W is for willingness and weeds and wet. We have been having an extraordinarily dry winter, our normally rainy season. No serious rain since November, none at all in February. (Maybe some – at last – this weekend.)
So mulching our plants to retain moisture is critical. And there is always more learning to do. The other day we were weeding a bed with new spinaches and kales, which had become overrun by eager volunteer California poppy babies. After all, the poppies are native; why shouldn’t they grow? The goal was to remove the poppies and then cover the exposed soil with straw.
Sometimes awareness dawns slowly. About halfway through the job, it occurred to us that the poppy seedlings were wet. There had been no rain, the bed hadn’t been watered for days, and the poppies were wet. The soil around them was wet. The soil under where we had spread straw, on the other hand, was dry.
Lesson learned. The poppies were a perfect living mulch, and their roots were sending moisture into the soil where it could be shared with the spinaches and kales. We didn’t want the veggies to be obscured by the natives, so we did pull out the poppies immediately around them, and then cut the remaining poppies down to about two inches. We’ll maintain that buzz cut as the veggies continue to grow.
A central focus of our Practice is “what is most compassionate for all?” The garden is a great teacher of that, of what makes the most sense for all, of what most benefits all. In the garden, even though we “create” it, we are always the students, and nature is always in charge.
Gassho,
Penny