Thanks For the Memories

It feels a little nostalgic to turn the garden under in the fall. I used to wait for the first frost and then pick all the squash and cover the carrots with leaves. That was in Spokane, a different climate than the PNW. Concord grapes were better after the first frost. Sweeter. Jack and would pick the two rows that formed the walkway to the house. The grapes overflowed the wheelbarrow many times. We gave some away and I would make grape juice with the rest. Someone told me how to fill the jar with grapes, add some sugar syrup and hot bath the jars. That was it. Grape juice. You could also use a juicer and hot bath the juice. There probably has to be some lemon in there for the proper citric acid level. That is important in canning. If you've never canned, the jars glistening on the counter, their tops popping as they seal, you don't know what a good feeling it brings to the heart. A feeling of security, I think. Especially when the fruit cellar is filled with jars. All that food there to feed the family throughout the winter. And the wood stacked high for the woodstove. Good and secure.

I had a friend once who said she was freaked out by having too much food in her house. I had cupboards full of food. Cans of tomato sauce and soup and olives. When I cooked a meal, I had the ingredients, usually. So part came from the garden and part from the cupboard. When I went back to the land in the 70s, I hoped I could have everything come from my mini-farm. It didn't, but I did well with all the canning, etc. One thing about this type of lifestyle, is it takes time. And we don't have as much time now to do homey things these days. Lots of folks aren't at home in the same way. This makes me sad. Maybe I'm old-fashioned, but I love the idea of milling about the house and yard and making a home. I'm sad to not have that now. It's hard to make a condo. I'm going to move. I decided that in the night—I've decided it other nights too. This is how it goes being a divorcee. Deciding and then being unable to know how to get to where I want to go. Then I feel nauseous. Urgh!

To put the garden to bed, layer it with the compost you've been making all summer. You can grow a cover crop. Many people think this is a good way to amend soil. I doubt I will sow a cover crop, more than likely I'll find someone to haul manure for me. Next year the garden will produce. This year, well, at least I'm eating tomatoes and greens. And I get to chat with the other gardeners. All of this is good.

Flower

Garden Tales

While in the garden yesterday, I heard about a hydroponic solution that makes broccoli grown like crazy, and a local college that doesn't hire experienced writers, only those with degrees, and a weed in the nightshade family—I don't recall the name but it's not lambs quarters, that's not edible. Lambs quarters is edible and tastes similar to spinach. There is chickweed and sorrel and many other edible plants that most consider to be weeds, abundant for the taking in the garden. If the garden is properly rendered, weeds can live in peace alongside cultivated plants. Is this also true with people?

I'm going to say no, not if you want to be happy that is. I'm going to say that to have great love, one must let all weeds die away and open the heart to something greater—some beautiful vibrant plant that nourishes consistently. I've realized that my heart is a convenient heart, not a heart that risks great love. Why? Because, I was taught to catch hold of any branch that would hold my weight as I was being washed downstream. A skinny, half-hearted branch will keep you from drowning—it's the sturdy branch that will allow you to climb free of the flood. Of course one will catch hold of anything when in a state of panic. I forgive myself for this.

In the garden, there is no panic. There sometimes is the overwhelm of the gardener; it would be easy to call it quits when the soil is poor. I will not. There is a book Secrets to Great Soil by Elizabeth Stell that looks good. And my friend said to layer leaves and manure—and my neighbor suggested blood meal. I hope this doesn't come from letting blood. Remember those movies from junior high where the villagers let the yak's blood and then drank it. Right there in front of the poor yak. Yesterday I had my blood let by my ex and then he drank it right in front of me. He was smiling the whole while. I will no longer go near his village. Yaks are vulnerable to type of hedonistic behavior.

Anyway, I picked some nice tomatoes and a zucchini yesterday. I think I'll be getting serious soon about turning over the weedy spots and piling on the leaves. I have a friend who could give me leaves come fall, as the garden itself will have few. It is pretty open with the exception of the row of plum trees to the north, which will be ripening soon. What a lark. Fresh plums to dry.

Happy gardening,

Flower

Night Garden

In the night, the earth worms come out. If you shine a flashlight around, you can pick them up and put them in a coffee can. That's what my grandpa did. There was a little dirt In that can and it still smelled like Foldger's. Then we went fishing in the early morning, when it was still chilly, when everything was still, the water clear and dark because the sun hadn't come over the mountains yet. Perhaps the night before we'd been to the dump to watch the bears. They'd amble through the piles of trash and find things to eat. It was back when garbage went in the back of your truck, driven to some place off the main road. It smelled terrible, those dumps, those poor bears must have had belly aches. Now those piles are called compost. You can't savage them for relics but you can grow some nice soil with the help of earthworms. Their castings make for rich dark soil that can be put back in to your garden. And then in the night you can go out there and look at your worms, keep them there, unless you need a few for fishing. They are one of the best things for your soil.

I'm thinking also of the flowers that bloom at night. There are some white ones that seem to light up once the sun goes down and they are crazy with fragrance. I'm not sure right now what they are called, some morning glory perhaps. Anyway, in the night besides the worms, raccoons roam the garden. They've been known to scratch up the compost, so food scraps need to be dug in well. Also, cats and rats and coyotes. And perhaps a bear or two. Well, little good they do for the garden.

Fish fertilizer is good for the garden. I remember grandpa burying the fish heads and guts. Grandma had a nice strawberry garden. I don't recall that she grew any vegetables, but there were flowers and berries and we'd go out and pick wild things. There were the thimble berries and the huckleberries. She made jam, which we all loved to spread on the toast that was usually slightly burnt and slathered with butter. Well, it's morning. I don't hear the rain, maybe it finished itself. I do hear the gulls and I do need to get up and shower as the grandbaby is coming soon.

Happy composting,

Flower

The Touch of Fall

Here in the PNW, fall touches us at night soon before it rests it's fingers on other parts of Washington. In Spokane, my home town, it is in the upper 90s right now, probably will be in the 100s when I visit the second week of August. There is no cool air blowing at night there, no extra wrap is needed on an evening walk. Here, I put the quilt back on the bed the other day--will it stay there? I'm not sure. Since I keep the windows open at night, I smell the sea air, feel the chill that seems to rest on the surface of the heat. Fall, it says to me and I'm thinking I better get the kale in, better get more bok choy planted, and broccoli raab.

There are summer plantings one can do to reap fall crops and wintering-over crops. I like the Russian Kale, which I can grow all winter, even if there is some frost or snow. It is hearty. Also, like I said before, carrots, if covered with leaves will winter over in colder climates. Because the ground freezes, leaves are a necessary warm blanket. Even here, though I haven't tried it, but I imagine covering them would be a good idea. And of course, cabbage lasts if it doesn't bolt and the cabbage worms don't get it.

When I lived in Kingston, my crop of kale grew larger and larger until it was taller than me. In the very early spring it would bloom yellow flowers, and against the purplish green leaves and stems, a vibrancy exuded that lit up the sideyard closest to the path to the water. The deer came up that path from the beach. Usually two fawns and their mother to nibble the crop. It was sweet to see them grazing in the yard. I loved them and at the same time scowled when I saw them helping themselves to my garden.

A neighbor once said he loved the wildlife in the neighborhood: bear, deer, raccoons, opossums, squirrel, rats--I nodded thinking, I could do without the cat and raccoon fights that happened through the glass kitchen door around midnight. Raccoon families always coming to raid the food bucket, scraps for the garden, that I kept on the porch in a dish detergent bucket. It had a tight lid they couldn't be peeled open by little raccoon hands, but they still tried and my cat, Scooter, pummeled the door with his body, yowling like the tough guy he isn't. In fact, he's the least touch cat I know. Just look at him wrong and he runs and hides under the bed.

Anyway, saving food scrapes and digging them into the garden improves the soil. I don't do this here in my community garden, because it would mean hauling a bucket three blocks to the garden, did I just exaggerate the distance? Well they are long blocks, and some trail, to reach the garden. I could haul them in the car, but I don't. And the city may have a rule against such things. One problem with the food scraps dug into the garden is they bring pests to dig up the goods. Raccoons will dig and perhaps rats do too. You don't want rats around your house, I promise you that.

Okay, today I will tie up the beans. And listen to some music with Brenda at the sculpture park. Even with the chill in the air, it is still summer.

Ciao!

Nancy's Garden

I've always grown tomato plants. When I was a kid, I had one or two planted next to the pool. I constantly got swamped with chlorinated water, which didn't seem to hurt it any. The plants still produced great tomatoes. Of course that was in Spokane, where it is very hot in the summer and the tomatoe plants thrive on heat. Here in the Pacific Northwest, the dampness does them in. They can easily subcomb to the blight. I put in two plants just last week. It's been so cold, on of the other community gardeners said it was cruelty to plants. I however, lost 12 plants to frost once in Yakima. They just grew back stronger.

I am sort of a romantic when it comes to gardening and love the country garden look. I attempted to pull it off at my last house, but then I was in graduate school and my cat died. And then my marriage failed. Now I'm getting divorced and gardening by myself in Fairhaven. A woman I used to know might say about my state of affairs, I'm just having a streak of bad luck. But really, although it's been exceptionally hard for the last three years, so hard I could take up singing country music, I am sort of falling in love with my new life. I'm really feel so free. And my garden mirror's that freedom, don't you think? I think so.

The last house I lived in overlooked the water. I had a wonderful Victorian garden, designed to hide the Glendon--waste disposal system-- with sprays of irises and daisies and glads and of course, wild blackberries. They grow all over the place here in the Pacific Northwest. Not part of our natural habitat, so they are considered a noxious weed list. Someone told me when I first moved from the East side of the state, to never cultivate them. I was just happy to pick them in the fall, giant blackberries, more than I'd seen in all my life. But the ones in my Victorian garden are the tiny indigenous blackberry. The are very delicious and good to find.

Today I dug up about 24 square feet of my garden. I was talking to my neighbor while I turned the soil over with a shovel. She was weeding and putting in a few pea transplants. We were discussing the community garden and how nice it was to have a place away from our homes to come. I live in a condo with cement all around, so this community garden really is my yard. It is lined with plum trees and rhubarb plants and peonies. There's a shared tool shed and a picnic table. It's a good place to come to play with my grandbaby. It's private on one street side, on the other, which is more like an alley, there are houses--where participating gardeners live. Some of the folks have been gardening in this community garden for 20 years or more--about the length of my marriage.

I'm the new comer to this community garden--my neighbor is actually newer than me, since I started last spring--and I'm perhaps one of the worse gardeners of all the 10x20 plots. Not that I want to be a bad gardener. But I probably garden like I do the rest of my life. I loose control of stuff, piles of papers, unfolded laundry, dirty dishes. I'm embarrassed to say this, but I'm messy. And so is my garden. But oh well. It is perhaps one of my lessons this life for me. Just let things be what they are. Don't try to control things too much--maybe I wouldn't have stayed in a bad marriage so long if I'd followed the garden's advice. Just be what I am--truly myself.