Welcome Back...and Home

Grown in the Garden has moved to a new garden!  As many devoted readers may have noticed,  I have been fairly quiet since my early summer posts.  It is now the middle of the winter and after a hustling and bustling fall and holiday season, the garden has moved.  

Moving is by no means an easy task let alone moving a garden.  Irises had to be divided, coneflowers dug up, lilies thinned, seeds collected, and volunteers gathered.  I tried my best to take a variety of my favorite specimens while leaving the foundation of the garden in tact. 

Each pot was carefully labeled in preparation for the winter months when the plants would disappear into the soil and become undetectable (I also thought it might help with my planning once I got to the new house.)  But thanks to a helpful, nut seeking squirrel, I came outside one day to find all of my labels tossed about.  So I suppose I will have a surprise by the time springtime rolls around.

After many of my plants were at home in their new pots, I packed them up in numerous carloads and carted them to the new house.  The new garden is well established, and has much more space than what I am used to.  I was able to familiarize myself with the plants and new space a little by transplanting and thinning lambs ears, harvesting more cherry tomatoes and cucumbers than my culinary skills could handle, and planting spring flowering bulbs before the frost arrived  As if in a race with winter, I tried to get as many of my plants in the ground as possible, in order to protect them during the colder months. 

The ability to nurture, transplant, and carry a piece of the work and growth with you, is perhaps one of the aspects of gardening that I appreciate most.  As I leave one space behind, in order to begin a new one, with all kinds of new possibilities and potential, I take comfort in the knowledge that when spring comes, my little seasonal reminders will appear once again in their new home.  

During this process, I think back to my great-grandfather's garden.  I wonder about all of the plants that he nurtured and cared for over the years and wonder if somewhere, on that piece of land, there is a part of his garden that still makes its appearance each spring.  As I think of this, I hope that I am able to carry the reminders of my past gardens with me, while simultaneously leaving traces of them behind.