Living "sturdily and Spartan-like"

Well, I spent nearly the entire day in the garden, which was exhilarating, and also a bit exhausting. I'm having a blast with it, remembering the joy of working the soil, interacting with plants, and getting a bit of exercise, sun, and fresh air.

It's also both rewarding and humbling, seeing the landscape transform with your labor, and also seeing how much depends on time, weather, and so many other factors you have no control over. And, realizing how, even if you push yourself, there's only so much you can do in a day. It cultivates a sense of acceptance of both my strengths and my limitations that feels very healthy, very connected to what I feel is fundamental to being human.

I am sitting here after my long day's work and a simple supper of fresh salad, homemade rye bread, olives, and salty Bulgarian feta cheese, and I just poured myself a cup of Moroccan-style tea made with green tea my brother carried home from Taiwan and fresh mint I clipped just moments ago in the garden. It smells positively glorious.

As far as the garden work goes, the biggest part of the labor was the process of ripping up grass and weeds out of the area of the pathway (this is what it looked like before). I was inspired to try to expand the purslane planting into this area, to see if it would cooperate as a groundcover. Given that the soil is very shallow and comprises more compost than real soil, it's not a fabulous place for planting. But since the purslane had already started cropping up there a little bit, and since the plant only develops a fairly shallow root system, I thought it might be worth a try to get more to grow between the paving stones.

I almost finished; I just have a few more weeds to pull, and I obviously need to clean off the paving stones and compost the remaining grass pullings.

Above: Here's one spot of the newly replanted purslane, which I was hunting all over the garden amidst the sad, anemic, dry grass today.

While I was at it, I also transplanted some succulents from a patch at the far end of the lawn into the entrance to the path (above), and into the bed beside it, with the Moroccan mint plant (below). I also marked this little bed (below) with stones, once again against the lawn demons.


And, also, between the bricks outlining the herb garden (above and below). I thought if they got covered a bit by succulents, perhaps it would look a bit prettier. I don't love the delineation of the space with the bricks, but it prevents misunderstandings with the lawn maintenance guys who have a tendency of getting on the riding mower and destroying everything in its path.
Finally, I also did some weeding in the purslane bed next to the steps. I think I'll harvest a portion of the largest plants already in the next week to encourage root development on the plants. And to try my new crop! Hooray . . .