Today I planted about a hundred bulbs….tulips, apricot beauty, mrs. john scheepers, also crocus, muscari, and hopefully some leucajum (but the bag was unmarked!) It took a couple of hours to prepare the soil and get everything into the ground. Here I have a picture of some of my bulbs in the ground. I’ve planted bulbs so many times — but still I hesitate, wondering which direction is the right way! I hope I’m not sending some flowers into the ground!
Lately I’ve been stressed about a few things in my life — gardening unrelated — and I can’t believe how getting my fingers dirty in the soil for a few hours takes me away, gives perspective. It’s like being connected; knowing there’s this larger thing in life, something beyond human drama, beyond our petty grievances. And it’s also a reminder of what is important; things that live, breathe, grow, be. Things that are present, here and now.
Tulips represent luxury. They last for only a few weeks; they take time to plant, energy and space that you might want to allocate to something that reaps more reward, something longer lasting, something green, something that takes less maitenence and space. But when they bloom, when you have rows and rows of color, standing upright on their stems, you just get to enojoy and part of the enjoyment, truely, is that it doesn’t last. So its the ultimate test of “being present” — i.e. being here to actually see the flowers when they blossom, and notice. Enjoy. It makes me feel rich to be able to plant rows of tulips and even fantasize about seeing their color. Lucky lady that I am!
On to the vegetables….I harvested my first winter tomato today!
So much for that nursury owner who told me there’s no chance I’d get tomatoes during winter in southern California. Several look to be ripe in the next couple of weeks. I’ll report back on how they taste!
