To Prune or not to Prune

So Spring is here now, and all of our babies are waking up from their winter nap to a beautiful season. We're trying to make up for last year's mistakes and get a head start this year so we won't fall too far behind. The Lavender garden is a big project. Alex and I went out there the other day, clippers in hand, ready to rescue our dying plants. The weeds did a number on them last year, and lots of our beautiful babies were half-killed by the evil crabgrass. The Lavenders look woody and dried out, but most of them have new green growth at the very end of the old dead stuff. So she starts cutting away, snip, snip, snip, "giving them a haircut" she likes to think of it as. But me? Oh....the horror. I have a real problem with pruning in general, not to mention pruning out of season. I am so afraid that I am going to cut in the wrong spot, or too much, or not enough. I'm so afraid that I'm going to kill the very thing I love.

I panic and Alex comes over to give advice, "cut about a third, and try to leave some new shoots if you can." So I go back at it, dismayed face, telling the Lavender, and reassuring myself...."she said a third, that's the rule." It's an unreasonably stressful thing for me. I feel on the verge of tears, and have to keep taking deep breaths. Alex says, "you really have to be okay with this, it's kind of an essential part of being a gardener." I know. I know...but I feel like I'm hurting myself when I cut off all this beautiful new growth.

I feel like this plant tried so hard to survive for us last year, despite our incompetence, and the fight with the weeds, and it survived. And instead of being grateful, and happy for it, here I come along and cut it down again. But we have to. If we let it continue, it's just going to get gangly, and ugly, and not very healthy. We know pruning now might hurt the plants. Some of them hardly have any new shoots at all, but if we don't try, we're not going to be able to keep them anyway. It's a risk, and it's our fault that they are like this, and I guess that's what feels so bad. I just have to learn to forgive myself, and pray that the little bit of life left in the Lavender can forgive me too.

Tax Seasoning

So the winter is generally a quieter time. Birds migrate south, plants go dormant, animals hibernate, people stay inside by the fire... Um...well... ideally that may be the case, and in some ways, still, yes. But reality is that human life doesn't much take notice of the seasons anymore, and our jobs still want us to show up everyday, the bills still come, and life still presents us with seemingly millions of things to do and no time to do them in.

Case in point: This year we have gotten unusually high amounts of snow. It happened that because we live far, far away from our night jobs and Virginians are generally unprepared for anymore than 3 inches of snow, we got to spend a couple of weekends snowbound in the house, with no obligation, or desire to go elsewhere. Those weekends were a godsend because it gave us time where we couldn't leave the house so we had to spend time cleaning and organizing everything for the spring...which always seems to come sooner than it should. I made a comment that first weekend..."this is great, all we need now is about 5 more snow-weekends and we'll have everything together!" Be careful what you wish for.

Alex is pretty much back to work as normal. For me, however, the snow took my request seriously and weighed down on the roof of the bowling alley I now bartend at until it twisted some support beams. I have been out of work for a week and a half and still have about 2 weeks left to go (if I'm lucky.) So that's that.

But with all this time off, you'd think I'd have written a novel, mastered the guitar, or at least gotten the house clean and organized. No such luck. Funny thing about time, the more you have, the more you seem to waste. Ah well, we are getting back on track finally and I have started being more productive.

Something I've allowed myself the luxury of doing during my "vacation" is to cook. Cooking for Alex and I is always an adventure. Food usually ends up splattered somewhere, someone usually gets hurt, and there are lots of sound effects (like "Oops, Sh**, Uh...," or general yelling of orders and explatives.) A while ago I received a pressure cooker as a gift. This is something I was excited about because I love Indian food and all my Indian friends assure me that a pressure cooker is essential. When I pulled it out to use for the very first time today Alex asked, "Who would get you a dangerous piece of cooking equipment?" Good question. I answered, "My Uncle Eric. Because he loves me." And that's the truth.

More on cooking Dal by pressure later....

Realignment

Rainy day here on the farm...not much getting done. Why do rainy days make us so lazy??
Since the mysterious thief of the PotLuckHerbs blog name was actually my very good friend, we're flipping over from potluckherbfarm.blogspot to just potluckherbs.blogspot. I'm hoping this won't be too much of an inconvenience to the two followers we have already....thanks Jen and Angela for your support!!

WELCOME!

So today begins the official chronicles of two Long Island Ladies who decided to pick up and follow a dream down south to the heart of Virginia. Here we have been for 3 years now growing our herb farm. With little more than some backyard gardening knowledge and a love for nature and the outdoors, (despite severe asthma and allergies!) we have sacrificed the traditional route, comfort, security, and at times love to pursue our dream. A dream that will be realized when we can finally quit our nighttime serving jobs and run our successful herb farm full-time. Growing, planting, harvesting, teaching, making crafts, hosting events and bringing something wonderful to the world - these are just some of our goals in hard times, struggling against a failing economy, and our own great need for sleep!

Come join our journey!

The thief of pot luck herbs

Hello. Today I begin a blog of Pot Luck Herbs...there is someone who has taken the potluckherbs name and started a blog of his own...although nothing is posted...I'd like to discuss this with said unknown person....