Breathe Spring

The birds started perching on my balcony over two weeks ago. In between the cold fronts of flurries and icicles they would grace my mornings with the songs of sunshine. I quickly apologize to the little host for not having any sunflowers for them to feed from, they glance my direction then go back to snacking on the rotting apple I had thrown in the compost the week before.

Three weeks ago when spring started flirting with the city's winter vibe the grass in the parks were still the consistency and hue of hay. Now that the solstice has passed and we are well on our way to Easter the green has begun blanketing the parks flooding the mass of open space with a new horizon. The sky has opened up to the revived blue and sunglsses are once again mandatory. Even if you think it is going to be cloudy and the weather is still pushing 15℃/50℉ degrees.

All this positive fresh new energy has me excited for t spring. The ritual of fresh renewal has begun and I can't wait to partake. After a couple meetings with friends at different open green and nature based spots in the city it was time for me to attend to my own greenery and nature based friends.

So when I got a real day off I took the opportunity to begin this year's ritual. I returned to the same local small business where I had purchased my soil the year before. A little house on one of the main east to west corridor's for those living in the inner city. Filled with every varietal of cacti or succulent I was only there for soil. A small local business a couple probably started when they retired early from their thankless jobs. As a conscientious consumer I prefer local and big nurseries are out of my ethical landscape.

Humor of the situation was that the bags of soil they had for purchase were too large to fit in my grocery carry all. I had to persuade them to open the bag and transfer what contents could be transferred to another bag that would accommodate the size of my cart. Being a small business they were happy to accommodate me as long as I was willing to pay the appropriate fee. After some realignment and a paper bag I had fresh soil for my newly popping greens. Overwhelmed by the selection of plants I had to get out before I spent more than I earn. There is a kindness to small business you don't find at chains.

Upon returning from the walk home I assessed the status of all my fresh sprouts and outlined a game plan for the first reseeding of the season. The yellowing leaves of arugula from my hydroponic tank had been taunting me shamefully for the last week. Their flagrant cries for help meant they were the first batch to get placed in more grounded earth. Remember I want these to grow like weeds so I just chose some shallow open spaced pots.

Tomatoes are required to be feed from their roots and they are to fragile to go into their final resting place so I had to search my inventory or small containers with saucers for feeding. Once they get started the only thing that stops them is a good old-fashioned freeze. I will have two varieties for the summer the salad tomatoes and the beef steak tomatoes. You know that smell of a tomato vine when you brush those fine thistles on the stem of the vine; singular.

My bonus catch happened serendipitously the week before last when I was covering shifts at a beautiful residential property and the Starry internet crew dropped in to throw an event promoting their service. The theme of 'Grow with Us' came with guests choice of flowers, herbs or vines. As I was full stocked up on space for the kitchen commodities I went for the flowers and vines. It has come to my attention that bees need just as much attention as the birds. It has also been made apparent that butterfly's and humming birds can benefit from more regenerative space in urban areas during their migrations. I discriminated against flowers as being hollow aesthetics but they off much more to biodiversity than I awarded credit.

I now have a whole easter basked of soil planted with a surprise mix of pollinating flowers. That I can't wait for to bloom. Summer time meals are all about fresh produce and sweet fruit. Some olive oil, grape tomatoes and ground salt tossed as a fresh salad with the arugula is the great accompaniment to any summer meal. Yummy, yummy! What are your gardens up to? What is your favorite thing about gardening?

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By evening my hands were covered in the nutrient soil, my knees were stained with the crumbs of dirt and the air had a smoldering aroma of petrichor. The next stage in the process will come in a couple weeks when I have to perform the same act all over. The result will be the final formation of my garden as it sets to grow over the next three season. In the meantime the bins of soil left over from last season need to be nurtured for the final replanting. I have struggled over the last few years to get composting correct. No matter how many worms I have bought over the years and food remnants I proved them they seem to die. Instead of being brought back to life my soil remains depleted.

I guess that is just like me; trying to spur the beauty of growth and development just to get the regeneration mixture wrong. I continually end up exhausting the potential of the regeneration season and start right back at the beginning. I need a better understanding of how to build upon what I started. But I never give up, step-by-step I will have a flourishing balcony again.

The final steps of a two day process were now creating a landscape for which I too could bask in the glory of what I was creating. Getting the lounge area of my den sized balcony habitable brings me closer to full completion of my spring cleaning routine. My balcony was absolutely caked in a years worth of heavy soot that is a mix of high desert sand, city pollution and farming debris. It sticks to every crack like glue, and is so fine the particles go right under the dust pan.

The struggle is a compilation of stubborn moments that call for a vacuum over a broom and a mop over a vacuum. The goal is to get it back move in quality. My Berlin apartment had come with this rubber bristled style broom I had never seen before. It was the most useful porch tool I had ever had. Rain in Berlin can get heavy, much like the midwest. It doesn't matter if you try and run from the car to the front door you are soaked down to your underwear. This mop/broom would help me direct all the puddles right to the drain. Unfortunately, it was so unique I have not seen one again, and I spent months trying to find one. Eventually I settled on a lower quality offshoot american brand.

Either way we work with what we got don't we? Knowing when to settle is the hard part of the game. There were plenty times I saw this same option and I waited, holding out for what I was really looking for. But only when I was down to the wire and really need the tool did I make the decision to accept what was offered. And I used that tool as the third line of defense against caked on soot. Quarter by quarter the color of my balcony becomes clear and clean. Ahhhh, the great accomplishment of progress.

I spent hours sweeping, vacuuming, washing and mopping on my balcony as the beauty slowly came back to life. But that wasn't all I was doing. With the foothills in the back ground, the sun shining, and the creek rushing under my feet a good spring cleaning isn't complete without many a dance session. Songs from my summer of 2012 brought the radiance of my joy right back. I almost felt like I was headed for a trip to the Mediterranean. Cars with people in them sat in traffic below as I danced, lives were in the slug of life as I cleansed my spiritual space. Meters ticked up like the clock on life as I felt the sun flow into horizon.

Exhausted with pride and accomplishment at the end of the day I folded into my couch to stare at the rainbows on my walls created by the prism hanging from my window, the plants all lined up like soldiers in the setting sun and my sacred space ready for enjoyment on my balcony. What makes someone a gardener? What bonds the life of nature so closely to our own?

There is magik in nature. All plants need water, sun, soil and photosynthesis(air); all the elements. The flourish, they supply, the die and they rejuvenate. There are lessons to learn there and a joy to embody. What feeds your magik?