Patience is a Slow Art…so is gardening

Patience in gardening: I’d like to talk to new and also seasoned gardeners. Those of you that may have planted a lot of things recently or in the past, and just can’t believe things are just sitting there, and not growing. Not dying, but not popping up, either. I’d like to help you learn how you can cultivate patience though gardening.

The fact is, gardening entails a lot of planting expensive seeds or material that you put in the ground, and just wait. Gardening asks you to believe that, under the soil in front of you, there is something that for days, months (or year) that is also waiting for something.

Cultivating gardening patience through reading

There’s a great children’s series of books from the 1970s entitled “Frog and Toad” by Arnold Lobel. This series of several volumes “Frog and Toad”, “Frog and Toad are Friends” and “Frog and Toad Throughout the year” are absolutely my most favorite children’s books of all time.

One story in particular is about planting a garden. Frog , who is generally the more optimistic of the two, is very excited about getting his friend Toad to plant a garden. They plant some seeds together, and from the moment the seeds are in the ground toad is anxious and waiting for them to sprout. 

Every day Toad checks, and… nothing is happening. I don’t know exactly how many days elapse, but he finally loses his cool and shouts, “now seeds, start growing!” I have witnessed the same thing from new gardeners, from seasoned gardeners. I can relate: where the heck did those tulip bulbs, wildflower seeds or tomato plants go?

Real money spent that hasn’t materialized into over-ground reality creates palpable dismay. But in the end, the story happily concludes because (spoiler alert!) the seeds do pop up and there’s flowers. Then they happily enjoy their time in the garden, together. Ahhhh

What can I say? Frog and Toad are the best.

I definitely suggest thinking about frog and toad when you’re losing your cool, waiting for things to happen.

Cultivating patience through gardening mantras

A saying amongst gardeners (I don’t know where it started), but I first heard it from my mom.

It goes like this:

First they sleep. 

Then they creep.

And then…

They leap!

It’s telling you what happens not just with seeds, but also puppies and little kids. But mostly it’s a saying you hear from gardeners. You plant the seeds and then. You just wait. Then one day, you will find yourself repeating this same mantra to a new gardener yourself.

Cultivating Patience through Permaculture

I’m from a generation that grew up reading books, but we also played video game. We all have smartphones now, and quickly acclimated to not having to wait long for anything.

My generation began almost every kind of research with an encyclopedia, card catalog, or a telephone book. But now we google things while we wait for water to boil, and listen to a podcast. Simultaneously. For those over a certain age, this still boggles the mind!

Rethinking instantaneity

All this instant accessibility probably isn’t the best turn of events for humankind, But it’s where we are now. So how do we work to restore natural patience and calm while enacting the lost art of…just WAITING?

Gardening, more than anything else, has taught me patience. Things related to gardening have as well: planting trees, walking in the woods, and cooking.

Cultivate the now

First they sleep: you plant seeds, and nothing seems to be going on. You plant a tree, and experience…homeostasis. You walk in the woods, and at first, every tree looks the same. You start cooking and the pile of ingredients on your counter is still just possibility, not yet alchemy.

Then they creep: the seeds sprout with their tiny monocot or dicot leaves.

The trees start to perk up, and you seen new fresh green growth at the end of each small branch. As your brain and eyes adjust to the woodland, you see different bark patterns, distinctive veining in leaves, tiny tracks and an entire new world opens up to you.

You add fresh garden herbs and spices to a simmering pot of store-bought groceries, and the dish is now yours, and like no one else’s on this earth. You walk outside, so you can walk back in, and truly smell the delicious aroma emanating from your own kitchen.

Then… they LEAP! You begin to see that, season after season, this miracle of starting your own vegetables takes place and has to be repeated with regularity to maintain it.

With a tree, you of course have a much longer payoff because you don’t have to keep doing it every season. With the right love and care, it’s there forever. 

When cooking with your own homegrown ingredients, and walking in the woods, you gain more appreciation because you know what now goes into growing (and using) fresh vegetables and herbs.

You walk in the woods, and wander when those 70′ tall oaks were barely saplings? When will the tree I planted on Mother’s Day become taller than my children? My mother? My house?’

Harvesting the fruits of the patience you have cultivated

Walking in the garden each morning with your tea to observe new developments and visitors. Going in the woods and just sitting on the ground. Brewing your early morning tea in your kitchen from herbs you grew, and inhaling deeply before drinking. Give yourself ten deep breaths. I guarantee you will start to notice small, tiny things that you never noticed that before.

Preparing the fruits of patience harvested

Cultivating this outlook by keeping a perpetual journal, a practice that I started about a year ago. By watching Instagram and illustrator artist extraordinaire Laura Call Gastinger. I also learned of another artist on her weekly live call named Rosalie Haizlett. Rosalie wrote a book about a year ago called “Tiny Worlds of Appalachia”.

Rosalie traveled from the beginning of the mountain range in Alabama all the way up to New Brunswick. Canada over several months and documented tiny worlds: Little mushrooms and reptiles and mammals, and other plants and things that she saw that were six inches or less. (Not the things that get a lot more of the press and videos online, like Black bears and bobcats). 

Rosalie’s book and Laura’s class have both taught me is to slow down. Slow your mind. Look around you. Watch. Watch what? Things and details that are much smaller, but no less important. 

Passionate patience

These things are absolutely worth your time. Draw them. I feel like by drawing very small things ,it’s the first time I’ve really seen those same things that have been around me for decades at this point. I definitely thought I knew what passion flower was, for instance.

But now that I have sat with it, and drawn it, I feel like I’m more in the same space. Passiflora incarnata and I? We are friends. We now have spent time together, and I see them. I am pretty sure they’ve seen me, too. This whole time. I was just too busy to notice!

This really isn’t a great garden hack, but if you’re trying to teach yourself to just

slow down

appreciate even the smallest things

not have to go so far

and not do too much at once

or move so fast….

The inner garden

I recommend just sitting in the woods, sitting in your garden, sitting in your car, looking at little islands of grass and trees there, even in the parking lot while you just take a few deep breaths.

Ask yourself: what is going on in this small space? How can I be smaller and more integral to whichever place I find myself in? How can I teach myself patience? How can I impart patience?

I guarantee you that you will not suffer for slowing down. You will not miss out by looking around. You will not keep yourself from doing better things if you draw small things, and appreciate them. Or take the time to plant seeds and trees,

Even if those seeds don’t all come up, or make it, you will still slow down time for a few minutes. You will live a life longer than you have lived before this moment, and you will be better off for it. You will be taking a large step in your journey to cultivating patience.