Sunday, March 25, 2012

I love weeding :)

It felt SO good to be out walking and weeding the garlic fields today. Last year at this time we were in the process of moving to the farm, then fixing up our 'city house' to sell, then having our older son's wedding in June. There was NO time, not one minute, to weed last year, so the fields were an embarrassing 'mess'. More importantly though, I love being in the fields listening to the frogs, birds, insects, etc.

I know I could use that time 'productively' by weeding and listening at the same time to archived interviews, lectures, or even music on my iPod, but I wouldn't be able to hear the music of the wind, and I would likely miss feeling the wind on my face, too, because I was already multi-tasking two things, which is almost too much for me to do anymore. If I were listening to something on my iPod, I would also likely miss hearing the splash of something landing in our pond. I love looking up from our fields with eager anticipation to see who has found us.

I love weeding. :) Every motion is soothing to me. I doesn't matter to me that 'the job is never done'. I love nurturing our garlic, and I love the feeling of being a member of the community on our farmland, paying attention to these details. (By the way, Dick loves doing other things on our farm as much as I love weeding.)

Field sparrows arrived last night and began singing on the farm today from nearly every direction. I don't know if they are early or not due to our extraordinary warm, even hot, March, but so much else is that they might be. They are a plain little brown sparrow. They are not 'feeder birds', but they do have a cute pink bill and a beautiful haunting song that they sing longer into the summer than most other birds. So I love having them on the farm, even if I never find their nests. It's enough for me to hear my little bird friends, day after day, throughout the day, and nearly into August, too. They love overgrown, shrubby fields, and we have plenty of those. Maybe that is why I hear them in stereo when I walk our land. :)

You are what you grow - cultivate your life - inch by inch, row by row,

Diana Dyer, MS, RD

2 comments:

Corner Gardener Sue said...

Hi Diana,
I found your kale blog by doing a search to find out whether it is OK to eat kale the second season, when it is blooming. I like to let some of it bloom, but may try cutting them off of some of the kale in hopes of continuing to harvest longer.

I ended up looking around and finding this blog. I clicked on this link, because I love to weed, too. I don't have the space you do, though. My husband and I live on a small corner lot. I also blog.

The way I usually eat kale is by picking a few leaves and munching on them while gardening. I want to try steaming some.

Do you use kale when it is blooming?

Diana Dyer said...

Welcome to my blogs, any or all of them!

Yes, I eat kale when it is blooming. The seeds are edible, too, like mustard seeds. I can tell you from experience that if you let the kale go to seed the second year, and then let the seed pods pop the seeds , you will have baby kale plants sprouting all over the garden for a long time. I just pull those and eat them later, if they are growing someplace I don't want them. Kale forever!
Diana