Patience, Yoga and Gardening

     
     The garden is doing extremely well this year and all of my hard work from the last few years is really showing this summer. I had an interesting realization recently, that being my garden is almost in perfect alignment with where I am at in my yoga practice. The thing about a garden and yoga is that patience is key. Your garden might look like crap one year with tiny seedlings and pile of dirt and by the following year it transforms if by magic into an oasis. Just like doing poses in yoga where one practice your poses are a sagging mess but with patience and persistence your poses can blossom into something beautiful.

My beautiful escape from the heat and bustle of the city.

The kitchen garden.

         
     Another example of garden patience has been my wisteria.The wisteria I planted two years ago has really taken hold but is still without any blooms. I feel I have patiently waited for two years to see its gorgeous, purple blossoms. After some asking around (thanks Nick)I was told that it can take up to five years to bloom and needs both summer and winter pruning to encourage it to flower! At first I was pissed that I invested in something that didn't produce immediately for me. I felt like ripping it out. I could barely look at it for weeks. Then one evening I was having drinks on the patio (nothing like a martini to put something in perspective) I started to look at it  more closely and noticed it had such interesting foliage and made such a lovely sound when the wind went through its leaves. My whole perspective changed when I looked at it in a different way.I decided that I was happy with it even if it isn't flowering even if it never flowers. I appreciate it for what it is able to give at this time. In yoga as well, my body may not be able to do what I am willing it to do but accepting and loving my body for what it can do gives me a real sense of freedom.

Wisteria.

       The kitchen gardens are doing really well with only a few failures this year and did not try my patience at all. I will start first with the successes....lettuce and peas! I literally have not had to buy lettuce in a month and a half and it is so tender and delicious. It will be so hard to go back to the grocery store franken- produce in the winter.

One of the many salads we enjoyed.

    The butter crunch, heirloom romaine, red planet and mizuna grew like crazy! I have enjoyed many a salad this summer. The lettuce that actually produced the earliest was the container lettuce I grew. It even froze after one surprise frost and came back better than ever. I will for sure do more of these next year!

       Nobody likes to admit failure, especially in the garden. You start to ask yourself "What did I do wrong?" "Could I have done more?" Next you start to blame others "It was totally the bad weather." "I bet the dog got into the garden." But then I remember my yoga practice, take a few deep cleansing breathes and accept that it is what it is.  That I will try again next year. One of these garden fails was my pumpkins. They shriveled up and just disappeared...dust in the wind.. My pattypan squash...sigh..it keeps flowering and flowering and with each flower I hope to see a fruit yet each flower just closes up and drops off. With pattypan squash you need the male and the female flowers to open and pollinate at the same time (you know how this works people) but mine just haven't found their mojo yet. 

My gorgeous pattypan flowers.

    I am so happy it is only July and I still have so much garden time left. Looking forward to the tomatoes, cukes and zucchini of August. Hopefully they will be be great successes but if not I always have yoga.