#109: Garden Guilt
#109: Garden Guilt
Garden guilt got to me so I streamlined my work with a sweet courtyard, and a recipe for Potato Curry with Spinach and Mushrooms.
I started looking through photos from my gardens at Pie Cottage over years past. I loved the cottage garden I created back in 1999 when first I moved here with bulbs, annuals, perennials, roses here, there, and everywhere. But with teaching, both at home and on the road for as much as five months out of twelve, and writing three books in four years, keeping up with it became too much. “Wild” is the word good friends used when they would come over. I felt so guilty I wasn’t out there every spare minute to tame its wildness, but life is short and there are only so many hours in the day. So, as much as I love a blowsy carefree look, I let it go…
…and instead of fretting about what I couldn’t do, I created something I could take care of. Now I have a sweet courtyard surrounded by lavender that has become an outdoor living room where I welcome friends and neighbors, and have over the fence chats with walkers and bike-riders.
And yes…it is very much easier to take care of. The lavender planted around it is now in its third year and attracts bees and other beneficial pollinators. It does double duty as bedding for the chickens when I cut it, too.
I’m heading back out to the vegetable garden shortly to harvest potatoes and I’ll make potato curry with spinach and mushrooms, a recipe from my second book Home Cooking. I figured out how to attach a downloadable PDF so you can print it out and make it without having to drag your computer into the kitchen or read it off your phone’s tiny screen. The wonders of the digital age!