Scent Notes: Bright stone fruits, petrichor and fresh turned garden soil, atlas cedarwood, daisies, and galbanum.

The neighbor’s rooster crows outside your window, but it doesn’t wake you. You’ve already been awake for over an hour, and you’re on your second cup of coffee, waiting for the sun to rise a little further so that you can get to work outside. For now, you’re pruning your indoor plants and windowsill herb gardens. You’re nibbling on a scone your friend from the farmer’s market made. You may be handy in the garden, and you can certainly throw a meal together, but you’re far from an expert in the kitchen. But that doesn’t matter; the amazing things you grow hardly have to be cooked. Every carrot, every tomato, every sprig of parsley is sheer perfection. Somehow, your garden is never lacking. It doesn’t matter if there’s been a drought or a monsoon; if there was an early frost or a late winter. Everything comes through with an abundance hardly seen on a commercial agricultural farm, let alone a few acres of private property. You can even grow things that shouldn’t survive in your climate, which is why the edge of your property somehow has lemon trees, plum trees, apricot trees, and cedar trees intermingling like it’s no big thing. Everyone in your town (and the neighboring ones) is astonished at your gardening prowess. Some make claims of witchcraft, which isn’t wrong, but which you always laugh off with a shrug in public. “I’m just blessed to have green hands instead of a green thumb,” you’ll say, waving your fingers at the accusers, which always causes them to laugh and forget whatever they were talking about. 

Every week in the spring, summer, and fall, you harvest and take your wares to the local farmer’s markets. You’re always the first to sell out of goods. People queue up an hour before opening to make sure they’re the first to get to your kale and cauliflower. You’ve even produced a hybrid, kaliflower, which has proven to be a surefire hit. You wave across from your stall to the Kitchen Witch, who’s always slinging homemade breads and desserts, and who sells out around the same you do, often with customers running from one of you to the other so they can make sure to get their nine-grain bread and their kaliflower before they’re both gone. And how have your flowers not been mentioned?! You can grow any type, all year long, no matter the conditions. Roses bloom in snow; orchids thrive in a small greenhouse off of your back deck; Bougainvillea burst forth on the cloudiest of days. Your bouquets are coveted, and you’ve done the floral arrangements for several weddings. People will pay top dollar for beautiful flowers, especially when yours last as long as they do. One bride claimed her bridal bouquet was fresh for two months!

The sun has finally risen enough that you can see outside. As always, there is plenty to do, and you’ll be outside until dusk harvesting, weeding, trimming, mulching … the list is endless, and you love that. There’s no better feeling than working in the garden from dawn until dusk, feeling the earth between your fingers, smells of dirt and wildflowers permeating your nostrils. You’ll be fast asleep before the sun is fully down, worn out from your successful day of hard work. And, honestly, that’s the only way you like to live your life.

Scent Notes: Bright stone fruits, petrichor and fresh turned garden soil, atlas cedarwood, daisies, and galbanum.