Garden Swings and Roundabouts

I’ve been looking at my small garden to see what worked and what didn’t work this year. Like many people in lockdown, I sowed a lot of seeds. Many of them grew into plants, which was heartening to see. It’s nice to see effort rewarded. The weather was amazing, for Ireland. It was warm, dry and sunny. We were so lucky that it was like that during lockdown, because at least it was possible to get out into the fresh air, either in the garden, the park or the beach. Then, for the last six weeks, the weather has been pretty dismal. The normal Irish summer – rain, grey and overcast. And wind. The wind decimated the plants. What the wind didn’t kill, the slugs did. It was disheartening. However, I looked at the garden again this week during the occasional sunny spot between the rain. The seeds I intended as food to eat mostly didn’t work out. The raspberries fruited, not quite as abundant as in previous years when the weather suited them better, but still. Very welcome indeed. What did work very well was the food for the bees. The bees are hoovering up the nectar from the bee motel tree, the purple geranium, the campanula that went wild, and the lemon balm that went crazy. They love the alliums I threw in a pot outside the front door last autumn. They like the nepeta and the butterfly bush. I am already investigating how to do things differently and better next year on the anti-wind and no-kill anti-slug front. So all is not lost. The food for the human body didn’t quite work out but instead there is an abundance of food for the soul. I sit beside the purple geranium, meditating, to the sound of the little solar fountain, and the sound of happy bees. Blessings. 🙂