A slower spring
On not rushing, and waiting for the right time
Hello, how are you doing this week? We’ve passed the spring equinox, so days are finally longer than the nights. I love the lighter evenings - the world just seems to open up so much.
We had a restful weekend with plenty of time outside in the sunshine. On Saturday afternoon, after a morning of running a few nice errands (visiting the eco shop and library, picking up wool) and a swimming lesson, my daughter and I had a little picnic in the garden to celebrate Ostara, the equinox.
It was also a weekend of some slow garden tidying - we spent a bit of time pulling up some of the blue alkanet encoraching on to the garden path. It’s beautiful and loved by bees, but it does have a tendency to take over! We even topped the path up with a bag of new gravel, something I’ve never bothered with in the nine years we’ve lived here. I also weeded the small patch of earth at the front of the house, next to where we park our car. Cutting back the penstemons to make way for new growth, and clearing space around the delphiniums that are coming up nicely. While I did this, my daughter created a luxury hotel for insects from dandelion leaves and bits of stick. Later, we got out the temporary shelves that I put up in my garden office for seedlings (it’s lovely and sunny in there) and found all the growing trays, ready for seed planting next week.
It felt really nice to spend a bit more time than usual in the ‘preparing the ground’ and tidying stage this year, rather than rushing ahead. As I’ve mentioned a couple of times recently, I’m making a real effort to hold off planting my vegetable seeds this year, at least until the school easter holidays next week, when I’ll be off work with my daughter and have plenty of time. This is much later than I have planted in previous years - several times I have planted seeds as early as February, which is ridiculously early for this area. There’s a pull to get seeds into compost at the first sign of spring sunshine, and I get a feeling of having to do everything now, now, now - partly due to the earth’s rising energy but, perhaps, also a feeling of not wanting to be left behind.
Waiting until early April is much more in tune with my local bioregion; the growing conditions and the last frost date here in Derbyshire. I won’t be able to plant anything tender out until late May as we could still get a frost, so there’s no benefit to having things ready to plant outside before that - seedlings get leggy and weak stuck in a pot for too long.
Interrogating this feeling a little more, I wonder if there’s a bit of my overachiever/A-student conditioning mixed in there too, needing to be the first in the class to get things done and get a gold star to prove my worth. It’s funny how often this unhelpful tendency from childhood reappears in life. It comes up in my work too. Once I decide on some idea or project for my business, I don’t spend much time at all in the planning stage, or even considering if it’s what I really want. I launch straight in with all guns blazing, pursuing whatever it is single mindedly until its done. And to be honest, often burning myself out in the process and not being able to sustain things.
For my seeds, I know that planting later will mean light levels are higher, it’s slightly warmer, so growing conditions will be much better - so plants will likely grow faster. I know there’s a big benefit to be found through spending a little longer in the preparation stage in all areas of my life, learning to get comfortable with the different possibilities and choices available rather than following what feels like the ‘easy’ pre determined path.
So this spring I’m going to be patient - remembering to pause and take a breath, and understanding that it’s ok to do things more slowly, at the right pace and at the right time for me.
