Welcome to a New Dawn!

Let me put it this way:
Today is going to be a learning experience.
~Your Daily Fortune

Observe how all things are continually being born of change; teach yourself to see that Nature's highest happiness lies in changing the things that are, and forming new things after their kind. Whatever is, is in some sense the seed of what is to emerge from it. Nothing can become a philosopher less than to imagine that seed can only be something that is planted in the earth or the womb. ~Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

It's 5am, my usual time to welcome a new dawn.
A new thought came to mind...

Today, I plan to change my indoor environment.
I am going to create an indoor garden!
How do I begin?

A friend shares some 'Gardening Tips':

1. Choose the plot.

The plot I picked is my 'home' & my 'workplace' because I found out that through time, 'weeds' or the unwanted elements (the pollutants & toxins - physical, mental, spiritual) in the home are slowly growing unnoticed. There is need to breathe fresh again. The inspiration comes from...

"Charity begins at home."

CHARITY BEGINS AT HOME -- "One's own family (or country, etc.) comes before any other responsibilities. The idea of the proverb can be found in the Bible. The proverb dates back to the time of the Roman comic playwright Terence (about 190-159 BC). In 1383, John Wycliffe wrote: 'Charity should begin at himself.' Five hundred years later Dickens said that 'Charity begins at home, and justice begins next door.' First attested in the United States in the 'Winthrop Papers' (1628).'." From "Random House Dictionary of Popular Proverbs and Sayings" (1996) by Gregory Y. Titelman (Random House, New York, 1996).

2. Prepare the soil.

By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.
~Benjamin Franklin

...preparing always the soil for unexpected good to sprout in.
~J.R.R. Tolkien

As we all know, preparation entails a lot of time spent in developing a conviction or belief in something. This involves doing own research, education from experts and mentors & most importantly, a personal experience. I started with myself, then with my own family - my husband and my sons...

3. Decide when to plant.

It is something to be able to paint a particular picture, or to carve a statue, and so to make a few objects beautiful; but it is far more glorious to carve and paint the very atmosphere and medium through which we look, which morally we can do. To affect the quality of the day, that is the highest of arts. Every man is tasked to make his life, even in its details, worthy of the contemplation of his most elevated and critical hour. ~Henry David Thoreau, "Where I Live"

After having had a personal gratifying experience shared with my family, we decided to plant a good seed today, together...

4. Selecting the proper fertilizer.

The farmer's eye is the best fertilizer. ~Anonymous

Failure is good. It's fertilizer. Everything I've learned about coaching, I've learned from making mistakes. ~ Rick Pitino

Fertilizer does no good in a heap, but a little spread around works miracles all over. ~ Richard Brinsley Sheridan

Prejudices, it is well known, are the most difficult to eradicate from the heart whose soil has never even loosened or fertilized by education; they grow there, firm as weeds among stones. ~ Charlotte Bronte

The brain is a commodity used to fertilize ideas. ~Elbert Hubbard

One forgets words as one forgets names. One's vocabulary needs constant fertilizing or it will die. ~Evelyn Waugh

Life ought to be a struggle of desire toward adventures whose nobility will fertilize the soul. ~ Rebecca West

The only way you can bring in the harvest in the fall is to plant in the spring, and to water, weed, fertilize in the summer. ~Anonymous Gardener

5. Mulch the plants.

Mulch will hold the moisture in the soil, especially when it rains, which is one of the environmental benefits to using mulch. ~Pat Raglin

A friendship can weather most things and thrive in thin soil; but it needs a little mulch of letters and phone calls and small, silly presents every so often - just to save it from drying out completely. ~Pat Brown

6. Organic or chemical gardening.

Let every individual and institution now think and act as a responsible trustee of Earth, seeking choices in ecology, economics and ethics that will provide a sustainable future, eliminate pollution, poverty and violence, awaken the wonder of life and foster peaceful progress in the human adventure. ~John McConnell, founder of International Earth Day

Organic buildings are the strength and lightness of the spiders' spinning, buildings qualified by light, bred by native character to environment, married to the ground. ~Frank Lloyd Wright

Everything is the product of one universal creative effort. There is nothing dead in Nature. Everything is organic and living, and therefore the whole world appears to be a living organism. ~Seneca

Man, unlike any other thing organic or inorganic in the universe, grows beyond his work, walks up the stairs of his concepts, emerges ahead of his accomplishments. ~Samuel Johnson

Men are free when they are in a living homeland, not when they are straying and breaking away. Men are free when they are obeying some deep, inward voice of religious belief. Obeying from within. Men are free when they belong to a living, organic, be. ~D.H. Lawrence

7. Crop rotation.

I shall now recall to mind that the motion of the heavenly bodies is circular, since the motion appropriate to a sphere is rotation in a circle. ~Nicolaus Copernicus

I've learned over the years that it doesn't matter where you pitch in the rotation. For me, preparation is everything. ~Cory Lidle

8. Harvest!

Your descendants shall gather your fruits. ~Virgil

9. Share!

We are united with all life that is in nature. Man can no longer live his life for himself alone. ~Albert Schweitzer

As dusk appears, I recap my thoughts about gardening...

Gardening is the slowest of the performing arts. ~Anonymous

Then again, if the plant is slow growing, and you are getting older, you may want to start with a larger plant. I find myself buying larger plants each year. ~Bill Cannon, "Garden Guide"

... even the smallest landscape can offer pride of ownership not only to its inhabitants but to its neighbors. The world delights in a garden.... Creating any garden - big or small - is, in the end, all about joy. ~Julie Moir Messervy, "A Little Bit of Eden"