BARBARA'S TCHATZKAHS

"As the gardener, such is the garden." ...Hebrew proverb If you haven't guessed, I love gardening. I didn't realize how much I missed it until we moved to this house and its small backyard 4 years ago. Making things grow, bringing color to the dirt and having my hands in the soil - I can almost feel the earth's pulse. My late parents would wait until I came home for visits - then get me to trim their shrubs around the house by hand. They refused to get a gardener - because if I did it - things flourished. My Nana, of blessed memory, and I had a productive tomato garden going behind our garage too. When we moved in here the backyard was a mess. I had a landscaper come and level it right to the dirt. Running into him in the neighbor last summer he asked if he could come see what I'd done. He was amazed. He said I had turned an overgrown, bug-infested swamp into a lovely little yard. I felt humble. A sterile, manicured home is not for me. A lush place o...

CLOSER TO HASHEM IN MY GARDEN "It is forbidden to live in a town that does not have a green garden." — Talmud, Yerushalmi, Kiddushin 4:12 "A garden is so much like a church. So much care and feeding. Such competitiveness among the plants — some of them literally choke each other to death if you don't get out there and put a stop to it. The big gorgeous ones get lots of attention, but then one comes along that looks almost dead all season and suddenly, almost overnight, blooms splendidly forth. Never write anybody off completely. You just don't know. — Barbara Cawthorne Crafton in Let Us Bless the Lord, Year One "Spend time in a flower garden. Stay there as long as you wish, but make sure your visit is long enough to take in the various charms that the world of blossoms and petals provides. You can sit in a chair or on the grass, lie down looking up at the flowers from below, or walk around. However you choose to spend your time, be aware that you are a guest...