I Love My Garden

  "Chives in full bloom.”

© June 2008 Judith Hirst-Joyeux

            

In 2004, Roger and I decided that we would create a garden in our back yard, and that we would grow some of our own vegetables.  The first dig of the ground was tough!  We bought this fairly large rotor tiller to use to dig up the ground. Being from a farming background in Manitoba where we had a light soil, I though that digging the garden would be easy.  Was I ever wrong! 

I was not prepared for the river clay and stone base that was just beneath the thin layer of topsoil in the garden area.  Being stubborn though, I hung on to the rotor tiller for dear life, and kept breaking up the ground.  I had new found respect for our ancestors who tilled their land with hoe and sometimes horse and plough. Roger kept cheerleading from the deck that he was building, telling me that I was doing a great job.  He needed to keep on hammering and sawing because it was June and we were expecting about forty or so guests in the next two weeks. 

It took me three rounds of tilling to get the soil anywhere close to being in a condition to plant.  I was shaking by the end of the second round and needed to postpone the third round until the next day.  I did round three and decided that our soil needed some help.  I added some bags of rich dirt and some peat, and tilled again.  Then, because this was the first year, I planted mostly potatoes - to break up the soil- and some staples like lettuce and onions. 

Since that first garden, we have experimented and added and dug out all sorts of herbs and flowers.  The vegetables have been constant, and in some cases, now that we are in year five, have begun to self seed and cause interesting growth patterns in our garden.  For example, this year we have spinach in the oddest places - in the carrots and around some tomato plants.

The one herb that has always done brilliantly (as one of our friends from the UK would say) in our garden, is the chive plant.  I love the chives! They are green and purple - full of vitality. The chive is really a small onion, and it adds so much flavour to salad, soups, stews, eggs, casseroles, chicken, roasts, and potatoes.  A baked potato without sour cream and chives is lonely! 

Our chives are the first plant to come up every spring, and they are now in full bloom as you can see from the picture. We don't grow them just for looks, however.  The chives do keep some of the nastier insects out the garden, and at the same time, the purple flower attracts bees that pollinate the other plants.  Chives are also a herbal remedy that may be used to treat colds.  Dried chives are made into an infusion and the cold sufferer drinks it one cup three times daily. 

I love the colouring of chives. The green is for healing, and for the heart chakra, and the purple or violet is for the crown chakra.  In keeping with our Angels And Ancestors mantra, it is a plant that does "Rise Higher".

I love my garden!  May you be blessed with happy gardening.

Judy  

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