Does anyone else go out to the vegetable garden with a specific list of tasks, and two hours later find oneself wandering among the plants, with none of the planned activities finished? I think there is a time warp over our veggie garden. At 8 a.m. I go out to water, pick lettuce and broccoli, and pull a few weeds. By 10 a.m. there's no lettuce picked, no broccoli cut, and only a very few weeds pulled. Where did those two hours go? I communed with the hens, and checked the potatoes for bugs, but two hours?
With the subject of this topic my first thought was that you had been wandering through my back yard it is the land that time forgot out there Yep, I know what you mean. I have been trying to keep myself on track this spring but many times I come back in the house and realize I haven't done anything I went out to do and suddenly it's 4 p.m. already. So I have to go over in my mind what I did do out there, talked to the birds, wandered around welcoming the plants back for another year, filled the birdfeeders but I was supposed to pull those weeds or get some plants in the ground that have been waiting for weeks to stretch their legs. There does seem to be some spell in my garden that makes me forget about working in it and just enjoy it instead.
Snap! I have the same affliction. I went out yesterday just to open the greenhouse window. I checked all the plants for bugs, watered them, took cuttings, planted them and then wandered out to newt watch at the pond, fed the birds, pulled weeds, tied up my climbers as they're taking off and dead headed. I, finally, came back indoors and Ian said " I think you should shut that window as the temperature has dropped." Went back out only to find I hadn't done it in the first place but had spent an hour and a half supposedly doing it.
You have crossed over into another dimension, a botanical nitherland, where gardens and plants vie for your attention. Once there you can only attend to their needs and wants, you are trapped. Only distance or time can free you from their hypnotic grasp. You were lucky to escape……some……have never returned. Jerry
Will he ever return, no, he'll never return; cause he's lost forever 'neath the streets of Boston; he's the man on the MTA.. Hank, chuckling along with empathy..
For those of you who are too young to have had the song on your list of memorable hits this is a recap. For the rest of us we can step back in time to another dimension. The song Henry refers to was originally written as a campaign song in 1949 and made more popular by a single put out by the Kingston Trio in 1959. I was on a trolly coming back from Harvard square when a local singing group put on an impromptu performance that same year. They received a standing ovation from the passengers. Fast forward to 2006 when the MBTA (new MTA) converted the old token fare system to the new card reader system and everyone that used the transit system had to purchase the card named for the now intrenched folk lore hero 'Charlie'. These cards are called 'Charlie Cards'. The tokens were discontinued but many saved a few for keepsakes. Here is a picture of my Charlie Card and a few tokens. One of those tokens, though I don't know which one, was originally purchased in 1959 for 15 cents. Jerry's Charlie Card with old MTA tokens Now we return you to your original dimension, or at least what you think is your original dimension. Do you have an urge to water a plant? Jerry P.S. Thank you Henry for the trip down memory lane.
I can still sing this song to this day." 'neath the streets of Boston, he's the man who never returned" . 1959 I was 13 yrs old, I loved the Kingston Trio. But getting back to the original topic, I think gardens have a magical quality to take you away from the everyday to the realm of possibilities where you can leave the rough times of life behind and disappear into the world of nature.
I know this very well. I go out with my morning coffee for my morning stroll and all of a sudden the suns going down. When I get back inside it's a big OH NO. There's dishes in the sink, laundry to be washed dried and folded, and I forgot to take dinner out of the freezer. Sometimes I'm still in my pj's.
Hahaha...... All too familiar. I have this all the time...daily. My bride has a clearer picture of it than do I.Perhaps she spend a little less time there than I do.... Hang on.... "spends more time"...."spends". That is the key word here. Hey, maybe that's a clue here. If forced to look at this phenomenon, I can recall that when in the garden, I so spend a bit of time walking and looking, mumbling, planning, admiring, tying-up loose clematis stems and so forth. Oh and there is the invaluable tea break time that often does become prolonged (especially with visitors). Oh, my word! When I think about it, I CAN recognise a pattern. I will say one thing in my own defence though--At this time of year, I think that I fall under the "garden spell"less frequently, because there are so many things that really need doing on time, like serious weeding, ground tilling, bean pole erection, path laying setting plants out and the like. Outside of these frenetic days though...welllllllll....Not confessing to having this affliction too, would just be dishonest and a form of denial. :-? So, what's a guy to do but man-up.
Oooohhh!!! This makes me feel so much better! I thought it was just me, and that I am a lousy gardener because I go out to do something and end up just walking around daydreaming and planning, but accomplishing nothing! This is actually a good thing that good gardeners do! What a relief! I'm still so new to this. I make so many mistakes and waste so much time, so I thought, that I thought my staring laps around the grounds was a bad thing. So, it is common and healthy to go out to do something, walk around planning, dreaming, and staring for hours, come back inside, and realize that you did none of the tasks that you went out to do. You actually, "did" nothing. BUT, you did do something. You critiqued, analyzed, planned. A lot gets accomplished that way. Right? How could you know what needs to be done, or do anything, without assessing the situation first and forming more detailed plans? Planning ahead is a good thing too. Planning for next year? Good.
Count me as one of those with the affliction too. I go out there with a plan/list of things in my head that I need to accomplish. Somehow it all gets done, but not in any practical way. Pull a weed here... tend to a plant there. What was I doing? Oh yeah... Hey... don't forget to feed the birds. Where did I leave the shovel....
Ha ha...reading all the posts here is so comforting, my garden is so small compare to the other gardeners here and still I lose the track of time there. I can not help but find myself literally guiding each wine up a trellis, for which I get yelled on most of the time by my husband "Again!! you baby them too much; leave them alone, they can find their way up a trellis". Oh, and the first bloom and first fruit setting I stare them for hours in awe,often times long enough to kill them eventually . Nevertheless, I find each visit rejuvenating irrespective of how much work gets done in the garden .
Time goes by quicker than you realize when you're immersed in something you love. This happens to me in the garden and when I'm reading a really good book. I'll look up after what I think is 20 minutes and realize it's been 3 hours!
