TanshiCorn

The tree people were out yesterday to remove the problematic tree. It took them the majority of the day. Gendr was home overseeing the work and I was at work for a staff meeting.

While I feel like they did a good job and were quick to get us in when we made the decision, that does not mean that I do not have complex feelings around it. While the tree was dangerous, it did add a certain level of whimsy to the yard that now obviously lacking. The process also further destroyed parts of the garden that I have been working hard to put together.

It was not any of the food plants, though they are still recovering from the branch that landed on them. It was the native flower section. I am hopeful that they are not completely killed and that they will probably come back up next year.

It was quite a shock when I got hoe and saw it. Got a bit teary eyed. Circumstances are fighting everything that I am attempting to do. It is hard to not feel like just giving up and no longer bothering.

I have been trying to re-frame it in my mind. It has given me a lot of real estate to use for more garden ideas. It substantially increased the amount of sun that makes it to the ground in the yard as well.

I do think I am going to take a break from any further garden stuff for the year. I need to take a step back to figure out what I want to do with the space.

I was awoken this morning by Gendr letting me know that a branch fell out of a tree overnight. We have a gumball tree near the garden that I have wanted removed since we moved into the home. A couple weeks ago we had a wind storm that had broken a branch. It was stuck in the other branches and dangling precariously over the garden. We had contacted a tree removal service and have been awaiting their return to remove it.

So when I got out of bed, my assumption was that known branch had wiggled free. I prepared ahead of time and moved things away from the area that could be damaged and didn’t start any new seeds in the beds near where it may fall. Nope, this was an entirely different branch that fell in an area with no prep at all.

One of the beds is damaged. I am not sure how badly. It looks like it may be ok for the rest of the season at least. But that bed had my yellow pear tomatoes in it. They were THRIVING! Each is probably approaching 10 feet tall and LOADED with tomatoes. One of them is for sure killed. Another is probably on hospice. The others, I don’t really know. It killed a potato plant too, but that was close to harvest time anyway. So we got some potatoes out of that.

It is demoralizing. The garden is what I have put all of my anxiety, fear, sadness and overwhelm into. It was my distraction and the thing that I could show off with some pride, knowing I had put all those negative emotions into it, to produce something nice.

It just makes me really sad.

There is a gum tree in our backyard/garden area. It has been dropping hefty limbs since we moved in. We have finally made the decision to have it removed. With any luck it will be gone next week sometime.

This will open quite a bit of space in the yard that can be repurposed for veggies or something pretty. Once the tree is gone I will sit down to figure out how much extra light we are getting and where. I’ll use that to come up with a plan for next year’s garden.

Hopefully having such a large lead time means I can gather supplies and whatnot slowly. Everything is so expensive.