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Gopher Gulch: Go and play while the plants work
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Right now is a perfect time to ignore your garden. Yeah, I know. The glossy periodicals and talking heads would have us believe we need to be out there showing that garden who’s boss. Don’t bother — the garden occupants already know, and we’re not even in the running. If you didn’t get spring plants in by now, it’s too late. One more thing you don’t have to worry about. What you did get started is probably able to take care of itself for a while. It’s a few weeks early to start fall crops, but if you feel the need to do something about it, order fall plants, seeds and bulbs. If you’ve chosen water-thrifty plants, or have well-mulched soaker hoses, most of what’s growing will be happy. Unless you’re watering it the grass isn’t growing fast, so mowing isn’t an issue. You don’t want to prune blossoms off anything yet. Some are still being enjoyed by wasps, butterflies, bumblebees and hummingbirds. Others will be setting and maturing seed.
All of this means you can run away and play. If you don’t, you’ll be
sorry. Pretty soon the work will pile up and fall on us and our
opportunity for freedom will fade into the past or be put on hold for
next summer.
But for right now, the morning tides, whether high or low, are fairly low. There’s plenty of beach to play and hike upon. Trails in the forest are dry rather than dripping, and the “god light” beams on sticky monkey flowers. Creeks are low enough to permit dry passage by stepping from rock to rock, or fording them ankle deep. This is usually my choice; better wet than wrecked, and it would be so embarrassing to require rescue. There are unexpected little pools fed by small streams and home to a wealth of plant and animal life. I’ve spent years building a good library of field guides that I carry in the car. The hike of the day determines which books go along in a pocket. My newest is “Scat and Tracks,” the perfect manual for those of us who can’t resist poking at scat with a stick to see who is eating whom. Start gathering field guides and maps. You don’t have to get them all at once, but if you add a few a year, soon you’ll have more research materials than you’ll know what to do with. So now, while the garden is oblivious and the weather is lovely, go play. If we spend this week weeding, in a month we won’t remember what became of the week. But if we spend it hiking, camping, exploring, we’ll remember and smile when we think of the wonderful time we had. In the meantime, cornstalks will stretch, blossoms will become beans and the zucchini will get huge. All of these things will happen whether or not we’re standing there watching, so we may as well go have a memorable time. |
