Hi there, it’s Hillarie! Rewilding Mind is a reflection on nature and how we connect to it. It’s a calming read to help you slow down, be present, and find wonder everyday. Read on for ideas on to returning to nature, finding ourselves, and creating community. 💚
Hi friends,
Our endless spring ambles on in the PNW and everyday is a small trend towards warmer days. In the meantime, my cool weather crops are thriving: radishes, lettuce, kales, and chard. My favorite is the cauliflower, which keeps throwing up more soft green leaves that increasingly curl inward in anticipation of the flower to come.
The extended cool weather has also brought out some iconic creatures from the forest, including a massive pacific banana slug! One of my ducks snatched this off the base of a tree in the forest, and it was too big for them to eat. I happy intervened and staged a little slug photoshoot before returning it to composting duties. These small interactions remind me to find beauty in all things, even those deemed pests. They all have a purpose.
Garden Update: More Questions Than Answers
This is my second year of gardening/homesteading, and I still feel like I have barely scratched the surface on all there is to know. Stacks of gardening, homesteading, and farming books circulate around my home, offering up some reassurance and general guidance to a newb like myself. But the wisdom and knowing required to effectively tend to a garden cannot be captured on all the pages of text in the whole world.
I had successfully planted things in the ground, but now what? Are they growing slower than normal? Am I supposed to trim back, deadhead, or provide ongoing soil amendments? When are the plants ready to harvest? When I do harvest, how much of the plant can I harvest? It was clear that I needed more than a book to take me to the next level, but where to go from here?
After days of mulling on the issue, I finally worked up the courage to ask a few local farm/garden friends if I could come to their garden, watch what they were doing, and ask questions. I felt like a burden even asking and wasn’t sure whether this would be a strange request. It was a relief when they responded with emphatic support, asking when I wanted to come by. Turns out, my fellow gardeners recognize the learning required to be successful, and they were happy to share with me their hard-earned wisdom.
When I showed up for my first day of what I am calling garden school, I did not have a long list of questions, but instead showed up with my curiosity. After some pleasantries, my garden mentor and I started strolling around her space, simply looking and observing. Pointing to things with few words and launching into conversations about what we were looking at. I saw plants of all kinds looking not so different than my own. All of it eased my nerves and gave me to confidence to continue growing.
In an upcoming issue, I am going to dive into what makes a good garden mentor and how to be a good garden mentee. In the meantime, drop a comment if you have ever had a garden mentor. What was the most valuable thing they provided for you on your garden journey?
Enjoy the week and may you find peace in the wild things. Please take care, be kind, and talk soon,
Hillarie
I really love this idea! I want to be a garden mentor -- gardening can be lonely sometimes when you spend so many hours outside, and there are very few people to witness your successes and failures. I can understand why the people you reached out to were thrilled to have you; there should be more collaboration like this and I will have to think about ways I can create it here in North Carolina :D
My dog has greatly impaired the growth of my Hostas and Black Eyed Susans.