New Moon Spring Self-Care

Spent an amazing Saturday evening *by myself*.  This week has been a really intense ending to a fairly intense semester.   As part of my self-care, I finally got out in my garden and planted all the seedlings I bought weeks ago (some of which look the worse for wear after waiting outside for me to find time for them).   I sifted through the springy, alive compost I spent all winter making, and just got back in touch with the ground that I hadn't touched for almost nine months.  I pulled weeds, cleared ground, and dug nutrient-rich compost into some of the harder winter dirt and planted about half my garden with kale, cabbage and tomatoes.   Last year, I tried, as usual, to have it all - but my cabbages, shoved into a shady corner, grew slowly and  were ravaged by bugs and bunnies.  This year, I thought about what I *really* wanted, and what I had energy for.   Instead of tucking in carrots or onions where they really wouldn't have space to grow, or crowding in larger plants in an effort to "have it all," I chose a few plants I really wanted to prosper - cabbage, kale, spinach, tomatoes - and spread them out all over the garden.  I gave them a crap-ton of compost and plenty of room to be strong and well.   I knew this meant I would have to give up some things - eggplants, for one, and maybe green peppers - but I know that I won't have time to tend high-maintenance seedlings or slow-growing, disease-prone tropical plants like them.   So I did the hardest thing for me - I said "no" to possibility and variety.   Instead, I channeled strength and power into the "few good things."  Cabbage, kale and spinach have become staples- this summer, I'm hoping to provide weekly food instead of dazzling breadth.   We'll see if I can hold back, though.   I do love the *4* eggplants or peppers I usually get.


This is, as usual, a metaphor for my life.  I am fueled by the possibilities - or my dreams of how life *could* be.    This is both beautiful and dangerous.  

The Organic Garden

"Basically, organic gardening means a partnership with nature.  Nature's gardeners are numerous and eager to help.  Millions of beneficial organisms (everything from bacteria to earthworms to ground beetles) thrive in a fertile soil, and they make things go right if the gardener encourages them.  The gardener does that by understanding the natural processes of the soil and aiding them with compost.  The inherent stability and resilience of natural systems can be on your side if you work with them.  Organic gardening is a great adventure, an expedition into a deeper and more satisfying understanding of vegetable production.  You are now a participant rather than a spectator.  You share creation."

- Elliot Coleman, Four Season Harvest

Spring planting

You know, I always tried to restrain myself from too much "crop update"-style posts where I just listed everything that was happening in the garden - but in reality,  I just went back and read the late-May posts for the last two years, and it was really cool.   I really like having photographic evidence of what I have done each year, and feeling like I have some kind of record of the seasons.   For example, yes, this week it is rainy and not the warmest, but it seems like its been a whole lot warmer than it was in past years.  I already have tomatoes and eggplants in the ground, and my lettuce is straight-up edible size.

Also, although I notice that each year I do resolve to "tone it down," as of last May I was still calling for a "no ground left uncovered policy."   If I continue reading into June, however, I see all my frustration: peas that were just starting to bloom when it was time to plant the cucumbers, lettuce that was still producing (and stealing growing time) when I needed to plant the eggplant, etc.

This year I'm not only trying to "plant within my wants" (meaning planting only the things that we will truly eat and want), I"m also refining  from last year - no bean teepee, more eggplants, more arugula, no broccoli (which I don't think I could say no to last year!).   Furthermore, I'm also continuing to plant "within my means" - which means doing the work that feels right, not what "must be done."

Restraint.


So recently I say to my girlfriend, "I think this year I'm going to take it easy, you know, try to hold back a little and not go overboard with the garden,"  thinking, of course, that she'll understand my urge toward personal growth and maturity in this hobby of mine.

Lettuce seedlings - planted a healthy distance apart.   

Her reaction?   To fall off her chair laughing.   She starts trying to hide it, but she can't and it goes from giggles to chuckles to all-out uncontrollable laughter.   I really, honestly can't figure out what's so funny....at first.    Then she wipes her eyes and looks at me and says, "I'm sorry. I really am.   It's just that we've been doing this for five years.  And you've said  that ever year."

Sigh.   Maybe if some you are gardeners, you will understand.  It's a teensy bit addictive, you know, and sometimes it's really easy to "accidentally" bring home "extra" tomatoes, herbs, seeds, bulbs or whatever from the garden store.  (Barbara Kingsolver's husband, upon seeing her dog-eared and marked-up seed catalog, said, "why don't you just circle the ones you don't want?").   But apparently, not only am I easily enticed to overdo it in the garden, worse, I've known it and been resolving to cut back since year one.

Permaculture and the backyard garden

Permaculture stands for "permanent agriculture."   To learn more about permaculture, check out my last post.   I had a love-hate relationship with it, but there were some Permaculture slogans that, after three or four years of planning my own garden, (and much to my chagrin) have become part of my own basic philosophies in gardening. Enjoy.

1) Plant in “zones”

In permaculture, a "zone map" becomes an intricate diagram of an entire farm: zones zero through five indicate a range of planting activities, from an herb garden all the way out to a semi-forested orchard-and-grazing area, for all those sheep I will never have. But the concept is practical:

How I learned how to learn about gardening

In college, I took a course in Permaculture, or permanent agriculture, from a pair of dreadlocked hippies journeying through Southern California. They ran their own bio-diesel-powered sustainability bus tours, teaching like-minded folks across the Southwest how to dig up their lawns and make gasoline from fast-food fry oil. They got a gig teaching this Permaculture class to me and about eight other food-growing hippie wannabes, and proceeded to try to download a lifetime's worth of engineering and gardening knowledge in one college semester. They seemed to have as many slogans as Mao's little red book, with themes like, "protracted observation, not protracted labor!" and "yields are potentially infinite!" They were zealots, that's for sure, out to to save us from future starvation with smart design. Nothing was to have just one use: beans fertilized the soil, chickens not only laid eggs but could be placed in a "chicken-tractor" for soil prep, grape vines provided fruit and summer shade, and our shower water could be filtered through a system of ponds (filled with edible fish, of course) to irrigate our fruit trees.

I remember baking out on a California hill, trying to handle my pencil, my notebook, and an A-frame level, trying to map out elevation for a potential terraced orchard, thinking, I will never get this down.