Gardening reflects life
Always changing, learning, growing…

Using pencil and watercolor is quickly becoming my current favorite media combo. They’re both pretty forgiving and I can always add pen or colored pencil on top.

Garden notes envelope

The other thing I’m enjoying is adding the envelopes and pockets to the journal. Normally I would just write my thoughts on the page, but this journal is a little different. In a garden things are always changing, or I’m making mistakes, and I’m not comfortable writing those things down on a page when I might be writing the opposite the next day or week. Hence, the envelope (shown below) and pocket (like one shown in the previous blog post). I’m writing garden notes down on paper like below and putting them in the envelopes or pockets.

Mistaken identity & Virtue check-up

It’s such a gift to get starts of plants from other gardeners. My daughter, who is growing a food forest in her back yard, gave me some starts of herbs. This week I found out that the yarrow I planted was really chamomile. It’s totally fine and probably better for my garden raised bed due to size, but not for my journal plan shown in the last post. I will make a note of this and put it in the pocket. I’m sure this is not the first adjustment I’ll be making.

I knew that starting a garden and a journal would be a learning experience. Right now I’m learning to give myself grace to not do it perfectly. The process is pointing out my perfectionism and the virtue I struggle with most: patience. For example, I planted dill and parsley from seed. The seedlings are minuscule. Today I saw a dill and two kinds of parsley plants at the garden store. Yep, I’m going to plant them asap.

The other thing that raised its ugly head like a weed in the garden of my heart was ‘comparison.’ I found myself looking at the growth of raised beds of friends and family and wanting mine to look as productive. I had to nip that in the bud this week too.

I haven’t started on my pages of nurturing the garden of my heart, but I can see that needs to come soon.

Starting the journal pages of my salad raised beds #1 and #2 is a relief for me, doing what I am familiar with. Beginning with pencil and my ever ready eraser reminds me how much forgiveness and forbearance can be drawn out on the pages.

Sketching the garden journal pages

For visual reference to draw from, I use photos from my garden and also look online for plant photo reference. The cabbage (below) wasn’t as developed in my raised bed as it looks in the drawing below. I looked online for a photo and then drew something similar. They were drawn with a fine line mechanical pencil and then painted using watercolors.

These beautiful chives were a gift from my daughter and her garden. I love how gardening brings people together in nature.

Finished garden journal pages of raised beds 1-2 in June

The maps of the garden beds are similar to how they look in June except my dill is tiny in real life. I’ll be planting a 4” dill plant tomorrow…I painting the pages with watercolor paints and did add a bit of dark brown colored pencil to deepen the contrast along the inside edge of the raised beds. I really like the envelope, the interactive experience of it, and also the sewing along the flap.

Presence matters

Years ago, when I went to college as an adult learner, I took an organic gardening class. The thing that stood out to me was what we could do most to benefit the garden:

“The most important aspect in maintaining
a flourishing and healthy garden
is the attentive presence
of the gardener.”

I appreciate you stopping by and hope you are inspired.

Nurture what brings you joy!

Valerie