Basket of beauty....
Living an agricultural lifestyle isn’t common. A particular privilege, it also comes with particular responsibilities, and its own reality principle which does in fact remove one from some common daily life things most people participate in, especially one thing non-agrarian (majority of population) hold dear:
freedom to go here and there at whim.
Rising between 4:30 & 5:30 in the growing season is normal for me. All through the year, I wake with the birds, and sometimes, even retire with them.
Recently a few friends eagerly offered to help with the rose & elderflower harvests, (as currently the broken wrist is limiting)
until I mentioned this is done in early a.m.
Gap of silence as the romantic idea of picking flowers met the non-arbitrary attendance to the medicine making.
I understand, being used to shaping my habits and many personal inclinations to the rhythms and needs of plants and land. No matter how small (3 acres of varying degrees of cultivation and forest gardening here) or large, the basic requirements are the same:
one follows the shifting seasonal nature rhythms with its timing and opportunities/commands. Animal husbandry has different demands, but follows a similar principle: you are there for them, with consistency and devotion.
Plants don’t sit there in perfection for 3 or 5 months until you feel like picking or tending them. There’s a timeline of best readiness for each. If you miss that window, there’s next year.
However, if you have a botanical products business, based primarily on the plants from your land,
next year could mean a long out of stock period for some items.
So far, the main late Spring harvests have been manageable with the assistance of my partner. What I can’t do is batch balms or perfumes until use of my left hand is healed. With help, distilling is a go, so hydrosols and serums will all be there, plus a few new things soon.
I’m encouraged by how much I’ve figured out to do, using one hand, and at the same time, a bit discouraged by the weeds taking over some of the garden beds. To reduce some of those takeovers, a few large growing areas have been mowed down.
Cont. 👇🏽
