Time to Reflect...

July brings heat, humidity and a great desire to sit back and enjoy the mid-summer beauty the garden offers us. This got me to thinking about adding a link to the website Debbie Suggs and I created two years ago when we published our book, A Giving Garden.  http://www.agivinggarden.com/   If you look at the pictures on that site, you will see the garden in its earlier stages when it was quite new. You can also read "our story" about how our own giving garden came to be.  Here is a small section:

"We feel that the garden reflects how well Durham Academy works together as a community. This garden has at times been planted by second graders, watered by first graders, tended carefully by third and fourth graders, and has had middle and upper school advisories help out. Teachers now comprise the Garden Committee, and it isn’t unusual to see them work in the garden after school, on a Saturday morning, or during the summer. Many hands work together to make our garden grow. At any given moment, you might find someone gently rubbing lavender or rosemary to smell the fragrant herbs or (with permission) pulling out a fresh radish or cherry tomato to eat.  Butterflies flutter from flower to flower. Children come to talk to one another or play games during recess. Even in the dead of winter, it is the symbol of what a school is all about—nurturing growth and helping to put everything in balance. We give to our garden, but it gives back even more."

[Mary Kendall and Debbie Suggs. A Giving Garden ©2009.] 

A quiet place in the garden

Both photographs are by Debbie N. Suggs ©2009

Rain

night thunder
parched summer garden
revels in the rain

I was so thrilled to have rain in my own garden this week, that it seemed only fitting to toss in a haiku about it here. Those of you reading this who live in Durham had some rain several days in a row. From my side of the road in Chapel Hill, we had thunder and lightning but no rain until Tuesday when the skies opened and gifted us with much needed rain. How refreshing! The next morning I went into my garden and you could feel that plants were happy. Oddly enough, a bed of mint that I've been patientlly trying to get rid of had revived. I swear the new mint had grown four inches overnight, so now it's back to square one in eradicating this pesky mint.

Because our school garden got ample rain, there is no need to go and water it this week. We will have a group gardening meet up next Friday, July 8th. (Where is the summer going?) Meanwhile, I hope you all enjoy working in your own gardens and taking advantage of the great farmers market offerings.

Should you be interested, blueberries and blackberries are ready for picking locally at Herndon Hills Farms in Durham. Their fields are very kid-friendly and the offer the hospitality of chairs under shade trees and cool water to sip. You can't beat that.