My Garden Guru

I am very lucky to have an old friend who has decades of experience in growing plants of all kinds. While I am a relative newbie at gardening, he has been working on the art and science of it all for years. He will soon be offering his own seeds for sale online which will be a wonderful opportunity for those who are looking for new kinds of vegetables, most non-hybrid, and created with love by a true sage of the natural world. Watch this space for contact information and a list of available seeds.

Photo from Growth in the Garden

I will definitely be experimenting with some of them, but I won’t make the mistake that I made last year. I was so excited about spring planting that I started my little peat pots way too early. I ended up with a bedroom filled with trays of rootbound seedlings and a long period of freezing temps outside. I lost a lot of plants during the wait for warmer weather. I learned that patience is a very important ingredient in gardening. Waiting to plant, waiting to reap. There is no healthy way to rush the coming or going of life’s seasons, you just have to let them move at their own pace.

Tim McGraw “I’ve Got Friends That Do”

One of my favorites. From the television show Cold Case, not sure of the episode. Some of the lyrics on the screen are incorrect.

Tha cats the rain and I

I made the mistake of falling asleep at 9pm and waking up at 3am. The house is quiet except for the sound of the rain falling outside my door and the soft breathing of the cat on my bed. He whimpers from time to time and I wonder what movies are playing in the mist of his dreams. I know little of his past. His ears are notched and torn; he wandered around our neighborhood like a thin grey whisper until we began feeding him regularly. At first he was frightened to come inside but he gradually habituated to the sounds and the enclosed space. Now he sleeps all day on the back of the loveseat, goes outside to tussle with the other tom cats, then comes back in to sleep some more. He is ours now. He will never again be hungry or hide from predators or sleep soaked with cold rain. Unlike our well rounded Gracenote who has never known want, Smokey is grateful for every crumb. He constantly looks around and behind himself, a habit that no doubt has kept him alive on his own all this time. And he knows cars. He hides until one passes then joyfully runs across the street to me, to warmth and food and love. We are his forever home, at least that is the plan. Sometimes I see a stray tortoise shell colored cat watching intently from the street or from under a car next door, and I understand how the cat hoarders happen. For every one that you take in off of the streets there is another, waiting, watching jealously as his brethren slinks into his new home and then comes out later smelling of food and warmth and love. Smelling of home.

Frost vs Freeze

I see that the temperature is going down into the twenties tomorrow night and I began to wonder what is the difference between a frost and a freeze. I googled and found a wonderful page
http://www.coldclimategardening.com that answered my question. Through their research they found that “Both [the frost advisory and the freeze warning] are only issued during the growing season. A Frost Advisory is issued when the predicted temperature is expected to fall to 36 degrees or lower in the next 3 to 30 hours during the growing season. So temperatures 35 to 40 range would also dictate a frost advisory. A Freeze Warning is issued when there is an 80% or greater chance that the temperatures are expected to fall to 32 degrees (F) or lower in the next 3 to 30 hours during the growing season. If the temperature is expected to fall below 28 degrees (F) this is considered a Hard Freeze.”

So this means I will harvest a lot of collards on Sunday since they will have been sweetened by their hardships in the cold. I could take a lesson from them. Hardship can make a person bitter and angry or they may allow it to tenderize them and sweeten them after time passes. It isn’t easy and I am not always able to take the “high road” but it is something I aspire to.

And So This is Christmas

Christmas in the deep south anyway. Warm sunny days; slightly chilly nights. The stray cat who prefers the outdoor life now scratches at the door and comes inside to sleep on the back of the couch. He sleeps deeply, snoring as he dreams cat dreams. Inside he knows he is safe, there are no predators to watch for, no maddening parasites to scratch. Just love, warm food in a glass dish, and a fine selection of soft beds to lay on.

The vegetable garden, as usual for fall, is flourishing. I have already cut, and preserved turnip greens but they are quickly growing back and developing fat juicy roots. The collard leaves are broad and sweet, and the broccoli florets are nestled in their cribs of leaves, growing and growing. No bugs. No disease. I love fall gardening. Maybe the fall of my life will be just as easy in its passing.

The strawberries are still fine. If I had known they were going to survive I would have planted a lot more of them. The blueberry bushes are sleeping now, but I expect to have a bumper crop next summer. Remember that blueberries are acid loving plants; you can feed them the same food as you do azaleas and camellias. They also appreciate a puff of pine straw around their roots to keep them warm. The other flora we have are pansies in the flower boxes. Beautiful color, resistant to cold nights but thirsty.

I will have to come back later to tell you about the trip I am planning. It’s going to be amazing.

Fall Has Fallen

Okay, that is a corny title but it is accurate. One day it was hot sunny summer, and the next there was a subtle difference in the slant of light, a drop in the temperature, and a feeling that like it or not, summer had passed away. It will be back; it’s just visiting another hemisphere for a while.

Fall has it’s own grace and beauty, there is no harshness about it. Gentle winds, delicate sunlight, and softer warmth rather than radiant heat. The leaves will change and become beautiful, then we sail into a string of high pressure holidays after which comes a few cold, depressing months. Not my favorite time of year. Unless it allows some snow to fall. That makes the chill worth it.

I will spend the time waiting for another summer, another light pattern dancing on the pool liner, crooked yellow squash and a surge of tomatoes. I never feel quite sure that I will be here when it comes back, but I plan to be. Hope to be. Will be.

Polish men in a Mexican Restaurant

Tonight my sister and I drove 30 minutes to get Mexican food. When you want it, you want it, and she did. There is a comforting sameness to it, just like some pop songs have only three chords, Mexican food has only three ingredients: tortillas, beans, and cheese. No unpleasant surprises. Depending on how it is stacked or grouped or arranged, it is called different names, and of course the type of meat you add changes things up.There is nothing about it I do not like. Except salsa. Dipping crisp, salty nacho chips in that swill is just criminal.

I was eavesdropping as I like to do in restaurants because you can hear the most amazing things. The best time was probably the young man in an Applebees who knelt down in the floor and proposed to his female companion. She said yes, and we all applauded. When we left later they were both sitting opposite one another in the booth and each was talking on their cell phone. Maybe they were talking to each other? Or had boredom set in already?

Tonight the men next to us were talking and as hard as I listened, practically leaning over into their booth, I just couldn’t place the language. It had the ghhhhhh of German and the moi froi gras sound of French but still…no. Almost a little Slavic/Russian sound.

When they got up to leave we just asked what language they were speaking and they said “Polish” I was surprised. No wonder I couldn’t place it. I have never heard Polish before. They were very nice.

I wish I had traveled more (or at all) in my life and met more people. The closest I have come has been the Korean and Chinese housemates we have rented to. They have all brought a pinch of new and alien spice into my life while they were here, and a learning of things I never knew.

Now, on to the topic of gardening.

I have collards and broccoli plants parked in the flower boxes at the moment, because I have to get the garden cleaned out before the fall plants go in. I tell you, I am not always successful with growing things, but if they drop the big one on us, I can keep us all in okra for years. I know that the okra (or gumbo) plant is an African native brought to America with the slaves we used to hold captive. It loves the soil and air of Georgia, and after the war it chose to stay. It seems to have no natural enemies here, pest or disease, and it happily produces pods sometimes more quickly than I can harvest them. You must snip the pods with something rather than try to twist them from the stem, and you must harvest them when they are finger sized. Much larger and you have something even the hogs won’t eat.

The leafy, nutrient dense turnips and collards also did very well last year and I expect as much success this fall. Broccoli was a pleasant surprise, offering big stems and florets that we consumed as quickly as they matured. The most important lesson I learned this year is to never buy straw to use as mulch, because it may be filled with weed seeds that will drive you to drink. I know that is what happened because weeds and rye grass were sprouting from the bale before I even broke it open. I can empathize with the Kentucky man who finally doused his garden with gasoline and set a match to it. I picture him laughing manically in the light of the flickering flames as he watched the weeds burn like a sacrifice to the garden gods. “Take it!” he must have shouted shaking his fist at the sky. “Just take it all you bastards!” Or maybe he just walked away. Maybe he went out to eat tacos.

My advice is that if you have ever wanted to try a hobby garden, do it in the fall. Think about it: you can dig and hoe and watch your plants die from bugs you cannot even see as your sweat rolls down your face and mixes with your tears, or you can pop some turnips in the cool soil on a crisp day and in a few weeks have a pot of delicious food. Don’t be a martyr; set yourself up for success. There will be time enough next summer for the battles. We will talk about that then.