beside that there is nothing as nice as using wood in the kitchen or wherever, the feel of it so smooth after it has been sanded, the lines and colourful markings are very nice too. I have wood on the ceiling and wall in one of our rooms, it often gives me pleasure to take in the many knots and lines visible to the eye. The scent also of wood is so pleasing.
Right now our trees are blowing in the wind, it is quite stormy and has been all winter, but they seem able for it. The silver birch moves most of all, it’s high and thin but the branches are very flexible. The Hawthorn moves very little – that is why the birds like to hide among it’s branches. The oak and the pine sway as if to the sound of their own music, while the chestnut watches over it all, stiff and majestic, even despite it has lost some of it’s branches last summer after we cut some down as they were making the garden far too shady. My trees are very much alive to me, I sense their moods, they are powerful and nothing fazes them, but they do like me to touch them when walking around the garden.
The trees, they give me much pleasure, I feel they are a blessing in our garden, and I am very appreciative.
agoyvaerts 