Today, I practiced some gardening techniques after going back out into nature.
There has been some recent rain, which has sweetened and loosened the soil.
One of my favorite things is how fresh the air is after a rain or a downpour.
Nature is such a great way to practice earthing/grounding, I found it incredibly so when replanting/re-potting some trees around in the soil. I think it can also help teach people out of perfectionism. Because you start to see how nature is perfect in its own way. It also helps people become more nurturing, I've found.
People who've worked around / with technology/sterile environments too much get kinda scary/dehumanized, I've always found great pleasure in being around nature as much as possible, whether it's on walks in nature (aka Forest Bathing), flower arranging, and/or other things like cooking with one's hands. Now that I think about it, when I used to work in a tech company, the employees were so...mentally strung and unhealthy, due to its competitive pharma industry nature, and I found that giving a flower arranging workshop helped people kind of, remember their humanity.
I've found water/baths also help people. You can actually see hard lines/wrinkles/stern critical eyes melt off the face and relax. It's very, very interesting to see. And I recall, when I worked in a government, national lab, it was EXTREMELY therapeutic to have plants around, for the whole team, including the head honcho. So glad/grateful we had that in that laboratory space, to balance out the sterility of lab instruments. Also, many millennials may know of this (at least the ones I knew), since people are having children later due to education, they stagger up to rearing kids by first 1) Taking care of plants, and then 2) Taking care of animals, which can be helpful. It's also scary the kinds of things you hear in healthcare/healthcare-related industries, like this physician once told me to say "Thank you" more to the nurses, because they surmised that if the nurses felt appreciated/sweet-talked, they would be more willing to help you out/do a better job. If I had kids, I would tell them to not be the kind of person who relies on a "Thank You" to stay in a job, because you can get easily manipulated that way, to have a good, healthy sense of intrinsic self-worth. People also do this to bosses. So just be careful. Ten cuidado. My own personal/professional experience is that, I think regardless of education/where you come from, or whatever, the people who make good parents tend to be good healthcare providers. But that might not be true of everyone's experience.
I'm increasing and working on my gardening skills, because when you get in touch with gardening, you really start to get a sense of how food is made and cultivated, and develop more of an appreciation for how it is brought to the table. That farm-to-table stuff is really real, and I love gaining a deeper appreciation of the circle of life (without it being too stressful, no deadlines or anything). Also working on this type of craft for my museum, a lifetime of craftsmanship, with the idea of "Love, Cleanliness, and Technique/Skill" in mind, when I use my hands to create.
For plants,
I have:
Sweet Genovese Basil
Snipping the flowering buds once they've sprouted. Right now, they already have and gotten to the point where the leaves have become bitter / near inedible, but I've trimmed the bits and might bury them in a flowerbed for composting/nutrition. Returning things back to the earth.
Sweet Peppers
It's winter, and leftover peppers have dried on the vine - mine seem to ripen late Summer-early Fall.
Cherry Tomato Plant
This has grown like crazy! Even with minimal care in an outside garden bed. I companion-planted them alongside sweet peppers and basil, in particular, since that helps reduce the likelihood of pests/bugs and weeds. I want to reduce using fertilizers/chemicals as much as humanly possible. So far, it's been a success! Next step is to trim the branches that are overgrowing and stifling the space of other plants, and maybe replant them or do something else with them. All little tomatoes that have been left on the ground, I moved them to replant in a flowerbed, maybe they will sprout a new tomato plant? Who knows. Quien sabe.
My Snapdragons (that are still here!)
True to the label, the one thing I've found one needs to care for them is removing the flower buds when they have wilted/withered/died, at least ideally, from a horticultural standpoint. Today, I checked, and they appear to have rotted and gotten moldy, and don't typically fall off easily on their own
Skills that I have acquired:
Typically, good at keeping plants / flowers alive, once in the soil. I'm actually surprised at how many have stayed alive.
I use rice as fertilizer, in addition to watering them, and making sure the amount of shade vs sun is good
Since the sun rises in the east, and plants typically like morning sun, it could be a good idea to plant on eastwardly sides of places, but if the sun is too powerful/it gets too hot, one might need to move plants southward
Gaining more of a sense of how the seasons affect the growth of crops, local to your area, but then, the controversy of global climate change. I can rest assured that I have very little carbon emissions (I walk everywhere, take public transport historically), but I still like caring about environmental causes. I always grew up around people who cared about it, but it was the experience of backpacking in Alaska that really sealed the deal for me. How much it changed the mating patterns of wildlife and melted the Mendenhall Glacier so that my crew & I almost died (I'm not being melodramatic, we had to be rescued by some kayaks due to a flood, and our cell phone batteries were at 2% in a no/low signal area. To be honest, I was kind of annoyed that the 2 people I were travelling with ignored the state park recommendations to NOT go into the cave, but we had travelled so far, so they went anyway (mankind's hubris!). By the grace of God, I am still here.)
More basic information on horticulture & agriculture: https://unity.edu/careers/horticulture-vs-agriculture/#:~:text=Horticulture%20is%20the%20study%20of,improve%20their%20quality%20and%20quantity.
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