Sabbath of The Land

The 2022 growing season fell right in the middle of the Shmita, the last year in the seven-year agricultural cycle when the land is allowed a rest from farming. With no big plans for cultivation, we decided to observe the sabbatical year. According to the Jewish Virtual Library, "Jewish law prohibits farming, tilling soil, planting seeds, plowing, harvesting, and pruning during the Shmita year." We are a mixed household, and since I am only Jew-ish (as designated by our rabbi), I chose not to follow the letter of the law. I do feel like I honored the spirit of Shmita, though.

A blank canvas

I had cleared out the garden the previous fall so had a figurative blank slate come spring. Our perennial plants - asparagus, rhubarb, chives, and horseradish - were left to do their thing without any harvesting. For the rest of the garden, I decided to plant flowers. I purchased several packets of "wildflower" seed blends as well as some zinnias, morning glories, and sweet peas.

The zinnias made a good showing.

We got one morning glory and zero sweet peas.

Some of the previous year's vegetables had seeded themselves too. Early on, tomato plants and various squashes appeared. Oddly, most of them disappeared again as the flowers came in. It's like they just gave up and dissolved away as  bright blooms surrounded them.

One small acorn squash that was soon overpowered by flowers.

The tomatoes looked lovely but I let them go.

As seems to be tradition, we had a family of bunnies enjoying the relative peacefulness of the untended garden. I wonder if the mama rabbit is the same every year or if it's one of the babies all grown up who comes back. Or maybe we've seen several generations since the first rabbit snuck into the garden. I'm just glad the sweet little things have found a safe place.

There was also a grand toad who had taken up residence. His movements in the beds left stream-like trails through the plants.

Always good to have a guard toad.

Overall, it was nice to see the garden going back to nature, so to speak. The flowers were lovely and I enjoyed the messy magic of the beds. I was glad to bring them back to orderly vegetables this year, but look forward to doing this again in seven years.

These babies enjoyed the peacefulness of the garden from the outside.

Planting Under a Red Sun

After the last few turbulent months, it seemed fitting to put in this year's garden while wearing a KN-95 mask. Long story short, we moved away for three months, decided it was a mistake, and came back home. That doesn't explain why I haven't posted anything new here in nearly three years, but I hope it gives a little context as to why I'm embracing the weirdness of gardening while the sky is yellow and the sun is red from wildfire smoke drifting down from Canada.

A photo can't do justice to the otherworldly color of the sun and sky

Part of me feels like I'm cheating this year. I have often been lazy in my gardening (hence the three year gap - not that I didn't plant, I just wasn't very active about it) but never have I relied almost exclusively on store-bought plants.

We bought the plants from Lowe's - and they were on sale!

We moved back into our house in early June. After unpacking everything and getting resettled (it was done quickly as I can't stand living among boxes), I turned my attention to the garden. Last summer's growing season fell in a shmita year, so I put in some wildflower seeds and let the garden do as it liked. (Click here to read my post about it.) I had done some cleaning up of the garden last fall, so it wasn't too much of a chore to get it back into planting order.

The garden before

Some flowers had come back from last year including one strong daisy plant (which I transplanted into one of the flowerbeds), and a lovely California poppy that I weeded around. I pulled out the sweet alyssum, forget-me-nots, and pretty little orange flowers that I couldn't readily identify to make room for my veggies. There was also quite a bit of dill growing in one of the beds. I decided to keep it and planted the cucumbers with it.

Dill and cucumbers, a perfect pairing

As has been typical of the garden, it was once again a bunny nursery this year. The munchkins were still resident when we first moved back but by the time I was ready to plant, they had moved out. I did make sure to repair the holes in the fence through which they had been coming and going. I love bunnies but I don't feel the need to actively feed them.

Bunnies hiding under the rhubarb on a hot day

Mama bunny made her nest in the pathway this year

So, with bunnies out and weeds pulled, I put in the plants I had purchased at Lowe's - two types of tomatoes, yellow and green squash, cantaloupe, basil, cucumbers, and sweet potatoes - and a few leftover seeds from previous years - chard and radishes. As I wrote before, I feel a bit like I cheated by using so many purchased plants but I'll just have to live with it.

All planted!

And while I actively made efforts to keep the rabbits from getting back in a eating my garden, I was more lenient with some other tenants - black swallowtail butterfly caterpillars. I haven't seen them again since the heavy rains we had a few days ago, but I hope they're still around.