{"id":10367,"date":"2010-05-29T23:27:00","date_gmt":"2010-05-30T03:27:00","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2020-08-13T18:46:43","modified_gmt":"2020-08-13T22:46:43","slug":"appreciating-both-sides-of-gardening","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gardern.co.za\/2010\/05\/appreciating-both-sides-of-gardening\/","title":{"rendered":"Making a Hot Dog Arrangement, and a Saturday Garden Stroll"},"content":{"rendered":"
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We like both, casual and fancy. There are parts of our garden that are well designed, and parts that visitors never see. There are messy areas, and a tidy, well designed area, (like everyone, I guess). So here, near Boston,on an overcast Saturday at the end of May, I share some contradictions and surprises I could see as I walked around the garden.<\/div>\n
Flowering radishes,mesclun, arugula, mustards and sage may seem messy to some, but I never got to pull out all of the mesclun mixes, so what was left in the vegetable garden now has extended in the heat, and has bloomed. Normally, I would just pull it out, and add it to the compost pile, but you know, it looks surprisingly pretty and natural, if not very ‘Japanese’. So I have decided to make an arrangement with it.<\/div>\n
After all, we are trying to save cash for a hiking trip to Switzerland in a month.<\/div>\n
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Three years ago, while in Tokyo, I was admiring the Japanese mustard fields, and mustard plantings in February, when winter crops of mustard are grown for ornamental purposes, the Japanese have an appreciation for such things. They pick grasses, wild flowers, wheat etc, and arrange it in their Tokudama’s and in hand made stoneware containers, with such perfect balance and editing that only the Japanese can do, that a simply humble bade of grass or branch with a bud, transform into a work of art.<\/div>\n
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So this year, I purchased a pound of mustard seed to use both as a green manure ( seeded early in my raised vegetable beds, and then turned under in late May), and for food. Then, I saved some for ornamental purposes, and to tossed seed around the garden.<\/div>\n