Usually I do not write about Hive in my Hive posts. It always feels like breaking a fourth wall, like actors on stage talking to the audience as part of the play but also not. I am not always sure about this relationship of when talking to the audience becomes part of the play but also not. Either way, I rarely do this "fourth wall" break as I see it. I know a lot of people on Hive write about Hive, but Hive to me is more of a creative release, a release of tension that built up through time (the week, the day, the year, my life, and so on). It is only on my Hive Birthday that I write about Hive.
Hive is also about building community, forming connections, cultivating friendships, and keeping engaged. Lately, the buzz has been on engagement. And to this I fully agree, but engagement takes time.
And here I find myself in this slump of having no time to engage - or even write for that matter. I have written a couple of posts in the last month or two, and I have yet to return to fully engage with comments.
But this post is about gardening and not my lack of engagement on Hive and the reasons for this. But it is also kind of about this problem? I mean, my garden is like a small Hive community itself, growing their roots together, a symbiotic relationship of sorts. And like Hive, it takes time, it demands attention and engagement. Otherwise the plants will grow wild - at least those that need thinning out, like my wild rocket. Also, some plants go to seed, and it is good that they self-sow, but this does not help with saving the seeds for later planting, or to plant them elsewhere. This goes for Hive as well - you need to sow some seeds, you need to harvest others so that you can plant them elsewhere or later when the time is right.
In all honesty, writing this feels so strange for two reasons. Firstly, as I said above, I rarely want to break this fourth wall I set up for myself (unless it is my Hive Birthday). But secondly, I honestly do not have the time to even write this (or any other post) and knowing this, I also know that I will not be able to engage with others - the whole point of this endeavour, right?
Maybe I am only writing this to kind of cleanse my brain, also the reason why we as gardners garden?
So this morning, knowing full that I (i) do not have time to garden, and (ii) that I do not have time to photograph and post a Hive post about this, I set out to:
- harvest some seeds,
- cut back my wild rocket growing, well wild,
- sowing some seeds, and
- transplanting my rosemary cuttings.
The first task was to cut the basil seeds and the garlic chive seeds. I left them on the plants for longer than usual because I wanted it to self sow its seed, but also because I did not have time.
I do not have time to even breathe.
But alas, here we are, writing about it, and doing it in the same morning.
I lay the seeds on these trays which will help with the drying process. Moisture is the enemy at this stage of the game, and the sooner they dry, the better.
In other parts of the garden, I also had some cutting back to do. I cut my wild rocket back aggressively, to the frustration of the honey bees who loved the yellow flowers. I do not even try to collect the seeds any longer because (i) they self sow so effectively (through my whole garden!) and (ii) I have jars and jars full of their seeds. So why bother with harvesting more? (Maybe I can sell them...)
Either way, I cut them back because they did not produce nice leaves any longer. The longer they grow, the more woody the leaves get. I do not like this. So, I cut them back, and this led to a rather sad event. The bees still pollinated the yellow flowers even though I already cut them back! At least they got their pollen.
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I also have been growing some rosemary cuttings now for a couple of months. I counted ten new plants! My garden is already so full, I really did not have any space to plant them. Before I got so busy, I did not have much trouble making hundreds of cuttings. I planted them all over the garden, and I am really seeing the "fruit of my labour" as one might say. These are the last of these cuttings.
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So I planted them in the garden and in pots underneath other already established plants. Anywhere that I could find some space, I planted some rosemary bushes. I will see if they establish their roots, and if they will grow nicely. It is always nice to have too much rosemary! And now with the rain coming, they will have plenty of water.
And that is all from my garden for me this week, and possibly for the next couple of months. It is strange how I had spent countless hours in the garden, and now I am struggling to even write about it, don't even speak about getting into the garden.
I guess this post is also about saying both thank you for the countless support I have recieved on Hive over the years, but then also a big sorry for the lack of engagement from my side. It looks bad, and it is bad, that I am not getting time to discuss and engage with others. But just like the weeds growing in my garden because I cannot pull them from the ground, I am also MIA on my Hive.
I hope that soon things will change, but I am not sure it will.
All of the musings are my own and the photographs are my own as well. They were taken with my Nikon D300.