The "Chips and Salsa" Lady Says I'll Love Them...

I tried to grown green beans in the garden again this summer.  I had visions of dilly beans dancing in my head.  But, all three or four attempts at growing them from seed failed me.  So, mostly, in an effort to keep a pretty and tall wrought iron lattice I got on super sale from a closing Smith and Hawken store from "disappearing" from my garden one night, I planted seedlings from the garden center.  They were labeled your run of the mill "Blue Lake" beans, but I found that unless you picked them less than 3 inches long, they were all seed, all the time.  While they grew lushly, they "weren't no eatin' beans".  I let them go to seed and thought nothing more of them.

But, yesterday, as I was chopping the bean stalks down to green manure, a pod opened up and I found some creamy, smooth, white beans in my hand.  I thought maybe it was worth exploring these seeds after all.  I gathered what was easy to harvest and headed home after three long, hard hours in the garden turning over soil and green manuring the last of the summer crops.

Since I was well past when I should have been eating for my adrenals, I stopped at a little local Mexican joint called "Chips and Salsa" for some quick nourishment.  They know me and my eating habits pretty well there, which meant as soon as they saw me walk in, they started some shrimp tacos without even asking.  While I waited, the owner and I started talking a bit.  She speaks little English.  I speak no Spanish.   But, we didn't need words to see that with bean leaves still stuck to my shirt, dirt on my knees, and hay stuck to my skin, I'd just come from the garden.  She gestured to my garden bag and I pulled out the beans.  She immediately smiled.  I asked her if she knew what they were.  She said a "Mexican bean.  Very yummy.  You will like".   I tried to ask if I need to soak them overnight and I'm not sure she understood, but she said to cook "like a white bean, pinto bean".  And again reiterated I would like them.  I said, garlic? Olive oil?  And she said, "yes, yes, very good!".

This concept of dried beans excites me, now.  It brings out the Laura Ingalls in me.  Putting away beans for soups or smashes for the winter is a whole new adventure.  As much as I loved the fresh fava beans last spring, I think I will double my crop and let half dry out.  I would love to make some genuine fuul next year.  And maybe I'll peruse the catalogs for some black bean seeds.  It would be nice to make my black bean quesadilla with feta next winter from dried beans I've grown myself.  

But, for the moment, maybe today I'll roast a chicken, do a quick soak of the beans and make myself some white bean/garlic/rosemary mash with my mystery beans.  And hope they are as my 'Chips and Salsa' friend said:

Garden Ghouls

Wondering what the garden connection is are you?  Well, I went up to Fourth Street in Long Beach to check out the Zombie Walk tonight and was quite taken with this character calling itself "Psycho Cindy".  As it turns out, "she" was our community garden co-manager, Patrick.  Remind me not to go to the garden after dark...

And some pro-garden slogans from the living dead....  

Happy Halloween!!!!

Harvest in Color and Infrared

HAPPY HALLOWEEN

A Secret Garden

A few months back my friend Hilary took me on a little adventure.  She took me to a secret garden in the hills of Los Angeles.  This garden has a name, but she is sworn (and therefore so am I) to not breathe a word of it.  It's a gated garden and because she is a true believer in all that is beautiful and life affirming, she has been granted a key.  A key which she, in turn, is granting to me.  And it makes my heart do flips.  In the words of Wayne and Garth:  I am not worthy.

This isn't a typical garden.  This steep and winding garden has lovingly and painstakingly been crafted out of tiles, stones, sculptures (wire and otherwise) and the things of life.  It has been erected piece by piece in moments of celebration (His Holiness The Dalai Lama has visited) and grief (the passing of loved ones) and horror (9/11, if only the people in charge of the NYC memorial who are fighting amongst themselves could see this garden's simple and loving memorial).  Oh, it has flowers and trees, but that isn't the POINT of the garden.  Its magic is that it's a garden of imagination and art and belief and faith and desire and music and chimes and soft breezes through the canyon.  And its magic is that, above all, it is a garden of thrones.

There is a throne for your every fancy, desire, dream, and anguish.  If you are in need of some self-compassion: here is your throne.  If you are in need of some flowing tears: here is your throne.  If you are in need of some laughter:  here is your throne.  How about some healing?  Do you need some of that: well, sit here in this throne.  And if you just need some silence?  There.  Over there is a throne for you tucked under an arbor.  Some are named quite specifically:

and as you climb perilously higher and higher, others are for you to just sit and imagine what it might be for you that day...

The makers of this garden are in love with music as much as they are in love with stone and reflection (both the light and internal kind).  There are chimes that ring and musical notes that dance.  And near the throne of music is a tribute to jazz.  Names I knew, names I didn't.  But, it rang its own chime in my heart.  Jazz was a great gift to me the past few years and so I sat in the throne of jazz for awhile, rubbing my hands over the smooth, ruby red stones feeling joy and regret.

And as I finally wandered from the jazz throne I took a detour along Route 66, realizing in many ways I'm a real California girl, now. 

But, you can change your perspective here....  You can look through the looking glass and see a man working in a sea of blues:

Or you can see yourself reflected back in some stones of blue:

Finally, Hilary and I met up on some adjoining thrones, choosing carefully which thrones we would finally rest in for a bit from our silent and individual explorations of the garden.  We would finally speak as we looked down over the winding road that embraced this magical garden in its curves.  We enjoyed the soft, cool, breeze that defied the hot summer day and talked about how lovely it would be to be here in the dusk with a bottle of wine.  I told her that I wanted to be in love here.  I wanted to be in love with someone who would love this garden, too.  Hilary looked off for a moment and then said that while she'd brought her husband here once and he'd appreciated it, she didn't care that he didn't want to keep returning to it, as she did.  She said that she loved the garden and that was enough for her.  I've always admired their relationship, so I thought hard about what I wanted and needed or misunderstood perhaps about myself when I was in a relationship.   I considered it deeply as I looked around at the beauty of the garden and the mystery of each turn of the hill of stones we'd climbed up.

Finally, with a sweet, far off chime playing softly with the breeze, I turned to her and said, "I suppose I don't need someone who loves the garden.  What I really want is to be loved by someone who loves me for being the kind of woman who loves this garden."

And with a graceful nod of approval from my friend, we both looked back down into the secret garden filled with colorful, useful, ethereal thrones and felt grateful for the key to it...

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