Tag Archives: urban garden

Learning to Embrace Mint: Freshness for Your Garden and Soul

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Hello, my beloveds! The new baby chicks are in the house, scratching and pecking and chirping, the goat fence is up, the snow has melted, and the sun is shining today! Finally! Oh sure, there’s still dishes in the sink and junk scattered throughout the yard, but things are moving in the right direction… I think. Maybe it’s all coming too fast. The garden has started sprouting already and I was hoping to get it looked at before that happened. Still. I’m feeling good, so let’s not focus on the other side today, okay? Let’s just dive in to our muse of the week, shall we, and forget about all the stuff we gotta do for a short, five minute read? The stuff will be there when we get back.

Okie dokie, I was musing about what plant to focus on for this week and came up with mint. Realistically, I was thinking about catnip, but it’s in the mint family so I’m blending it all together. We were chatting about catnip at work, and my cats seem to like it… well, one of them does anyway. The other could take it or leave it. The warning with catnip, though, is that it, like most herbs, spreads like crazy in the garden. So if you plant it, thinking you’ll just grow a bit for your kitty, you’ll soon be overwhelmed and have enough for the entire neighbourhood of cats! So plant it in a pot.

Likewise for “mint”. I’m wondering if my bunnies would like a mint herb? There are just so many summer garnished desserts one can make with a fresh sprig of mint leaf. How can I justify growing vast, spreading plants? Do goats like it? I was at the dentist yesterday and requested mint polish…maybe that’s an option. (Giggle). Mint jelly! With lamb. Nah, couldn’t raise lamb. Mojitos? I don’t drink enough for those either. Anyway, mint was on my mind.

I was thinking about mint in context of the Passover meal. Symbolizing “spiritual freshness and cleansing”. Kinda like the dentist appointment. Fresh and clean again. Traditionally mint was thought of in line with purification. This is how I know it in the biblical context. Yet, I also discovered a few other associations I had not known. And so I share….

First, Mint may represent Hospitality. Perhaps after you cleaned your house all minty fresh? Or with those mojitos. I’m not sure what you do with the mint that makes it part of “hospitality”… but Google tells me so. So, now I have told you. The other one was also new for me. It stems from a story in Luke 11 where Jesus rebukes the pharisees. Usually, this story focuses on cleaning the outside dishes and not your “insides”… which are full of greed and wickedness, but a tiny mention in verse 42: “For you are careful to tithe even the tiniest income from your herb gardens, but you ignore justice and the love of God…”

Mint container Photo credit: medowlarkjournal.com

Remember how I said mint flourishes? Obviously, the leaders were giving tithe of that abundance and it wasn’t really any sacrifice at all. A tiny income from our garden. Little effort required. So. Hospitality, freshness, abundance and giving wholeheartedly. Did you get all those? I’m learning, that even when things are not totally clean, and my farm is a little crazy with half finished projects and chicks in the house and mud and chaos and an already growing garden that hasn’t been tidied up yet, that my friendships must take precedence. I hosted our small group with supper dishes piled in the sink. Shocking!

I’m not good at that. I get overwhelmed a little. I dream big and fall hard. And usually that involves something alive to take care of. Which, don’t get me wrong… the creatures are well cared for and loved… but they take up time. I am aware. And now you are too. Thanks for following along in our journey of chaos, where we gather spiritual tidbits of inspiration along the way and try and follow the straight and narrow. It’s a little messy, but maybe a little mint will freshen us up as we travel along and purify our hearts a bit today! Until next time!

Embracing Resilience: Life Lessons from Dandelions

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Welcome back to a little calmer week in the Mitton Household. Perhaps calmer, but no less busy. Unfortunately, the weather didn’t cooperate with all we wanted to accomplish this past weekend, but here we are nonetheless. It has certainly been a wet, dismal few days. And here we are back on a Tuesday post! Back on track (at least for now! lol) Last week, we decided to sit with a little theme on “The Humble Dandelion”. Consequently, we’ll jump right in with my thoughts: Dandelions are seemingly very resilient!

Despite the rainy weather, we did get a little break in the clouds on Sunday… just enough for me to plant a few pots of annuals in our otherwise full front garden. The hubby cut the grass. As I sauntered down the side steps of the porch, I was struck by two things: One, a huge dandelion with about 4 blooms growing out of the gravel of the paving stones, and two, how many dandelions were back after cutting the lawn! Resistant and resilient!

I’ve heard it said that grass lawns started as a sign of wealth. Pick a non useful, time consuming -to- grow crop, like grass, and flood your front lawn with it to prove yourself worthy to the neighbours. Who came up with that plan? We should have just let the wildflowers and weeds alone and filled our yards with colour… the yellow dandelions are there anyway! And they even grow in the poorest soil (in my case gravel!) of the side pathway. In abundance! I haven’t pulled it out yet… just because. Just because it’s showing me that yup, I am here and here with a vengeance!

And since we’re using A.I. why not generate an image…this is not my path… and dandelions have leaves too! 🙂

Let’s explore it a bit more, shall we? Admittedly, A.I. generated some interesting thoughts on the “resilience of dandelions”, so, although not my own thoughts, they accompanied my musings so well, I thought I’d share. We already talked about their persistence. Those little blooms can get mowed under and still pop back up, seemingly unharmed. They can withstand the harsh environments! Dandelions are certainly adaptable. Perfectly manicured lawns are dotted with them occasionally when the owners slip up, and open fields, rocks, hills and my gravel pathway see the spring returns of the weed. They’ll grow anywhere!

I suppose blooming in adversity and taking root in difficult places coincide – demonstrating their ability to adapt to harsh environments, they easily overcome adversity. Plus, dandelions seemingly have the ability to find solutions to said adversity, and bloom and grow even in challenging situations. Persistence. Perseverance. Adaptability. Do you see where I am going here? Of course you do. Obviously, we can take a little lesson from the God-given weeds. The humble yellow flower.

Take chances. Make mistakes and get mowed under, but rise to the challenge and pop up again, unfazed. Our environments should not dictate how we bloom for Jesus. The rocky soil may be tough, but we can do it. Do you work or play in a “ungodly” place? Do you hear the words and struggle to remain holy in an unholy environment? If God can give the little dandelion a place to bloom and flourish every spring, then He certainly has plans for you to “bloom where you are planted”!

Photo by photokip.com on Pexels.com

It’s a simple concept. Perhaps even a Sunday School lesson, not one fit for an internet blog post, but if A.I. can pump it out, then I suppose it is worth thinking about at least! So, go ahead. Pluck that weed out of your pathway, but pause and think about how it survived there in the first place. God helped that little seed float on its way. Perhaps blown in the wind by some little puff from a toddler delighting in the parade of white seed parachuted away by a huff! Then it floated and settled not where it was comfortable or easy, but where it was rocky and harsh. Yet, it survived and thrived! Now go out and do the same, my friend, do the same!

The Expert Master Gardener: A Reflection on Life and Lavender

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Welcome back to another week of Livin’ the Dream! It’s been a full week of activity… the hubby and I celebrated another wedding anniversary year of not killing each other, and we hosted our friends for a grand gathering and Bar-B-Que at Itsnotta Farm. One of our kids moved into a new place today, and we found a fabulous little nook off the lake to watch sunsets together (aren’t we romantic?) All around, a good time.

On with the muse for this week, though… enough about me. At said Bar-B-Que, I was touring around a friend and showing off my albeit colourful, but disaster of a flower garden. I have a variety of flowers there, but the goldenrod (aka giant ragweed) is about to take over and give my daughter-in-law a severe case of the sneezes. As the friend and I chatted about this and that that I would like to do in the garden, what I want to swap out, what I love etc. etc. it occurred to me how much I really do recognize in the flower world. I know quite a few plants by name and how tall they get, and where they like to be, and when they are in their prime. I’m not sure how I acquired such knowledge over the years… but it’s somewhere in there rattling around in my brain. Huh! I was impressed with even myself.

One of the many varieties of lavender!

Now, I will openly admit, I am certainly not a horticulturist by any stretch of the imagination. I dabble and dig and hope for the best. I know some common plant names, and googled a few, but certainly don’t know the Latin derivatives nor all their uses. I’m learning though. For our anniversary, the hubby and I visited a working lavender farm for a relaxing afternoon. I love lavender, and it’s been on my list for awhile… even though lavender is not in season at the moment, it was fun to walk through the bee loving “bushes”. Did you know there were several varieties of lavender? Buena vista, lavandin, and edelweiss (a white one!) and 450 some odd other varieties! Of lavender alone, people…

Let’s look back at my golden rod mess… golden rod is a “wild flower” … to me, a weed. Along with cosmos, daisies, buttercups and I’m sure you can name a few others. Tiger lilies are also weeds for me… you can’t kill those things! I found out that one of my favourite wild blue flowers (which grows along the road side but never will transplant to my spaces!) is actually a chicory… like the coffee substitute. A lesson I just learned this week. Now just start to let your mind wander a bit to add flowers to your list from mine. What do you know? Roses. Tropical plants, grasses… it goes on and on. And there is a name for every one! I am sure all the gardening books couldn’t put a dent in the list. Let alone the gardener get it all right.

Oh my beloved, do you see the comparison here? Our Master gardener knows not only every tree, flower and blade of grass, but He knows YOU! Every hair on your head, every wrinkle and every scar. He knows your name and why you are here. And He knows all of us. From the beginning of time to the end – God knows us all! I cannot begin to imagine. I have trouble enough keeping my own kids and pets straight… not to mention cousins and extended relatives. Yet, God knows every minute detail about you and me… and cares about it! Like an expert, He tends the hearts of each of us, like a flower farmer tends his rows of lavender. He knows the conditions necessary for us to flourish, and the things that choke us out and cause us not to flower and bloom where we are planted.

I don’t know about you, but this is so encouraging to me. God’s got this. He knows me better than I know myself! Which can be a little frightening, I suppose. Yet, the awesomeness of it, seems to outweigh the fear for me. A deep muse which I don’t understand, but captivates me nonetheless.

So, next time you drive by a field of wildflowers, or pull those “weeds” from your flowerbed, be reminded that there is a Master gardener, who’s got it all figured out!