Tulips and sunshine

The joy when all of the sudden the season turns into summer! In one week the trees go from having bare branches to leaves bursting out, and the tulips that have been promising for so long start to flower. It is a fleeting but intensely pleasurable moment in a gardeners life, this week when the tulips are in perfect bloom. Of course, they never look the same in real life as on the paket and I mull over the colour combinations. Is the red too dark next to the white narcissus? Should I remove them and plant some more dainty dusky pink ones instead? These are the big questions in my universe right now.

The cherry blossom has the same ephemeral grace, and each day I stop to really look at them and enjoy their existence. It is like a mindfulness practice, this slowing down and really taking in the moment of sheer white flowers in the sunshine. The noise of bees buzzing amongst the branches, a faint cool wind over my cheeks, a brief moment when all is well and the universe feels kind.

During the week I hopped into the local hardware store to buy chicken feed, and of course I couldn't resist having a look at the garden department. There is always something I desperately need, and this time it was tree wonderful large Spirea Grefsheim shrubs that magically made it into my shopping trolly. As I stood at the till a very nice lady next to me commented on the shrubs, "Oh, aren't those beautiful!" she said. "Yes," I answered, "they are for the chickens. Their back yard needs a little something to make it more beautiful." She looked at me as if I was a bit soft in the head, which I may be for sure. But as I came home and planted the shrubs the ladies were most pleased by the beautification of their yard and held long and loud discussions about it during the rest of the afternoon.

Finally it has become warm enough to start working on the kitchen garden. I've planted broad beens and bean Blauhilde, potato Purple Queen, rows of red carrots and a mix of yellow, white, orange and red carrots together with blocks of onions. This weekend I'm planting out broccoli and cauliflower, zucchini and Little Gem squash. It doesn't look like much yet, but just you wait a few weeks and my kitchen garden will come into life again!

This time of year really is the nicest, as the joys of summer has only just begun. There is still a whole month of longer daylight hours before midsummer when the days start getting shorter again, and I intend to truly enjoy every moment of it. I hope you have a lovely week wherever you are, and get to enjoy some sunshine too.