Why Gallimaufry?

Brody Boy & my garden wagon

Working in the garden is a great time for thinking. Sometimes I come up with some really brainy ideas, and sometimes I should have someone with me inside my head editing my thoughts.Yesterday I was cleaning out the winter debris from my flower beds and anticipating all the future unknowns that every gardener is faced with, and I decided to begin this blog.

We all face unknown things in life, sometimes health challenges, family squabbles, loss, and other things we have little control over. Persevering through challenges sometimes takes inspiration, and I hope this blog will help you and me struggle through infestations of cucumber beetles to burnt beans in the pot to matters closer to the heart.

I'm not sure yet if this blog is a brainy idea or one of those "should have been edited" ideas. Nevertheless, as the hours passed and I dug and clipped and perspired in the welcome, warm late-winter sunshine, I worked on what the first post of my new blog would contain, and what the name of my blog would be. (I finished my work, too! See the pics at the bottom of this post.)

My lab puppy "helped" me and was overjoyed when he presented me with a hibernating frog he'd dug up from inside a graying wooden planter and that made me smile. I patted his head and reburied the cold little slumbering creature that will emerge in a few weeks to feed on the insects in my fence flower garden.

My mind wandered from my flower gardens to the vegetable garden, and then made a scary leap to the kitchen and to the cooking that I love to do, and I started thinking of the kinds of vegetables to plant this year. Should I risk cool weather veggies like sweet peas and spinach, or will the weather turn from winter to hot summer in one week? Will I grow enough produce and flowers to take to the farmers market or should I can and freeze all the extras and fill every room of my house with bouquets? (I wonder if the Makuches will be back at the farmers market this spring?) Then I envisioned my canners stacked on the shelf in the storage room. I need to test the pressure canner's gasket before canning season begins. I need to clean out & organize the big chest freezer as soon as it gets warm. I need to make a list!

A hibernating toad, all pale and cold. 

I rolled my little garden wagon to the herb garden and gave the browned lemon grass a haircut, and thought of the Vietnamese manicurist who chats with me about his garden and native cuisine while my feet are soaking in the bath at his salon. I should make an appointment for a pedicure. I wonder what new colors of polish they have this spring. That little bit of pampering makes me happy. I'll put that on my list.

A manly tractor

I looked over at my husband's two big tractors in residence (he has two others at another farm), and lamented the fact that not one of them has anything with which to work my gardens, and I actually pondered getting my own small tractor just for my garden. I could equip it just the way I want, with a small plow, and a harrow....maybe one of those old offset tractors built just for small garden plots in the middle part of the last century. I wouldn't have to wait for someone else to plow the plots. Another thing for my list. Oh, and a new fence to keep out the deer. I hope my mind won't erase anything on this list I'm making.

Flowers, vegetables, cooking, interesting people, pets, farmers markets, gardening equipment...all these things will end up in my blog, not necessarily in any logical relationship to each other, and sometimes I'll throw in subjects not even  obviously related to gardening, just for happiness' sake. That group of often unrelated topics, my friends, is what you call a gallimaufry. It's pronounced gal-ah-maw-free, with emphasis on the "maw." You can email me at gardengallimaufry at yahoo dot com, and just call me GardenGall because that's easy to remember.

My posts here will be a hodge-podge, a crazy quilt, a mishmash, a ragout, an alphabet soup of events, photographs, recipes, people, and adventures as I struggle to encourage my garden plants to have great sex to give me beautiful flowers and bumper crops of vegetables. I hope this will inspire and entertain, and now you know why "gallimaufry."

With love to you from me,
GG

Flower Fence Garden Before

Flower Fence Garden After!