St. Dorothy's Day

St. Dorothy lived in Caesarea in central Turkey, around the year 313 AD. She was tried for refusing to worship idols, and a mocking lawyer asked her to send him fruit from the garden of Paradise. In response to her prayer, an angel appeared and presented three roses and three apples.

"And then said the holy virgin with a glad semblant: Do to me what torment thou wilt, for I am all ready to suffer it for the love of my spouse Jesu Christ, in whose garden full of delices I have gathered roses, spices, and apples."

Because of this, she is the patron of gardeners. Also of brides, and brewers.

Agenda Today:

1. Garden journal queries

2. Garden visualization & plan

3. Work outside!

1. Garden journal queries:

Most years St. Dorothy Day is when I begin to fantasize about changes in my garden. Today I will visualize each of the "rooms" in our yard: My front yard sanctuary garden, our duck yard, our vegetable garden, and the family gathering lawn. I ask myself - 

How can I make my garden 

• a better sanctuary for my family, 
• more comfortable for friends, 
• a greater learning-experience for my grandson, 
• more mysterious and secluded, 
• more of a visual treat,
• more abundantly productive of food, 
• AND easier to keep up with?

2. Garden visualization & plan:

Last year we made a very large change in our yard, taking out our dear old apple tree, moving all the veggie beds, and building a new raised garden and patio in the front. This year we will fine tune the vision.

The winter garden is a blank canvas for visualizing colors, shapes and composition. Today I took a notebook outside, walked around my entire yard once, and examined it in a non-critical way. I wrote down these ideas:

• Front yard sanctuary garden: Pick another tall bush or two to add to shield the front; move hollyhock. Build up the wall in one more spot? Add an umbrella?
• Hummingbird garden - plant more flowers.
• Try delphiniums and cornflowers.
• Duck yard - Put in bark paths? More comfrey
• Giant sunflower border along side of veggie bed and in front.
• Wall of tall flowers in driveway bed (sweet peas, foxglove, sunflowers, hollyhocks, mullein.).

3. Work Outside:
I got a some good permaculture information for February from Amy of the Ten-Acre Farm.

My intentions this week are probably bigger than my time will allow, but I will at least step outside each day to do one small garden thing:

• Take my camera out into the garden to collect images. 
• Harvest beets, spinach, parsley and collards.
• Prune the roses and the grape.
• Fill my bird feeders.
• Visit a different garden bed each day with clippers, and cut dead plants and weeds (leave roots to feed the soil).
• Identify chickweed and plantain in my garden - two beneficial weeds that I want to cut but not remove.
• Add soil amendment to the pea and onion beds: Sprinkle the beds with an organic fertilizer, cover that with my own compost (plus some store-bought), and cover that with a layer of old leaf mold, from under our hawthorns. (I won't dig it in until just before planting.)
• Start some perrenial flowers now, in 4-inch pots filled with a moistened, sterile, peat-based potting soil mixed with an equal amount of coarse washed builder’s sand. Put outside in a dependably cold and shady area, such as the north side of a building. Perennial seeds to sow in February: Bachelor buttons, Delphinium, Evening primrose, Poppies, Nicotiana, Calendula, and Violas.