Everything Changes
When I started gardening many moons ago, it was impossible to get organic produce at local stores. I also had a house full of children. Growing plants we could make meals with was a top priority. However, all of that has changed.
Drifting Toward Easy
My work schedule is hectic, there aren’t as many mouths to feed, and organic produce is plentiful at the Farmers’ Market and even the supermarket. Every year, my garden becomes a little more of a grazing garden. That’s a garden of plants that are plentiful, tasty, and easy to pick and munch on. It allows me the joy of wandering through the garden, soaking in the beauty, and nibbling on things as I go, without a lot of effort of scrubbing, chopping, and preparing.
Just to be clear, not everything is for grazing. I love eggplant and grow lots of varieties. No one would consider eggplant a raw “munchable”. So there is a balance to be found, but each year as I plan the garden I think more about graze-able plants. Here are some of my favorites: snap beans, edible pea pods, currants, borage flowers, nasturtiums, raspberries, strawberries, blueberries, arugula, other leafy greens, sweet peppers, and cherry tomatoes. Creating a grazing garden takes some thought and preparation. Some plants and varieties lend themselves more to grazing. The golden raspberries I grow are prolific, with two crops each season. Most raspberries only produce once a year. They also are tidy for raspberries, never getting higher than 4 feet. And they are thornless, which makes them MUCH easier to pick. Giving some care and thought to plant selection is important if you want edible AND easy.
Making Our Lives Into Grazing Gardens
The grazing garden has inspired this week’s mindfulness focus – making things easy. We can begin by noticing the things in our lives that are already easy and take time to be grateful. (Running water and hot showers are at the top of my gratitude list.) Then the mechanics of creating a grazing garden can be applied to the rest of our lives. We can step back and objectively observe everything from morning routines to favorite recipes to our commute to work. Is there a way to simplify or make it more functional? With some thought and planning, we can choose thornless over thorns. We might choose to keep things or processes in our lives that are more complicated because we love them, like eggplant. But we make that an intentional choice. The over-riding question is what would make things easier each moment so we can walk through our lives with more joy?
For more information on weekly focus works click here.
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