#Grow Your Garden

[the-conscious]

To move, to give yourself to this This sound, this beat is love, is free Take what you want, Leave what you don't behind at the door Rhythm is religion; a reason to pray for Take what you want, Leave what you don't behind at the door Let go, get low, get high, And find what you're looking for Can you feel it? Can you feel it? Get lost, get found Get lost, get found Get lost, get found Get lost, get found Get lost, get found (To move) To move (To give) To give (Yourself) Yourself (To it) To this (This sound) This sound (This beat) This beat (Is love) Is love (Is free) Is free A space of no mistakes; no needing or wanting more This is a mixture; it's a fix for the humble, and pure A space of no mistakes; no needing or wanting more There is no sin, no sorrow--nothing to pay for Can you feel it? Can you feel it?

Africa Grow Your Garden by ANIMA!

[allthingssoulful-garden]

Another weekend, another tomato harvest.

[stupidmusicformyself]

All these years of filling out papers Building a future, keeping your head down Tryin’ to keep a head on your shoulders, keep it creative, make it your own somehow Cause It's all a piece of the plan It's something You'll understand When you're older

Streaks - ANIMA!

[nocontextpoirot]

[pettyprocrastination]

whoever this beloved anon was I am so touched by your kindness! You definitely didn’t have to do this but I am so happy you enjoy this idea and I will happily expand upon it for you!

this is just a collection of word vomit bullet points for the time being but I will happily answer any and all questions about this pair!!

warnings: violence, angst, child death (Sarah Miller), foul language, the same warnings that apply to tlou, reader is Sarah's mom and described as having similar features to her. 

So the general Idea is that you and Joel are happily married before the outbreak. 

You had been Sarah's mother, his high school sweetheart he got pregnant when neither of you were old enough to have any reaction to the pregnancy test other than a fucking panic attack in one another’s arms. but you made it work 

you both worked but made time for one another and your sweet girl, going to museums every other weekend and joel insisting on swooping you off for a date every now and then 

nothing special. He knows you’re more of a diner gal than anything too fancy that makes you both feel out of place. 

On his birthday in 2003, you had planned to tell him that you were pregnant again. But the memories of your own fears of motherhood from all those years ago begin to swirl through your head again and you get cold feel. deciding to tell him the morning after

it is his birthday afterall, you want to focus on him. 

but when you’re woken up in the middle of the night because tommy needs to get bailed out, Joel kisses you sweetly one last time before promising he’ll be back and you can’t shake the feeling that something bad is happening. 

its you that shakes sarah awake that night. shouting at her to put on her shoes when she’s still rubbing the sleep from her eyes because you’ve been listening to the radio for the past two hours, calling joel again and again and again praying for him to fucking pick up but to no avail. 

Sarah, bless your little girl’s bleeding heart is the one who insists you check on the adler’s against your better suspicions and when you find the eldest looming over her daughter, blood and sinew dripping from her mouth, you grab your daughter hand and burst into a full sprint until something slams into your back and sends you tumbling onto their front lawn

its how joel finds you, struggling to keep the once sweet old woman, whose now nothing more than dead eyes and gnashing teeth straining to snap at your pulse point as you push against her while sarah shrieks before your husband runs forward and cracks her skull with a wrench. 

there’s hardly a moment of pause, just enough for him to pull you up and into his arms before he’s ushering you both into the car with an urgency. 

when the truck crashes, you get separated from them. Perhaps at Tommy’s side when the flames rise and create a wall, separating you from your husband, or maybe pulled into the mob of chaos when trying to escape from those already infected-

all joel knows is that you promise you’ll find him: just get sarah to safety and you’ll meet him at the river

Poor thing is already so frightened, held in her father’s arms with tears streaming down her face insisting they can’t leave you they just can’t but her father kisses her forehead and reassures her its going to be okay 

“we just need to be brave, okay babygirl? Your mama’s real tough, she’s gonna be alright.” 

he isn’t sure if he’s saying it to his daughter or himself. 

but when he comes to the river you aren’t there. Only a soldier who points a gun at the scared little girl in his arms and then he loses everything

its when the light is gone from his daughter’s eyes that he realizes. His voice cracked and raw from sobbing that he looks around to see his brother with drawn in shoulders and tears in his eyes but his wife is nowhere to be found. 

Tommy says you got lost in the chaos. Everything was so loud, so sudden that he turned around and suddenly you weren’t there. 

Joel wants to go back but its Tommy that stops him, that dulls the red in his vision to a sad faded pink because his brother points at the orange horizon not too far from them, so much of the city is already in flames. 

“We’re gonna find her, but not there.” 

So Joel searches. for the first year spent in the world post-outbreak its all he did. 

He became a smuggler because of it. 

Information came at a price and he needed to be able to fucking pay it, whether it be in blood or ration cards. He was willing to do anything to find you or any thin thread that lead your way. 

But it’s Tommy that asks him to give up. Not in those words of course. 

The youngest Miller knows better than to say something so cruel that would make his brother, the only person he has in this world turn on him. 

But his voice is worried when he asks him one night in Boston when he hasn’t even had the chance to wash the blood from his knuckles 

“You think she would have wanted this for you?” 

the fight that followed his words was brutal. Vicious insults and scarred fists slamming against each brother until they're both too tired and bloody to continue. Each leaning against a wall for support and Tommy’s wavering voice breaking the silence. 

“I don’t know where she is, Joel. But I do know you're gonna get yourself killed if you keep lookin’ for her.” 

All he can do is nod. 

It’s a few days later when he meets Tess. Who has heard plenty of stories about the elder miller’s brutality and wants him to put that muscle to good use for some extra profit. 

It begins his new life. One that empty and cold but one he can live. 

Until of course, Ellie comes along. The sweet and incredibly opinionated girl that makes him become something akin to the man he thought died twenty years ago. 

its when he’s traveling with Ellie, that it happens. When a warm familiarity has settled between the two because so much blood and pain has been shared he can’t help but see her as something close, something bright even though all he can force himself to utter in her reference is “cargo” 

when theyre traveling through the woods as Ellie chatters away, probing his memory about a movie that may or may not have existed thirty years ago because her descriptions of the plot are incredibly odd he hears a voice shout for them to stop and finds himself staring at a man- no, a boy- pointing a gun at them. 

Ellie stills, but Joel can see enough to know that from the lanky figure and dimpled face that he’s young. Maybe twenty, twenty-two at the oldest, but his eyes dart from Joel to Ellie with a pinprick of fear that allows Joel the time to charge forward and slam him to the ground before wrestling the gun from his hands. 

He has enough to time to tuck it under the stranger’s chin before he hears the sound of the safety being turned off and finds himself looking up and seeing a gun just inches from his face. 

Joel’s head whips around when Ellie’s voice calls out his name in fear, he turns to see another stranger holding her a gun point, shoulders drawn back and a shadow cast over their face by the had obstructing their identity. 

“You hurt one of mine, I hurt one of yours. That a fair deal?” 

Its takes him a moment to recognize you. It’s been so long since he’s heard your voice, the sweet tease when you would poke at him each time he woke up late despite the fact that you reminded him to set his alarm the night before, the times you’d chide him with a harsh “Joel Miller!” whispered in public anytime he was able to grab you a bit too passionately to be appropriate in public but the laughter in your voice let him know you were never truly mad at him. You didn’t know how to be. 

But that sweetness is buried under a cold rasp that cuts through the air as you point a rifle at the scared little girl in front of you.

“You think I won’t?” You’re older now, skin covered in scars from a life he didn’t know you got the chance to live and your eyes are cold as they regard your husband. “Put the gun down and get the fuck off of him, I won’t repeat myself.” 

Joel mumbles your name in awe. The woman he loved, the woman he mourned the one he fought so hard to find stands before him like some sort of hallucination and suddenly the world feels like its spinning until you bark orders at him again. 

“You’ve got five seconds Joel, make a fucking choice before I make it for you.” 

He looks down and realizes the boy under him, the one with the bleeding nose and snarling face has your eyes and his dimples. 

“One.” 

The one above him has Sarah’s hair. Soft brown curls that shine under the sun. 

“Two”

Wait. No, they both do.

“Three.” 

Twins. Jesus fucking Christ you had twins. 

“Four.” 

Joel holds the rifle up above his head and the one boy standing snatches it from his grasp, tossing it to the ground and kicking it far from his reach. He slowly stands, allowing your son- dear god your son- to scramble to his feet. 

Your voice softens just for a moment. “You okay, Duke?” 

Blood stains the bottom half of his face from where Joel slammed his fist into the boy’s nose just moments before, but he nods nonetheless. 

Now, they both stand on one side of you and he can see the resemblance clear as day the same way he would whenever Sarah was by your side.

When you order him to hand over his bag, he does so without question before telling Ellie to do the same. 

She watches him with wide eyes, her hands still up in the air but gaping at her companion as if he had grown a second head. 

“Joel!” “Just do it, alright?”

He doesn’t miss the way you watch their interaction with narrowed eyes until she tosses her bag to you and you slowly lower your gun. 

“Now, you want to tell me what the fuck you think you’re doin’ at my home?” 

[christenhelm]

📸 The Seasonal Homestead

[poirott]

Agatha Christie's Poirot costumes [8/?] ↳ Miss Felicity Lemon's green outfit in 3x02 "How Does Your Garden Grow"

"There have been a lot of comments about the wonderful frocks I got to wear. We had a lot of very good costume supervisors and costume designers. Barbara Kronig was one of the original ones. She worked with the late Sheila Buckland who had an incredible store of vintage frocks, most of which I wore in the series. Sheila was very pleased with me because when the frocks were returned she always used to say she couldn't tell it had been worn. Because I really take care of costume, I'm very particular about that. Sheila was meticulous to a degree, she really was, and I've got the most wonderful shoes to wear as well. The production values were extremely high [on the series]." -- Pauline Moran on the costumes she wore as Miss Lemon, Fantom interview, May 2020

[turtlesandfrogs]

You can actually grow mint in the ground. It takes a bit of a trick, but you can definitely do it.

But first, a personal lesson on why people tell you not to plant mint in the ground (and yes, I knew better, but life happens and I didn't actually intentionally plant this):

This is my apple mint patch, which started by accidently dropping some minty debris and thinking, what's the worst that could happen? This. This is what can happen.

As you can see, it has engulfed potatoes, rhubarb, strawberries, and raspberries. It has received no care. It has out competed the invasive species that was there (bindweed), and replaced it. It's about 4 feet tall in the center, 5 feet wide, and 7 feet long. I really should do something about it this year.

And here's my other mint patch which is lest than 10 feet away, started at the same time, looking a little rough because I pulled some out to give a friend the other day (well, and it's shaded, and that corner of the yard is pretty weedy- but still! It gets the idea across!)

Take a closer look at the soil between the pots:

Notice something? Something like the mint not escaping? Yeah, there's bindweed that's gotten in, but ignore that for now*.

Mint.

In the ground.

Contained.

I also know someone who planted theirs in a chimney flue bricks, and it too, has not escaped- even after 5 years.

Why is this important? Well, because mint likes it moist and pots dry out quickly (which means that if i had to keep an eye on it, it would have died 4 years ago).

But if you half bury the pot, the roots (but not the runners!) go down and out and can use the moisture in the soil. I actually lifted these pots up a while ago to check, and they had sent roots down but not runners- and it has been multiple years.

Meaning I haven't had to water this mint. Not even during the 100+ weather days, and we have a summer dry period where we don't get any rain for months.

Now, truly, I was a bit concerned and not trusting of my own idea when I started this, so let me draw a picture of what this system actually is, for folks like me who think it's too good to be true and want some extra insurance:

So, as you can see, I didn't put the pot straight into the ground- I actually mostly buried a bin (that had holes in the bottom for drainage), and planted mint pots into that. I have not seen any mint escaping from the pots, but that's there, just in case.

*bindweed/perennial morning glory is awful. If you see it starting in your garden, remove it without hesitancy or mercy. Get every little bit of root. It's harder to get rid of than English ivy or Himalayan blackberry.

[hedgewitchshit]

Just a little chicken enjoying the greenhouse on a sunny afternoon 💫

[ryanscabinlife]

The meal I’ve been waiting for the whole year! Well, I always make this spaghetti, but not with stuff from my own garden! Today, I finally had enough ripe and semi-ripened cherry tomatoes to make a serving. I also used one of my garlic heads, which, by the way, are curing nicely. I even managed to pull oregano, thyme, and a bit of basil. Sadly, the onions are not yet ready, so I used a store-bought one. The basil that I managed to harvest is not enough, so I had to use dried basil from the shelf. It’s such an easy, quick, and wholesome lunch. I think my non-existing Italian ancestors would approve. 17-Aug-2023

[renthony]

Seed packets are very easy to find this time of year at big box stores like Walmart and Target. They are also very, very, very easy to steal. Do with this information what you will.

[allthingssoulful-garden]

Gorgeous, shiny currants.

[stupidmusicformyself]

The day the leave and it's all before your feet You've heard all the tips and the tricks So you hum to a tune singing you'll figure it out soon You're a smart kid, tough kid, but you're still a kid that grew

Streaks - ANIMA!

[homeiswherethewitchcraftis]

[artificial-condition]

Finally peeled and preserved the rest of the garlic cloves from the summer harvest. They’ve been in a bag separated but unpeeled and I’ve been slowly using them until now.

They’re not canned but instead hot vinegar is poured on the peeled cloves and they stay good all year in the fridge. The vinegar makes it to where no bad bacteria can grow on them and the enzymes from the garlic prevent the garlic from absorbing and tasting like vinegar. Just fish out however many cloves you need and use like normal!!

Hardneck cloves are in the jar on the left! They’re so much bigger and I like them so much more. Easier to peel, bigger cloves, and you get garlic scapes (delicious) before harvesting the bulbs. Last year I ordered mostly softneck and a little hardneck and this year I flipped it so that next year I’ll have primarily hardneck :)

Also, a lot of the newly planted garlics have popped! It’s not preferable for them to pop before spring but my weather is unpredictable and it happens every year. The cold will kill them but they’ll come right back in the spring 🌱

[natureisthegreatestartist]

If you have a garden and a library you have everything you need. -- Cicero