Life and Death

One's garden is like an artwork. Unlike traditional artwork with paint or pencil, there is no "final" product in the same sense. Instead, the garden is alive and keeps on changing. One might say that the garden is a "performance artwork" without a discernible end. This almost infinite change will have as a result two things: death and life. Or, from death life comes and life produces decay. The garden is a perfect way of illustrating this point.

Today, I spent the whole day in the garden. I reconnected a bit. Various things had to be "uprooted" whilst I "rooted" myself. Unfortunately, one of my many Caprian cornflower (Centaurea gymnocarpa) bushes died. It is unbelievable how easy and fast this plant grows in this area. Many houses here have vast bushes of them. According to Wikipedia, it is actually endangered in the area where it grows natively in Italy, Capraia. But this is not a sad moment, as I continually make new cuttings from them and I use the whole plant in either compost or in the pizza oven. They make some lovely hardwood stems.

| Caprian cornflower (Centaurea gymnocarpa) cuttings |

A Stupid but Effective Hack: Old Lawnmowers for Compost

I found a nice hack with bigger leaves: just use a lawnmower to mow them down into smaller pieces. I am lucky to still live with family. My dad has two lawnmowers, the one he uses for the grass but then an older one he does not use. I seized the opportunity to use this machine to chop bigger materials into smaller pieces so that it can turn into compost faster.

At first, there were many branches and leaves.

Then there was a pile of branches.

And a pile of leaves.

This is fine for the compost, but to speed up the process and to feed the little bugs and bacteria I chomp them down into small bits.

Amongst all of these piles are wild rocket. In hindsight, this was not a good thing because now a myriad of seedlings will most likely pop up in the middle of the lawn. Yay for biodiversity on the lawn!

The product is a fine almost pulp. The compost loves this stuff!

New Life: In the Roots of the Decayed

Part of the bush was already dead, so the roots started to decay. Lovely new compost in the making in the ground! But I used this opportunity to plant some more native-friendly plants: our indigenous Spekboom/Pork Bush/Elephant's Food (Portulacaria afra). They grow slow and very thick stems. But they grow so easily, plus you can eat them! They are full of tannins so they are very astringent, but they have a lovely lemony sour taste. Great for salads! We have various spekboom plants growing in the garden and some of them get so large, hence the "tree" part in the Afrikaans name (spekboom directly translated is: bacon tree, how lovely would bacon trees have been!).

Whilst uprooting the cornflower, and rooting the spekboom, I rooted myself as well. Walking barefoot in the garden and working without gloves might be a risk, but it is one I am willing to take. This is natural medicine for me.

What a wonderful thing is compost not! Again, from death life springs forth. A handful of compost goes a long way. I use it in the ground when I plant the new plants, but I also use it as a mulch.

Healing Thyself Healing the Earth

We can do very little alone, but that should not hinder one from doing things. I am actively trying "be better". Not better in the moral or ethical sense of the word, nor one of virtue signaling. Rather, I want to live more according to certain norms and standards I articulate for myself. Rather than buying salad greens or leafy greens (like spinach) from the shops, why not grow them? It is easy and I get to spend time in nature. This is obviously not for everyone, I just find these things worthwhile. Others might not.

At the end of the day, you need to look back on your own life and judge if it was a life worth living.

A Performative Artwork: The First Scene

Enter three meek spekboom plants. Like other indigenous plants, they look small now but in no time they will have grown big and strong, feeding on the compost, and feeding the compost with the dropped leaves. They will also serve as a nice snack on a hot day in the garden! But now, it is only "sit back" and "look at them grow", constantly changing the artwork I started with. In the place where the once-mighty cornflower stood, they are now digging with their roots into the prepared soil of decaying older roots.

Postscriptum, Watering the Babies

The spekboom plants are watered and now it is between mother nature and the plant to sort out what will happen. Will it become a big and strong tree? Or will it succumb to the elements and become compost? For now, I took almost 10 cuttings and made provisions for the inevitable. Nature is cruel but we can make her cruelty beautiful and heal ourselves.

All of the photographs are my own, taken with my iPhone. The musings are also my own, unless stated otherwise. I hope enjoyed this somewhat chaotic post or gardenjournal! Hopefully, you learned something as well. Stay safe, and happy gardening.