Around the middle of June I had the last day of my education at het Kruidenrijk. It was a year full of learning about and getting to know new (to me 😉 ) herbs, their medicinal properties and how to implement them. The education actually takes four years but I decided to stop after one year because I feel like I needed to prioritize some things. It wasn’t easy or without a heavy heart but the decision was, definitely, necessary.
Herbs will always be a part of my life. To me, they are the physical manifestation of nature’s magic. I feel a strong urge to be near them, to get to know them, to work with them.
Once we moved into our home, it felt like I could not wait another second longer to start working on our little garden. I wanted to build a garden bed for herbs and also a couple more for vegetables. We started with the one for our herbs because I had brought the herbs that I planted in our previous garden in pots and they really were longing to be put into the ground. Plus the seeds I had sown in seed trays were getting so big, they also really longed to be put in the ground.
During the weekend of Midsummer we built this garden bed, picked up (free! 🙂 ) black soil and transplanted most of our herbs. And even though beforehand I felt like I was too late; that the freshly transplanted herbs would have a rough, warm new start in new soil, I was able to let that feeling go. Because once we were busy working outside, in the sun, in the warmth of the Summer, the feeling of everything coming together exactly when it was supposed to, spoke loudest.
I also talked about the shift I felt from not being on time to feeling reminded of the fact that everything is always right on time, in my instagram post down below! Here’s the translation of what I wrote:
‘Summer is here. But somehow I strongly feel that Summer has been here for a while already. To me it feels like these past couple of days have been the height of Summer. My experience of feeling like we gradually move from winter to summer is getting stronger. In the way we move from cold to warmth. From many hours of darkness to many hours of sunlight. An endless dance of coming and going.
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The long, light summer evenings make me more active for a longer period of time, make me eat my dinner much later in the evening and make me go to sleep much later as well. It, to me, always feels like the warm, sunny days ask me to be outside. They give me new inspiration for paintings, videos and IJsselmugs. All the greenery, the flowers and herbs inspire me.
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It is the power of summer who brings me outside, it is the sun who actives me.
☀️
This past weekend our new little garden finally took shape. I finally transplanted most of my herbs into the ground (photo 2), on Midsummer’s Eve I saw a sky which captured the strength of summer (photo 3). And last night when I was walking towards our home, it seemed like time stood still (photo 4). I felt a peace within the cloudy sky while a couple of birds seemed to welcome the dark hours by chirping. This, to me, is the magic of summer and summer evenings.
The warmer weather always, for as long as I can remember, ask me to be outside. It has always felt like such a shame if I spend those days indoors. Since I moved back to my hometown in 2018 I automatically and intuitively started moving more with the seasons. This has resulted in wanting to be outside very early in the morning when the sun rises (around o5:00 AM) and late at night when the sun sets (around 22:00 PM). During the winter I need much more sleep then I do right now. The hours of light give me so much energy!
A tiny Oak! 
The Veluwe (close to Dieren) is full of (I believe they’re called) Verbascum phlomoides
June brought along some really warm days. Some were as hot as 33 degrees Celsius! Which also really inspired me a lot because of the amount of blue skies. I want to write a separate blog post about why this inspires me so much, with a bit of a back story and some pictures of what I have been creating recently!
But in this video ‘The Blue Sky As Inspiration; The Days of June ~ story 13’, I talk a bit about it already! 🙂
At the end of the month Tom and I built the garden beds in which I wanted to transplant some vegetables. We bought some vegetables as seedlings (lots of different kinds of kale) because I felt like since it is already a bit late for some, they have a bit more of a chance to fully grow. Some other ones I have grown from seed like corn, cucumber, pumpkin, spinach, rocket to just see what happens! I do have a little bit of experience working with herbs but working with vegetables still feels new to me. I have some experience with vegetables from the time when Tom and I were workaway-ing back in 2015-2017 but it feels like the knowledge is not ‘in my fingers’ yet, if that makes any sense.
One thing that just blows my mind is how fast vegetables sprout and grow when you have sown them! Some herbs can take weeks (!) and apart from the pumpkin seeds that are taking their time (I can see them peek up from underneath the soil now), the other vegetables have just burst into life! How exciting. 🙂
If you are curious to watch a bit of our ‘garden journey’ I have made a new video called ‘What Summer Days Consist Out Of To Me ~ story 14’, where you can see our process. Along with much needed time relaxing and enjoying in nature. To watch it, see down below and, as always, I have added English subtitles.
Thanks so much for reading! Since I am now up to date again, I will try to make these blog post a bit shorter so they might be a bit more of a quicker read.
All my love,
Lisa ~ Gerdina
IJsselvrouw 