For the past few months my wife, Ece, has been gardening at home.
There were many weeds after the Winter.
The garden had been generally unattended to – slowly but surely she got rid of all the weeds, trimmed branches, picked up and threw out random stuff, and sorted out what was left.
She re-hoed the soil in the old vege garden and planted new seeds.
She even had some special corn seeds sent from the far-East of Turkey.
Last Autumn she planted little clumps of grass in areas of the garden where a particular grass had not grown because of being in the shade.
Now those clumps of grass are spreading.
Our house is surrounded by a sea of green.
This is the 3rd Summer we have been living here. So she has actually been gardening at home for a few years.
I wish we had taken a before picture. The difference is stark.
When we first moved here nothing was growing. The owner of our house even said, “You won’t be able to grow anything here. We’ve tried already.”
Ece proved them wrong!
Apart from the vege garden (which actually feeds us quite well!) and grass & general life that has sprung up, she also planted some vine type plants below the verandah fence.
Those handful of plants have created a wall of green which now protects us from the sweltering afternoon Summer sun.
The place is cooler because of it.
The big cactus in the corner produced two pieces of fruit in the first Summer we were here. This Summer it’s like a big plant of dozens of hands with fruit as fingers. It looks a little funky actually.
But, as the Oracle in The Matrix said,
“Cookies need love like everything does.”
Ece gives her garden love.
She knows every plant, every leaf, and how everything relates to everything else. Every day she waters it in her own special way.
Gardening at home seems like a kind of meditation for her.
