Gardening is community-building praxis. It enables us to feed our neighbors, teach people to appreciate nature, and creates opportunities to discuss topics that would otherwise cause some to tune us out. The climate crisis, food insecurity, class struggle, community resilience, and so many other topics become incredibly more palatable to a wider audience when viewed and discussed through the lens of gardening. Is it the only thing we should be doing? No, of course not, but it empowers us to grow so much more than just plants.
😂 not as successfully as other years but I did manage to grow a few hundred trees and bushes somehow.
Finally done with reno and in the process of moving into the new space 🥳. With my wife back to wfh I'm able to get out to the gardens for focused work a few hours each day and that has made a marked improvement in my mental health.
This afternoon I'm off to a meeting with representatives of the state library to protest their planned changes for what public libraries will have to do in order to receive funding and access to interlibrary services. There are some libraries here that would lose all their access and funding simply because they're run by volunteers or because they're entirely funded by small donations instead of from their town. If you live in Maine, please please go to your local library and find out what they need in terms of help. Actually, come to think of it, go do that regardless of where you live
My wife and I (married 9y, together for 14) have poor communication days too, and sometimes it's more than one day that these periods take to resolve. There's no single fix, but I can share a few of the things that my wife and I do to move past those rough patches and get back to operating as a team.
Ask for space to process and grant it to your partner too. The moments of high emotion are the wrong time to hash things out. Few people can be eloquent about their feelings when they're in the middle of them and even fewer are able to separate themselves from it to be solutions-oriented. Instead, ask for time to feel the emotions so you can come back and have a conversation that is respectful and productive. Give your partner the same kind of space so they can process how they feel. And if they can't or won't take that space, remember that they're speaking from a place of hurt and that their feelings are valid even if they're a little hurtful in their words.
No more "you make me" statements, only "I feel" statements (exceptions apply for positive statements like "you make me feel so loved"). Don't saddle your partner with responsibility for how you feel; you're the one feeling something and they are not to blame for your interpretation of things. "I feel" statements are not accusatory or judgemental, they are an inviting way to express how you feel and examine how you interpret something your partner does. "You make me" statements remove responsibility from yourself and place it all on the other person, which can often cause them to react defensively - understandably so, because they're not the only person in the relationship. If your partner has a hard time with this adjustment of language, practice listening to them with this in mind and hear how they feel without accepting responsibility for their feelings (but take responsibility for your actions they're interpreting).
The effort is more important than the result. Results take time and lots of effort, especially when it comes to changing habits in speech and behavior. Focus less on whether a change is successful and more on whether they're trying to make that change. Celebrate the times they're successful, sure, but recognize that the effort itself is proof that you've been heard and that they care enough about you to try. Spend some time thinking about your efforts to make changes for them, own when you don't succeed, and find ways to show your effort.
Preceding statements can help with clarity. My wife and I both have spicy brains, and something that has really helped us is saying something to the effect of "I only have clumsy words in this moment but this is how I feel". This can help to defuse the emotional tension in the moment (also notice the "I feel" statement supporting this goal) while still acknowledging that something worth addressing has happened. The conversation for resolution doesn't have to happen right then, but calling out something in this way can help you feel heard and give you both some time to think about what's transpired with more emotional clarity.
Hopefully some of this helps. Go tell your partner you love them and do something they've told you makes them feel loved, even if it might use up more emotional bandwidth than you think you have
Still one remaining plumbing related issue to be fixed, sigh, but the flooring issues have been mostly fixed, all the windows have casings and trim, and my electrician neighbor lent me his tool to fish wires behind drywall so all of the various video cables have been run from behind the entertainment console to the living room tv which was mounted today. Fiber internet got installed yesterday as well
Had a frustrating few days with my father this week but my baby brother came up for the first time in nine years and we had some really wonderful heart-to-hearts which I think/hope will go a long way to repairing our relationship further. My other brother and I are going to see Gorillaz with Deltron 3030 tonight in Boston for The Mountain tour and I'm wicked excited for that.
It's been a little frustrating for sure... I adore our carpenter and he's welcome back any time he's in the area. The electrician was acceptable but I'll probably go to my neighbor (commercial electrician) for future work. There's just been a lot of overpromising and underdelivering on timelines, which is especially irksome to me as someone who does landscape contracting.
Thanks! My laundry drain just overflowed into the laundry room for the first time ever in the decade we've lived here 🫠
Our house is still being worked on, but hopefully it will be wrapped by the end of the month (press X, or some such). One of the new bedroom floors was finished so we were finally able to change the scenery if not the fact that all of us are still sleeping in one room. But moving everyone out of the room we had been sleeping in allowed me to rip out the old carpet, fix the subfloor, and put down the flooring I had saved during demo so at least my wife now has an honest-to-goodness home office for her wfh days. Code enforcement is coming tomorrow for our "final inspection" but I don't know how that will go since the plumber didn't bother to show up today to finish his work.
We're so behind schedule on the renovation that I've been doing the things we're ostensibly paying people to do just to get things finished, but I'm unsure how claiming hourly trade wages against what we still owe for work is supposed to go. Seriously, I've done so much trade work that I haven't been to my markets (where I make my income) in over a month.
At least my wife's new office looks nice
Your local landscaping supplier should have bagged substrates as well as large quantities of soil, compost, and other materials. A quick search showed several to choose from, so you should be able to find one that lets you feel good about giving them your business
Yes, we have to cover things pretty consistently when they're first sprouting. Cardinals, tanagers, and sparrows seem to love pulling young plants out. There's usually less interest after a week or so, depending on how quickly the sprouts grow.
If you add back the fourteen dollar appetizer you got for free, all the math checks out. The receipt says it's all calculated before the discounts, and you were served that food.
[Image description: a small green crab pauses on the sand among some seaweed]
I helped some family friends clean up their little slice of beach today and saw this little friend.
[Image description: a small green crab. The photo is taken from the crab's front left side.]
[Image description: a picture of a small green crab taken from above.]
Each bundle of flowers will contain several dozen individual blooms (see below)
We surprised each other in the garden today. Best guess is Notopthalmus viridescens, but the species has a lot of variation within the population apparently.
If you zoom in there are so many tiny pollinators
I brought home several many more plants than I donated, plus another book I have no space for. It's been nice knowing you plant nerds o7
This morning's plant sales got pushed to next weekend because of high winds and low temps, so I brought home all the shallow tomatoes that were donated so I could repot them. They'll go back to the donations tomorrow, but I took a few pictures for you all to help explain how and why to do this.
Here we have an example of what we're starting with. The plant itself is about a foot tall, but the pot is only 1.75 inches. The plant itself looks healthy but a little stressed. The square pot helps, but the whole thing is very top heavy. Planted as-is, this plant will need immediate staking and support or it will uproot itself. It will still have to expend energy creating new roots, and will be susceptible to summer heat. Let's move on to repotting.
Here's a top-down of our tomato in a 1-gallon pot. We're doing this with the original pot in place so we can determine which leaves will be removed and then safely lift the plant to do the pruning. Once we've pruned off a few leaves we'll place the roots at the very bottom of the pot and then fill the pot with substrate.
So, why do this? Every little hair on the tomatoes is an adventitious root - a specialized structure that will turn into a root in the right conditions. And we've just provided the right conditions. By giving the tomato a larger root ball, we're increasing the amount of surface area from which it can draw water and nutrients to produce tomatoes. This will not only improve the number produced, but also each one's nutritional value.
And here we have our plant repotted. It will have the whole week in a greenhouse with folks watering it to grow more roots before the plant sale. If someone asks me for advice on planting it when they get home, here's what I'll tell them:
If you're planting it in a pot, give it at least a 5 gallon pot, but 10 is better. Place the root ball at the bottom of your pot, and fill with your potting mix and fertility. If you're planting it in the ground, bury it as deep as you can, even up to the bottom of the very top most leaves. Then enjoy your tomatoes.
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I'm not entirely sure how to parse your reply, but, reading charitably, I think we agree. Gardening is dozens of different disciplines with as many approaches as there are gardeners, with scores of benefits for everyone who practices it.