spring, fall, and the process

Spring planting was something I did for my parents in their latter years, something I enjoyed immensely. They had great soil, great dark soil, and it was a pleasure to garden with such good dirt. As reality goes, weeds grew happily in that soil too, but after weeding, the rest was easy. You could handily hollow out the required small crater and drop a tiny plant into the soft dark soil, press the dirt granules to surround the plant, and that was the extent of the process.

I knew what my mom liked, and I knew what I liked, and there’s this thing about planting. You have to buy plants with something like a vague game plan, but other than that, you dig a hole and insert the plant, and that’s 95% of flower gardening. Dig a hole, insert a plant, cover it over with some dirt, and give it a watering. It’s called the process. The process is initiated. The precious process.

My parents could handle watering once in a while, and I could fertilize when I visited, and that’s all it takes in good dirt. It was a process I loved. I came in May and started the process. When I came back in July, things were well on their way. A little fertilizer, a little water. And my mom had pretty flowers growing at the corner of her yard. She was pleased. It’s called the process.

My dad wasn’t as accepting or agreeable. He still had a few tomato plants growing along the side of their house that came from nothing more than re-seeding. Again…the process. He’d nurtured those plants for years and years, and the plants did their part.

I think of plants in a personal way, and I imagine the plants and seeds respond with something like gratitude. An acknowledgement and appreciation of everyone’s role, and a recognition of the relationship that exists with plants and the earth and humans. My dad didn’t really accept that someone other than him would plant his tomatoes for him. From his chair in the living room, he said something like, if I can’t do this, and if I can’t do that, what’s the point? Nevertheless, we planted the tomatoes, and without much in the way of staking or other attention, they produced more tomatoes than the ones I tend to on a regular basis. Good dirt. And the process. It just works.

The process. Trust the process.

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Photos and images are my own and may not be used elsewhere or reblogged.
Please visit my other blog, Clover & Ivy, https://cloverandivy.wordpress.com.
I post mostly nature photos there.