Lettuce Entertain You

There was no shortage of lettuce in today's harvest.

With 1/2 this much still in the fridge from a few days ago!

The garden gave over a few other little treats, too:

A couple of radishes.

Some spinach (exciting because I usually get an F in spinach).

And some snap peas (which I usually get an F in, too!).

I can't wait to make myself a salad for dinner!

'harvest'

One for me.

One for some critter who got there first.

She Let Go..

I spent a few hours weeding in the garden today.  It was a beautiful day for that kind of meditative work.  The East Village was quiet and I was alone.  The garden thinks it's spring, so as I worked peach blossoms floated on the wind into my hair.   The flower bulbs have come up and the hyacinth I planted in memory of my grandfather is in full bloom. 

The goal was to weed an area just outside my plot which had become overgrown with 'nut grass'.  For those non-gardeners out there, this is a hardy weed connected by a nut-type root.  It sends out underground branches which can continue on for forever, sending up grass and squeezing out anything else in its path.  Inevitably, if it’s NEAR your garden it will be IN your garden momentarily. 

There's been a lot of rain the past week and the ground was still soft, so these normally determined weeds were coming up easily.  The grass, roots and nuts were just giving over to me.  That got me thinking about something that keeps coming up in my new meditation practice: the reoccurring theme of ‘letting go’.  Sometimes in the Dharma talks it's followed by the words, “of attachments”, but not always. 

In all honesty, I’m not a good “let’er go’er”. 

I’m the keeper of family history, belongings, traditions – even recipes!  I’m sentimental and have long friendships.  I'm loyal. I tend to stick by people, running alongside them, cheering them on at times - even when they can’t believe in themselves or us.  I’ve done this in professional relationships, friendships, and love affairs.  I’ve even, sometimes, been thanked for the belief and persistence - for being the one not willing to let go.  

But, it gets confusing to me, this idea of 'letting go'.  As I pulled up that nut grass this morning, the sweet smell of the hyacinth found its way to me bringing back memories of my grandfather.   Does not letting go of sentimental feelings hold me back?  I absolutely know people who are not "sentimental".  Or at least claim they aren't.  Are they better in mind, heart, and soul for that?

What does it really mean to LET GO?  Or likewise, what does it mean to be let go?  How do you let go of being let go?  In particular, how do you let go of attachments to people without becoming heartless or sterile or robotic?   That last part confounds me the most. 

Where does the heart have a say or a place?

However, when it comes to releasing fear or pain or hurt, I get it.  I'm not good at it yet, but I get it:  the goal is to yield like that nut grass did today.  As those weeds were giving over to me, I thought of something I'd read recently which feels like a sort of freedom:

  

"She let go. Without a thought or a word, she let go. She let go of the fear. She let go of the judgments. She let go of the confluence of opinions swarming around her head. She let go of the committee of indecision within her. She let go of all the 'right' reasons. Wholly and completely, without hesitation or worry, she just let go……Like a leaf falling from a tree, she just let go. There was no effort. There was no struggle. It wasn't good and it wasn't bad. It was what it was, and it is just that. In the space of letting go, she let it all be. A small smile came over her face. A light breeze blew through her. And the sun and the moon shone forevermore." - Ernest Holmes

oops...

...I hatched another Monarch in the loft.  

I accidentally brought a chrysalis home on some rosemary the other day.  Luckily I caught it before it found its way into a roasted chicken!  I meant to return it to the garden, but days passed as those things do and this morning a beautiful Monarch greeted me in my closet, where I had ferreted the rosemary and her chrysalis away out of my kitten's grasp.

She has no spots on her wings, so this one is female.  She clearly had time to stretch her wings, but had only moved a half a foot from her chrysalis - funnily enough clinging to a wooden plaque I have with the British wartime advice of "Keep Calm and Carry On".  Still the poor thing must have been confused in the dark.  I guided her into a jar and took her back to the garden where after a few minutes pondering the milkweed plant, she tried her wings out. 

What a blessing to witness her very first flight... wobbles and all.  She flew 25 yards and landed on some fern. 

I think she'll be just fine. 

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:

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....

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.