Tree Planting and Seed Sowing
The Journey of Mindful Gardening from Soul to Soil
So here we are again with another edition of The Mindful Gardening Newsletter. It’s the middle of February and the garden here in Cordressagagh is beginning to come alive.
Along the East side of the garden by the lane which I call The Way of Beauty a lovely host of daffodils (Willam Wordsworth) are about to bloom. The many crocus blubs I planted in late November are now showing their purple leaves and there is the scent of the hyacinth that are emerging.
Tree Planting Season
Image by Elsemargriet on Pixabay
This week Lennon and I paced out the distance for the tree planting we plan to do later in the week. I have found it of real benefit and fun to be working together with this young man. The trees include:
· Alder - 5 of these
· Elder - 2 of these.
· Rowan – 1 of these
· Crab Apple 1 of these
· Silver Birch – 2
· Pussy Willow – 5 of these
The way I marked these out was to find out from Future Forests (from who I bought them) the spread of a mature tree and its height. Then I divided this spead by two to find the center. Then I added 1 meter between each of these. Now this Sunday afternoon myself and Lennon will begin to dig holes to plant them in.
Seed Sowing in February
Now is the time for me to pull out all last year’s seed packets that are stored in different boxes of a photo box. I know I want to sow the following: -
· Carrots – Nante 5 - Detailed Article
· Broccoli – Rabe or Raab.
For many years I found it difficult to grow carrots here in Cordressagagh until I adopted the technique from the cute couple from Bumblebee Farm. Here is the link to the YouTube video Planting Carrots In The Raised Bed Garden ~ How To Grow Carrots for a way of planting carrots in Ireland that works.
Green Manures
Bee on Borage Plant
This week I will look at ordering some green manure. I use a lot of borage because this creates what my favorite Irish poet W. B. Yeats refers to as “a bee loud glade.” This line is from my mother’s favorite poem The Lake Isle of Innisfree which you can listen to me recite.
Last year I put in a lot of apple trees, pear trees and hazel nut trees. I call it our fruit and nut grove. It’s very weedy and I have placed a lot of cardboard between the different trees to suppress the weeds.
I planted some red clover close to Stewarts Grove as a test patch to see how well it would grow. It has given me the idea that I want to plant red clover all over the fruit and nut garden which will form a lawn which I know the bees will absolutely love.
This Weeks Blog Posts
When I write blog posts for my website The Mindful Gardner’s at
Tony Cuckson - The Mindful Gardener
I feel I am a painter like my father. He was a watercolor artist and as a legacy he started the Armagh Art Club.
This week I discovered a way to put a gallery of photos together related to the blog post which was like doing a painting with photos. I just loved to see how the colors of the different photos come together and, in a way, affirm the statement “A picture is worth a thousand words.”
I think this adds interest to the blog post. I find it esthetically pleasing and is fun to do. It invites the eye and I call it eye candy. This image is for the blog post 10 Essential Tips on How to be a Great Gardener
Do you not think the gallery image above is a lovely image. I know there are only six images related to 10 tips, but I didn’t want to overwhelm the eye.
The Mindful Gardener Podcast
This week I had someone do a graphic for me related to the podcast logo which I need to have at a specific size if I want to upload it to the apple podcast program and others (which I do). At first, I wasn’t quite sure but as I see it more it grows on me.
Tomorrow’s Mindful Garden podcast is entitled Your Mind is Your Garden – Your Thoughts are Seeds. The question is “Are you planting flowers or weeds?” The podcast is where I focus on inner gardening and invite you to Companion Your Greatness and cultivate the seeds of greatness within you.
Cultivating the Mindful Gardener
Image by Webster2703 from Pixabay
I love to share this journey of Mindful Gardening. To this end I have this week joined the social network Instagram. This fits with my love of creating galleries of images as shown above related to the blog posts on the website The Mindful Gardener. I am exploring using Canva to create proper sized graphics for this purpose.
My new Mindful Gardener Instagram username is thismindfulgardener. I wanted the username the mindfulgardener but that was taken. So, I hope you will connect with me there and get to enjoy the gallery like garden images I have such fun creating and that will link to content related to the journey of gardening aligned with Mindfulness.
Plans for the Future – Guided Meditations
Image by Khusen Rustamov from Pixabay
This is where I would appreciate some feedback. I as thinking that I will write and record a series of guided meditations which I would feature once a month. These would be in addition to the weekly newsletter and weekly podcast.
These would take the motif of the garden. I drafted some titles as ideas. Would this be of interest to those of you who would like to become your Companion of Greatness or Gardener of the Soul whether you are a gardener of the soil?
· The Seat of Destiny.
· The Gateless Gate.
· From Soul to Soil.
· The Secret Garden.
So that is this week’s Mindful Gardening newsletter sharing the journey of cultivating our garden in Cordressagagh. Until next week happy gardening.