the Hour Garden Project

Today the sky is overcast and grey, the big picture kind of messy. It is a good day for focusing on details, taking time to see things slowly.

First there was the book jam, a project with Antonia, in which a Borges text was made into a book, from scratch, within an hour. We made list of 10 rules, then set the clock and made the book, photographs, text, printing, binding. Although the first rule was to complete within an hour, we took 2 hours and 6 minutes. Still, if there was no time limit, we'd probably still not have finished it.

So today, instead of many other jobs that could have been done, I took my camera into the garden for an hour, to try and see things differently.

The Hour Garden Project

After a long hot summer with fairly extreme water restrictions, the garden was just surviving. We have a water tank, and the herbs get all the kitchen water, but the endless days of high 30s meant that many plants just fried in the heat. This last week, we've plunged into Autumn, with wild storms and welcome rains. Most often, I find myself letting the plants grow wild, when they can. The rambling green is beautiful, and I love seeing vegetables and herbs growing their full cycle. The blue flowers of a cos lettuce, or the frilly seed heads of parsley and dill. Last night I cut a creeping tendril from the pumpkin vine to place on our dinner table.

A favourite Gardener/Artist is Derek Jarman wrote in his beautiful journal, Modern Nature -"Death to the thread bare lawn. If the garden's not shaggy, forget it. "