Hi y’all! This week I spent some time doing new things in the garden.

If you recall, my vegetable garden and strawberry plants were ruined in the fall by incompetent roofers hired by my landlord. Most of the winter I let the garden lay dormant, dispirited by the amount of work it would take to revitalize the raised beds with new soil and a new fencing solution to keep skunks and cats out. While I’ve known for several years that I needed to reconfigure the fencing, I could never find a design that allowed for easy removal when I needed to access the beds themselves.

Previous fencing was just a roll of mesh wrapped around the beds that was cumbersome to work within.

My inability to start on this project reminded me of this Eckhart Tolle quote: “Unease, anxiety, tension, stress, worry - all forms of fear - are caused by too much future, and not enough presence.” I was so overwhelmed by the whole of the project, the future, that I struggled to be present enough just to start step one. But this week, I was inspired by the change in weather. Here in SoCal it already feels like spring, with the sun growing brighter and warmer with each passing day. I started seeds for peas, carrots, and lettuce indoors. Then I sought out the ultimate source of human knowledge for such projects, YouTube. I found an amazing tutorial that broke down the steps into manageable chunks that allowed me to be present without worrying about the future of it all. I built the new, removable fences over a few days.

Much improved fences that slide down into brackets on the sides of the beds.

I cut old wooden stakes we already had to fit the sizes I needed and assembled them into rectangular frames using a drill. I learned how to use a staple gun for the first time to attach the mesh, repurposed from the old fencing, to the frames. And finally I added brackets that the legs of the fences slot into for easy removal and replacement when needed. If you’re interested in building something similar yourself, the tutorial I used is right here:

I also started propagating ferns for some hanging baskets I want to suspend from our porch this summer. I’ve never propagated ferns before and I’m not certain it will work out, but sometimes you have to be present with the process without worrying about the future.

Here’s to a spring and summer filled with gardening!

Less Future, More Presence