In which I meet a man with a time machine…

June 11, 2014.Reading time 4 minutes.

by Amanda Cleary Eastep This photo was taken right before I met a man with a time machine. In the spirit of that, let me back up. I recently discovered an off-the-beaten hiking trail that winds along the banks of a lovely little stream and detours around a tree that reaches like the fingers of a cupped hand […]

Build it, and the fairies will come

May 27, 2014.Reading time 2 minutes.

by Amanda Cleary Eastep My youngest step-daughter and I knelt under the huge pine tree in her yard in Kentucky. We were building a house for the fairies. Sticks, leaves and rocks formed walls, a door and places to sit and rest your wings. I hadn’t been with her dad that long, and this collaborative […]

Planting spinach in a snowstorm

January 5, 2014.Reading time 2 minutes.

It’s only January 5. And day two of another snow storm in Chicago. Not one to be thwarted from anticipating planting season by a foot of snow, I remembered that I have these two lovely empty tea tins from Trader Joe’s just begging to be filled with dirt. While shopping for storm supplies, i.e. […]

The work of her hands

October 28, 2013.Reading time 1 minute.

By Amanda Cleary Eastep As a child, my grandmother worked in the truck patches of vegetables her family grew on their rented farm in Southern Illinois. Whether from planting or harvesting or picking off bugs to drop into buckets of kerosene, the calluses that lined her palms like small pebbles were a source of pride. […]

Everything turn, turn, turn

August 17, 2013.Reading time 3 minutes.

I used to watch that 45 rpm record spin on the turntable, the green apple label a blur as Mary Hopkin sang “to everything turn, turn, turn…there is season, turn, turn, turn…” And as my garden finally starts to yield fruit at the far end of this cool summer, a change of seasons is obvious in […]

A mother’s ode to wayward green children

July 10, 2013.Reading time 4 minutes.

As I dig in the dirt and plant seeds, yank weeds, water and watch things grow, I can’t help but consider how gardening is so much like raising children…the trials and the joys. I’m disappointed in my tomatoes. I started them from seeds. Watched amazed as they poked through the soil and cheered them on […]

How does your garden grow?

May 20, 2013.Reading time 3 minutes.

By Amanda Cleary Eastep The kale is in the ground…some of the plants–including tomatoes, peppers, and chamomile–that I started from seeds then transplanted several weeks ago when it STILL looked like this outside: Coincidentally, the last of this week’s planting marked the end of my husband’s first week at a new job and moving in […]

Putting Down New Roots–in dirt and in life

March 29, 2013.Reading time 3 minutes.

By Amanda Cleary Eastep Have you ever been transplanted? I was following my divorce in 2005. I couldn’t help but see an analogy today as I was transplanting the delicate seedlings that more quickly than expected outgrew the mini-starter trays. A few weeks ago I started seeds for kale, two varieties of tomatoes, hot peppers, and chamomile. The kale […]

Spring has sprung in my kitchen

March 21, 2013.Reading time 3 minutes.

By Amanda Cleary Eastep Last week, I filled out a planting schedule I found on Mother Earth News and started my two varieties of tomatoes, hot peppers, kale, and chamomile. I scheduled what to start indoors and when to transplant, and what seeds to plant directly in the soil and when. I would have posted […]

Here there be seeds

March 10, 2013.Reading time 2 minutes.

By Amanda Cleary Eastep Hobbits like gardens. And eating. Two things we have in common. I thought about this as I mapped out planting the small garden plot. Mapping it out made me realize how gardening is a journey in which you start out one place and end up somewhere completely different. Without the traveling, […]