May 28th - June 4th: The Week My Garden Grew

In oh so many ways...

Hello dear friends! Well, it has been another wet and wild week here in Central Texas! Thankfully, while we had many storms, the majority of them did not bring with them the hail, high winds, and tornadoes they had been predicted to…thank heavens for that! What they did bring over the span of seven days was eight inches of rainfall, and my little patio garden absolutely loved it! I’m sure Eric loved it as well…thanks to the assistance from Mother Nature, I did not have to resort to using the hose, meaning at least for now our water bill will not grow at the rate my garden has. I won’t be able to say the same once every Texas gardener’s nightmare arrives…a true Central Texas summer, meaning hot as heck and dry as a bone! Don’t get me wrong, we’ve had quite a few hot days so far, but soon enough it will feel as if the ground has opened and the heat of Earth’s molten core has come rushing straight out of it, taking with it every drop of moisture.

Not only has my garden flourished with all the rain, due to a newly developed addiction to visiting garden centers, so has the number of plants it now consists of, so much so that I have quickly run out of room on the patio. While I found it a perfectly logical and acceptable solution to simply remove Eric’s grill from the patio, he did not agree, so an alternative solution had to be found, and it was…a raised garden bed. As I said earlier, we have had several hot days, so I did not relish the thought of constructing a raised garden bed made of galvanized steel outside under the hot Central Texas sun, so my solution…why, build it in the house, of course! While I had made good progress building it on my own, Eric was gracious enough to assist me once he got home from work. He was also gracious enough to show me how to properly use the cordless screwdriver, making the construction much, much simpler and quicker. While initially it seemed a smart idea to construct my new raised garden bed in the house, it was quickly made apparent that an oval ring of galvanized steel measuring six feet by three feet by three feet was not going to fit through your average doorway…oops! Thankfully, we have French doors leading from the living room out onto the patio and managed to wrangle the behemoth outside…crisis averted! Once outside and placed in what will soon become its permanent location, it also became apparent that this behemoth will require quite a bit of material to fill it, but that is a problem for another day. Don’t worry, I have a plan…I just need to find the time and energy to put my plan in motion. I’ll make sure to keep you updated on my progress.

Not only has my little patio garden grown in size, it has also become home to some new residents. As I was tending to my plants one morning, I noticed a rather large snail making its way across the patio in between the flower containers and couldn’t help but be captivated as I watched its journey amongst the many pots. Snails have long been synonymous with being slow or pokey, but maybe that’s not such a bad thing. As I spent a few moments watching its slow but steady progress across the patio, I was struck by the thought that maybe taking things “at a snail’s pace” at times is something we should all consider doing. We have become so accustomed to living in such a fast-paced world that we seldom slow down long enough to notice the little things, like, say, the beauty of the swirled pattern of colors in a simple snail’s shell. Once the little snail had disappeared amongst the planters on the patio, I turned my attention back to checking on my plants, and that was when I discovered I had yet another new resident in the garden…a yellow garden spider. Now, normally, the sight of a spider would send me running in the opposite direction! Arachnids have never been at the top of my favorite creatures list, but I was honored to see that this particular spider had deemed my garden a worthy place to call home. Knowing it felt safe enough to spin its delicate web, with its intricate and distinctive zig-zag pattern in the center, amongst my plants made me feel as if I could now consider myself to be a “real” gardener.

Well, my dear friends, I feel I have taken enough of your time today with my humble story, but I hope you will remember there is so much more to the beautiful creation God has blessed us with than simply rushing from place to place or appointment to appointment. Perhaps we could all learn a lesson from the slow yet steady snail and slow ourselves down enough so that we might find the little things that make the day better.

Blessings,

Candi 💕

Photo credit: Myself