Start to Finish...

PART TWO interrupted

Harvest 10/3/2010

I'm still working on my garden dilemma.  I'll post PART TWO: the dilemma soon.  In the meantime...

After my walk to the Lighthouse this morning, I stopped by my garden to see what the intense combination of heat (113 in Long Beach!!!!!) and rain (torrential downpour for an hour) had done for the tomato plant I'd decided to spare from its green mulch death for another week.  Score!!  Or should I say STRIKE! Since I got one of those bowling last night (doing a happy dance).   Not only has this plant completely recovered from its blossom rot start, the green tomatoes look healthy and happy and these pictured above had vine ripened.

Granted, there may not be even enough to make a third quart of pasta sauce (I made and froze the sauce below last week), but they'll be nice to slice up here or there this week.

Pasta sauce for winter

One of the major components about adrenal recovery is eating regularly - not always my strongest suit. Some weeks I have a weird commuting schedule and now that I live alone again, it just doesn't seem worth it or I don't have the energy to always to cook something "just for myself".  Indeed, there is something healing about preparing a meal to share with people or the person you love, saying a silent prayer of thanks over it, but I digress....

Some days, honestly, my adrenals have knocked me so far off track I can't get the energy up to eat, never mind prepare a meal.  So, I subsist on things that are good for me, like sardines, and some things that are maybe not sooo good for me, but are easy and in an adrenal fog or thyroid low can get the job done like steaming some shrimp wontons from TJs.  

Occasionally I'll guard myself against those hard days and get something big going that will last me a week and just "be there" like a pot of veggie quinoa or the chicken curry I made last week (yummy, btw, w/ sweet potatoes and fresh corn off the cob).  But, today,  I've decided that I will cook individual meals for myself.  I will use the pepper, tomatoes and parsley on some lime grilled shrimp tacos for lunch.  And I will use the thyme and parsley on some salmon for dinner.  I will try to take care of myself like I would take care of someone I loved.

And because it is Sunday in October,  I'll turn on some football or jazz or maybe both.  I'll reorder my business cards because I forgot a letter in my website and they were printed wrong (did I mention I'm still dealing with some brain fog!).  I'll finish my business taxes that are due this month, and I'll work on both my real job and my fake job (look tomorrow for shots of a cool wedding I shot at www.squidpictures.blogspot.com).

But, mostly,  with the help of the beautiful bounty from my garden which I was blessed with today, I'll eat when I'm supposed to....

PART ONE: relationships

PART ONE:

I've been thinking about relationships a lot this week.  What it means to be in one.  What it means to keep one healthy.  What it means to fight for one or let one go.  What it means to be respected in one.

And as I stood over my 5 x 12 plot this morning contemplating a gardening dilemma I have (more on that later) - exhausted and spent from another night pacing the loft arguing with myself over some things -  it suddenly became clear to me that not only am I "in relationship" with my garden,  I'm "in" a relationship with my garden, too.  And while those are related, they are not the same. 

The garden and I most definitely have a relationship.  I nourish it.  It, in turn, nourishes me.  The most basic of needs met for a partnership, no?

Years ago,  I asked my father how he'd managed to keep a healthy relationship with my mother.  It wasn't like I never witnessed arguing or strain between them or even once what came close in my tattered childhood memory to a real separation.   But in the end they always chose love and commitment and the work that entailed.  He was driving, I remember, and he told me that the whole notion of relationships being 50/50 was a lie.  My father told me that in real life relationships are always 60/40.  He said, "Sometimes you are giving 60% and sometimes you are getting 60%".  And that made sense to me, somehow.

In practical terms, I can see where the garden can be a guide to a healthy relationship.  Certainly the 60/40 rule applies.  There are times in the season, like now, when the garden has finished producing for me.  And it's my turn.  It's my turn to buy seeds, start seeds, plant seeds.  It's my turn to amend the soil with back breaking work and create a fertile ground.  Stand my ground maybe?  I will give my 60% now, in order for the garden to give its 60% in a few months when it will be bountiful again with beets, carrots, radishes, fava beans, peas.  With maybe a minimal 40% effort on my part to water, the garden will hold up its end of our 60/40 relationship in the form of food and flowers for me.

And as I stood over my gardening dilemma this morning (we'll get to that shortly),  I thought about other ways in which my garden and I surprisingly reflected the human relationships I'm in or not in I suppose.

SPACE:  Every gardener knows that most plants need space to flourish.  There is that moment in the growing process, and in a relationship, where you have to trust that giving the plant some space - which can mean making some hard, painful, or scary choices in the short run - like pruning or culling - is the best thing for a healthy and fruitful long run.  Now, some plants, like people,  can do with a bit more crowding than others, but most plants definitely need their space.  And if you try to crowd them, they can't realize their full potential.  I've been guilty of this, I think.  I may have been too exhilarated about a relationship that I crowded my partner, not even realizing that had I given him the space he required, it would have also allowed me the the space I needed to grow, as well.

On the other hand, most plants can't grow completely alone.   Sure, there is the occasional Joshua Tree (great U2 album, buy it) or cactus seemingly sitting alone, miles from another cactus as you drive through the desert.  But, most plants don't thrive in that kind of environment.  Ultimately,  plants (and people, no matter what they might say) need companionship.  Sometimes it's because they actually can reach greater heights together by leaning on one another and sometimes it's simply that to bear fruit, to create if you will, they need to be pollinated by their fellow plants.  And all the bees in the world can't help the plant if there isn't another one of its kind somewhere nearby.

This all seems true of a relationship, too.  Each person in the partnership has their own needs in this regard - how much "space" they need to flourish as an individual and as part of the garden.  But, ultimately, they do need one another and will thrive in the larger picture of both their lives and the relationship because they have each other.  I find that comforting.

REST:  A garden, like a relationship, needs at times to rest from its frantic pace, sit squarely in some stillness to recover and evaluate.  To take a break from being "in" a relationship to just being "in relationship" with the gardener.  And the gardener gets to rest, too.  Although it doesn't mean that either one of them has "checked out" or that something becomes stagnant.  The garden, with its spent growth heating up under a lot of mulch simply changes gears.  It gets to break down old matter, process it, clean it up.  It can heal itself with some rest and reflection.   If the garden (or we) gets the chance to properly say goodbye to the old, to honor it, process it, and send it off as rich matter that will support the future, then the garden (and a relationship in the present) can grow and be healthy.  If the old, depleted soil or beliefs or attachments remain for too long - stealing nourishment and taking up space in soil or heart - then the new harvest won't stand a chance.  Garden and Gardener are simply stuck trying to grow something new where the old has taken root, but no longer bears fruit or simply impedes what new could come.  

To be prepared for a future growth we sometimes need to lay fallow, honor the past seasons, and repair in order for our garden to be ready and healthy for the possible new growth.  And the gardener, who has been off evaluating her own successes and missteps of the last season, making notes about what worked and didn't, what needs more attention or space can come back both renewed and more aware of what needs to be tended to in the garden.

PART TWO:  the garden dilemma,  to be continued....

Seedfolks

In honor of yesterday's Harvest Moon, here's another garden-centric book for your bookshelves:  SEEDFOLKS by Paul Fleischman.  This little novel, which I believe is technically a young adult novel, is a really fast read (I mean like an hour) for anyone who loves gardening or has been / wants to be a part of a community garden.

Told from the point of view of various folks who garden a "vacant" (except for the garbage and tires) lot, each one has something to offer to the group that is uniquely theirs and something they take away which nourishes them in the broadest of definitions.  It speaks to the universality of the joys of growing food to eat and share. 

I loved this passage in the voice of Nora, the caretaker of Mr. Myles - an aged, wheelchair bound man.  He gardens in a barrel contraption he can reach, which she rigs up.  But, the gardening isn't just for him:

That small circle of earth became a second home to both of us.  Gardening boring?  Never!  It has suspense, tragedy, startling developments -- a soap opera growing out of the ground.  I'd forgotten that tremolo of expectation produced by a tiny forest of sprouts.

How true!!!

SEEDFOLKS would make a great stocking stuffer for anyone you know who loves their garden or dreams of having one.

Gnome in the Northwest Corner

current garden plan 9.21.10

No, this isn't a secret play for the San Diego Chargers.  This is use 101 for my chalkboard dining room table... thinking out the garden plan.

This is generally what things look like right about now... the lettuces are taking well, and the summer crops are still holding their ground - green tomatoes and flowers, a single eggplant FINALLY forming and actually a few peppers growing.  But, things are going to have to change....  And soon, since the following seed packets have arrived:

Botanical Interests : Early Wonder Beets, Cherry Belle Radishes, Gourmet Blend Beats, Carnival Blend Carrots, Brightest Brilliant Quinoa (particularly excited about that one!)

Territorial Seed Company:  Canoe Shelling Peas, Broad Windsor Fava Beans, Winter Density Romaine Lettuce, Sylvetta Wild Arugula, Red Marble Onions, Top Keeper Onions, Touchstone Gold Beets, Nantes Carrots (thrown in by Territorial for Plant a Row for the Hungry via Garden Writer's Org - these will be given away).

Then there are the ranunculus I want to plant and some seeds from last year of this or that nature.

We've had a marine layer for at least one week straight, so I'm thinking unless next week's weather forecast has some miraculous heat wave, I should sacrifice the tomatoes to let that ground rest for a month before I plant there again.   But, cutting down a bevy of green tomatoes will be hard....  Especially since I have only gotten one quart of tomato sauce with maybe another waiting in line in the bowl of tomatoes on the counter. 

It's a lot of seeds for a 5x12 plot (plus that little extra L), so it's going to be tricky.  But, with the handy dandy erasable chalk plan, I should be able to come up with something!   I'll keep you posted. 

Song of Songs

Let us go early to the vineyards

  to see if the vines have budded,

if their blossoms have opened,

  and if the pomegranates are in bloom --

there I will give you my love.

                                                  Song of Songs 7:12

I've been thinking a lot about pomegranates lately.  The tree in our community garden is hanging low with them and I'd gotten it in my head to make pomegranate jam.  Easier said than done, but I digress...

Long before I ever had ever held one, eaten one, or opened one, I loved pomegranates.  I don't know if it was the melding of the apple green and the garnet red or the little royal decoration at the top that reminded me of Max's crown in WHERE THE WILD THING ARE.  I was drawn to the gem-like seeds which were held like the greatest of treasure by this hardest of hard fruits.   The seeds glistened in paintings or photographs, seeming to me like the deep tones of reds went deeper and deeper into a tiny reflective pool.  I wondered if they tasted sweet or sour.  I wondered, before I knew, if that was even the part one might eat!

I'm not sure if I was drawn to them because pomegranates hold a special place in literature and once a "Lit Major" always a "Lit Major".  They showed up in books and poems representing fertility and beauty and abundance.  Pomegranates will often be eaten at Rosh Hashana dinner as Jewish tradition tells that pomegranates have 613 seeds which correspond to the 613 mitzvohs of the Torah. For them, these powerful fruits are a symbol of righteousness.  Or maybe it was just the exotic nature of them: The secrets that they might hold about far away desert lands.  They seemed forbidden and mysterious - as if they held primal information within them of who we are as people.  And in fact, the trees first grew in Iran and then during ancient times quickly spread to the Himalayan area of India and on to the Middle East, and Greece.  And having traveled in some of those regions and having felt the deep connection to them, to the earth - as if this is indeed where we sprung from - I think perhaps pomegranates actually do hold some secret to our being.

Now, of course, they are almost common place.  You can get them already juiced in your supermarket in the smallest of towns.  Doctors rave about the antioxidant nature of them.  They are being used for political and social maneuverings in Afghanastan to convince farmers to move from growing the lucrative crop of opium to the even more lucrative crop of pomegranates.   I mean have you seen the price of the juice?  Although, having attempted the jam, I have some theories about that.  But, again, I digress...

Ultimately, though, pomegranates are sexy.  When they ripen they gently split open revealing more and more of their plump, fertile, ruby seeds.  The darker, the sweeter.  Hanging open - their jewels to be plucked - they tempt birds and humans alike.   And they show up a lot in the grandest of grandest of literature: the bible.  While some scholars may argue that Song of Songs is a treatise on political dealings and conflict between beliefs and nations, others believe it might have been an early kind of erotic poetry.  But, no matter what the origin, there is our fruit in question front and center to the longing and desire with pomegranate-colored temple blushing and love making under its blossoms.  One can imagine lovers feeding each other the dark, sweet seeds while juices drip down upon their lips.  And maybe I'm just missing some romance in my life right now, but this seems reason enough to love pomegranates.

I would lead you

  and bring you to my mother's house --

I would give you spiced wine to drink,

  the nectar of my pomegranates.

                                                                                        Song of Songs 8:2

 Oh, and the pomegranate jam.  yeah, still taking those damn seeds out of them.  I'll keep you posted.  In the meantime, please check out some photographs I took of the lovely poms from the garden over at www.squidpictures.blogspot.com

Farm City

It isn't a Fall day, but I'm pretending it is.  I've been sitting in my armchair with football on low in the background, mousaka warming on the stovetop for lunch, and a box of tissues because it seems I've found myself a cold.  Luckily I watered the garden yesterday (lettuce sprouts doing well!).  So, despite all the work I have in so many other vertical categories of my life, I decided to finish a book that my fellow gardener friend Kristin gave me for my birthday last year.  Shamefully, because of all the other reading I HAVE to do, it has taken me almost a year to finish a book for pleasure.  It is called FARM CITY: The Education of an Urban Farmer by Novella Carpenter.  She takes you along on her adventures in urban farming including the joy and heartache attached to raising pigs, chickens, ducks, rabbits, bees, and vegetables.  Carpenter keeps you very entertained as she leads you through how quickly a desire for sustainability can lead to finding yourself doing everything from dumpster diving to massaging a pig's hind quarter with salt in the quest for some homemade prosciutto if you aren't careful!  All this takes place on an abandoned piece of land next to her apartment in a "bad" section of Oakland, CA.  I highly recommend it.  This paragraph caught my attention:

While rooting around the history of prosciutto making, I had stumbled upon this quote from Pliny the Elder, the ancient Roman naturalist, about Epicurus, the famous Greek hedonist:  "That the connoisseurs in the enjoyment of life of ease was the first to lay out a garden at Athens; up to this time it had never been thought of to dwell in the country in the middle of town."  The garden, as far as scholars can sort out, grew fruits and vegetables.  

She goes on to write that the notion that an urban farmer existed before Christ made her feel as if at its very core, there really is nothing new.  And that we are all a part of it.  

Indeed.

Cam's Garden

I'm probably the last garden blogger in LA to know about this guy, but he was featured in The LA Times today and just a few posts into his blog, I'm sort of digging him.  He's like the Apocalypse Now / Hunter S. Thompson version of a garden blogger.  

Caution:  Curse words and unkind thoughts towards gophers.

Cam's Garden

Tomato, Potato, Zucchini, Oh My! (what the heck do I do with it all!)

Bounty from one day last summer.

We've pretty much established that this Summer, my garden took a back seat to other kinds of growing (and hopefully harvesting).  It took a back seat to fitting in a yoga class or a long walk.  Sometimes it took a back seat to a bit of a longer sleep in the morning when my adrenals were kicking my butt.  It took a back seat to work, mostly.  All sowing was done there this year.  It had to.  And, of course, this past Fall, Winter, Spring and Summer I've had a strange and conflicted relationship to my 5 x 12 plot because of all that it meant for me before The Squeeze left me.  But, slowly, I'm getting back in the swing of things.... I have high hopes for the Fall plantings.

But, in the meantime, I'm a failed gardener this summer.  Oh sure, I've harvested one bowl worth of tomatoes and some herbs.  I picked one japanese eggplant and two cucumbers with a scattering of carrots.  And there were the two cabbages that grew ever so slowly over the Fall and Winter and finally were harvested a few weeks ago.   And, I picked... um, oh yeah.  Nada.  I mean I probably have broken some kind of gardening record.  A zucchini plant that grew NO zucchini.  Stop the presses!

But, if you happen to have had a much better growing season and find yourself sneaking around in the middle of the night dropping produce off on your neighbor's front porch.  Here's an idea:  Give it to the hungry.  I follow a lovely blog called GREEN FRIEDA.  And Audrey has posted HERE about a wonderful organization called Ample Harvest   So, if you find yourself with an embarrassment of riches in the form of garden produce, maybe this is the solution! 

Sometimes a Garden is Just a Garden

Last year's cucumbers.... sigh. 

Sometimes it's just about actually gardening:

- picked a dozen or so San Marzano tomatoes
- lamented over the second plant that seems to have fruit that is rotting from the bottom **
- picked two dozen or so yellow tear drop tomatoes
- planted lettuce seedlings in the plot under the peach tree (thank Leigh for leaving extras)
- planted snap pea seedlings (why not try for the third time this year!) Planted them closer together than last batch.  Maybe it will help.  ***
 
** Note to self.  Google this and figure out what you've done wrong.
*** Doubtful!  Mostly just get to the garden more to water, damn it!

Meditation...

I'm behind schedule today.  As usual.  I can't ever seem to find enough time to work, exercise, play, explore my photography, sleep, rest, organize, clean, and connect with friends and loved ones.

My garden keeps coming last these days, so true to my post yesterday I chose to spend the time I needed there this morning.  Bright and early at 8am I did the following:

****  Cut down most of my basil which I was finding too bitter to make pesto out of and "green manured" it to break down for a few months in my lettuce bed.
****  Green manured my japanese eggplant that just wasn't producing and truthfully looked like an abuse case.  Someone should call to report me to the plant equivalent of Child Services.
****  Replanted my cilantro to a shadier spot after googling that it can't be in soil that heats up to 75 Degrees.  um yeah.  Given my watering schedule the past few months it's like its been growing in the Sahara. All bolt, no leaves.  I have very little hope for its survival, but have learned for the next round.
****  Moved my zucchini plant to try to give it space and hopefully grow.  So far this summer there have been few flowers and absolutely no fruit.  How neglectful of a gardener must you be in order to not have zucchini grow.  Barbara Kingsolver talks in her book ANIMAL, MINERAL, MIRACLE about making sure in the summer that your house and car doors are locked so as to not find yourself with your neighbor's excess zucchini (usually while you are out trying to unload yours!)  That's how neglectful!
****  Pulled up runners for my Chinese Lantern.
****  Harvested:  tomatoes: san marzano and yellow teardrop, basil, rosemary, parsley, a leaf or two of non-bolted cilantro, thyme.  So, basically nothing is growing in my garden this year!
****  Pulled dead leaves off of the teardrop tomato plant.
****  Moved a pepper plant to a sunnier space.
****  Tied up tomato plants.
****  Picked off bolting bits from the one basil plant I left standing as a companion plant for the tomato plants.  I used the massive amounts of those flowering bolted bits as more green manure.
****  Mulched with the new straw that the garden manager brought in.
****  Weeded nut grass.
****  Composted one sage plant and prayed for the health of the other.
****  And watered.  Long slow watering for the entire time I worked in the garden.  And still I know it wasn't enough to get down deep - my plants were so deprived....

And so at 11am, a full three hours - and according to my iphone app 823 calories later - I headed home;  late enough, dirty enough, and hungry enough that I could not make the "Introduction to Meditation" class I'd wanted to attend today.  "You failed at your list of things to do again," I thought.

But, then I realized that I'd spent three hours meditating.  No thoughts - good or bad - had entered my mind while snipping, digging, pruning, picking.  No fears.  No worries.  No lists of all that awaited me at home yet to do today.  No heartbreak.  Nothing.  Just silence.  Me and God in the garden with only empty mind space of meditative work in front of me.  And I know I still need to get to the class and learn to empty my mind and center my body and soul for when I'm not at the garden.  But, at least for today, I will check it off my 'to do' list:  Meditate: CHECK

And yes,  as predicted in yesterday's post, my manicure is ruined. 

My Grandmother's Hands...

This is not a picture of my grandmother's hands.  It is, in fact, a photo of my hand today taken with my iphone after a manicure because holding my "big girl" camera up with a heavy lens by just one hand seemed more challenging than I was up for today.

I work in a business where "coiffed" is a write off on your taxes. Yet, I've never managed to get the time (or inclination) to make weekly appointments at the nail salon.  I scramble before a big event, occasionally.  Or I go more often when I'm being urged by friends or therapists or loved ones to "take more time" for myself, wincing at the $12 bucks (yes, Vietnamese salon is the fanciest I enter!).  I think, "what a waste".  I'll end up washing or cleaning or buttoning my jeans in an hour and the polish will be ruined.  I'll wash my hair once or twice (there is a lot of it) and the manicure will be a brief memory and I'll be back to hiding my hands under the table at meetings. 

But, really, as I sit there being pampered I think:  here's what has to happen in the garden tomorrow:

- the coriander needs to be moved to a shadier spot because it's bolting
- the japanese eggplant needs to just be turned over - it ain't happening this summer
- the zucchini needs to have the leaves cut back
- the tomatoes need to be tied
- the nutgrass needs to be weeded
- the blue stone pavers need to be lifted up and the ground graded....

You get the picture.  I berate myself for not planning the manicure better.  But, honestly, there is never a good time when you are a gardener.  Maybe if you just grow roses.  I don't know.  Inform me, Dear Readers.  But, when you are generally just eager to get your hands in the dirt, a manicure is not long for the world.  

I'm generally of the mind that my hands, by today's beauty standards, leave much to be desired.  They aren't elegant or feminine.  I struggle to keep long nails.  And they certainly don't have the appearance as to be some extension of a beautiful sculpture made flesh.  In fact, I doubt any artist in his right mind would ever WANT to sculpt them or paint them or, truthfully, photograph them (see Exhibit A above).  They are for a lack of a more poetic description:  chubby, short, sausage fingered hands.  They are "peasant" hands.  The are gardener's hands.

And, as I have begun to recognize as I'm aging, they are also my grandmother's hands.  They are the hands of my Italian grandmother:  Mary.  Maria.  Nana.  She was worker that one.  Worked from the time she was 16 until the day she died.  She cleaned, cooked, raised children, cut wood, and buffed that kitchen floor every night of her adult life and - while most of the gardening fell to her brother - yes, she gardened, too. 

So, there it is.  Love me.  Love my hands.  They are worker hands.  They are gardener's hands.  They are Mary's hands.