garden

Let’s Get Messy

August 7, 2013 by admin

It’s time to get messy.

I’m not talking about the level of messy that I displayed in my bedroom as a teenager, though I continue to be impressed at just how my sister and I managed to cover every inch of floor with clothes, books, and other tripping hazards. I’m surprised, looking back, that neither of us broke any bones in there. The only blank empty places in our room were the dresser drawers.

No, I am talking about the garden. Turns out it’s not a bad thing to be a little messy.

Some of my summer plants are nearing an end, turning brown and dry. Pull them up, you say? Nope. I am leaving them to shelter the fall plantings that I’ve started. The August sun is too much for them, so the older, dying plants make a nice shelter for tender seedlings.

The sweet peas are long past their prime after providing a bumper crop, but I have left the plants in the ground for now as the pea pods turn brown, providing next year’s seeds. (I hope to harvest tomato seeds, but I can’t seem to stop eating the tomatoes long enough to save any.)

My Nasturtiums are dying an ugly death, but it gives pests something to munch on other than vegetables. The other nearby fruits and vegetables are unharmed and unnoticed by little critters because of the Nasturtiums’ noble sacrifice. I can’t blame the bugs. Nasturtiums are pretty tasty with their peppery flavor. Besides, they’re prolific seeders, so I’ll see them again next year without even trying!

According to The Holistic Orchard by Michael Phillips, my fruit trees need an understory. We were trying to hard to keep the weeds under the trees at bay, but this was a mistake! I did some things right by planting berries nearby, but they also would like my dandelions, please, and oh by the way, don’t dig up the lavender that’s spilling outside its borders. When the leaves fall for the season, I will leave them on the ground. A messy understory helps make for healthier trees.

Our sterile, corporate-driven life has made us feel inadequate. We want to look good, smell good, and have a big smile plastered on our faces at all times. We want to be fit, wealthy, and perfect in every way.

Here in the garden, I have a permanent dirt stain in my fingernail beds. The deer have denuded a section of the fig tree because we decided it was okay to share that part of the yard with them. The weeds are starting to grow again under the fruit trees. It’s chaotic, wild, and definitely messy. And that’s okay with me.

The Seasonal Life

July 24, 2013 by admin

First plum, freshly washed and ready to eat! Several more will be ready in the next few days.

We are in the abundance of summer. Festivals bring tourists to town every week: jazz, blues, a writing conference, and more. The air crackles with energy. This is a town that loves to play, and there are more sandboxes to play in than there is time to do so. This year we tried out The American Fiddle Tunes Festival, which we missed last year, and had a grand time.

Hubby is in rehearsals for Much Ado About Nothing, where he has his first-ever named part. The town will continue to operate at this frenetic pace until fall and the Film Festival…then will start to wind down (although Hallowe’en seems to jazz people up around here).

Meanwhile, our next-door neighbor’s three cherry trees, which seem to yield enough to feed an army, plus birds and deer, are at the end of their time. We picked what we could, gorging ourselves and freezing the rest. My new blueberry plants have provided a handful or so of fresh berries each day and should do much more as the plants grow and mature. In the vegetable garden, I’m seeing the last of the sweet peas, while zucchini and corn are on their way.

Living in season, we embrace ebbs and flows. In the spring, we rejoice as the cherry blossoms bloom, and each week we walk by the trees, we see the cherries develop, first green, then slowly changing color. Our mouths water with anticipation. Now, with the cherries over and done for another year, the plums are next. I’ve eaten the first one, ripe, sweet, and with juices that ran down my hand. Figs, apples, and pears are on their way. We say hello, we say goodbye. There is delight in the former, and sadness tinged with sweet memory in the latter. We let go of the convenience of year-round (but tasteless) produce in favor of the longing, the waiting as though for a lover who has been away.

Spiders are in season, too, protecting plants from pests. I love to see their webs on a dewy morning.

As I become more tuned to nature, I feel her cycles within me, too. I start to understand my ebbs and flows. Some days I have more energy than others. Sometimes I am productive, sometimes not. I am happy, I am not. I sleep, or I don’t. Instead of seeing these as good or bad, they are just interesting. I am like a tree that blooms, bears fruit, then rests.

Reading the Tea Leaves

April 15, 2013 by admin

I seem to be collecting a lot of tea lately.

Black tea, green tea, lavender tea, tea to strengthen my adrenals, tea to help me sleep at night, tea to help me wake in the morning. The other day, while visiting the Tulip Festival in Washington’s Skagit Valley, I spied a chocolate tea that had to come home with me.

My sisters had come for their annual spring break visit. Growing up in small towns in Illinois, we didn’t grow up with afternoon tea rituals, but we seem to have adopted them, individually and collectively, over time. Last year at this time, we took a ferry to Victoria to enjoy tea at The Empress, and once I served high tea on our deck on a sunny summer’s day.

Amy, my younger sister, is always on the lookout for tea cups — English china, thank you. We scour the thrift stores looking for such treasures, and she usually finds something fun for her collection.

Me, I enjoy sipping from my gardener cups. I’m more concerned with filling the house with the aromas of steeped herbs, and I couldn’t wait to share Rosemary Gladstar’s recipe for root beer tea. Outdoors, I have planted mint, and I heard a rumor that chamomile plant starts will be available this week, so at some point in time, I’ll make fresh tea from herbs in the garden.

Tea reminds me to slow life down, and I need it more than ever as springtime speeds up life. The garden calls out for planting and weeding. The first draft of my next novel has cooled for a few weeks and now calls me to get back to work. I woke up the other morning with an idea about how to fix a problem with another novel that has stymied me for some time. A friend sends me a link to a writing conference that I plan to attend. A blogger friend reaches out about a new writers’ group. I’m doing volunteer work for a couple of local organizations, and found myself working closely with a local business to raise funds for a needed expansion.

If I read tea leaves, I’m sure they would say, “Caution. You’re overdoing it again.”

I am fortunate. I am not overly busy because I have to juggle multiple jobs to make ends meet. I have the luxury of doing what I damn well please, for which I am deeply grateful. Still, there’s so much that I want to do! So much to enjoy! So many books to write! So many plants to put into the ground! So many weeds to pull! Though I do my best to stay balanced, sometimes I overdo, making myself overly tired and cranky.

When my sisters arrived, I put my work aside. We spent time together, tooling around the area, enjoying the tulips, shopping, and yes, hitting nearby tea houses. I played tourist in my own neighborhood, which forced me to put my work aside. Yes, I snuck outside a few times to weed or plant, but otherwise, I enjoyed some needed time off from all the hard work I’d been doing. As with any vacation, I felt a sense of renewal.

Today I’m back at work. This week I gear up the blogging and writing as I return to my familiar routine. Sometime in mid-afternoon I will stop, pause, and make myself a nice pot of tea. I will breathe in its scent. I will make time to hold a warm cup in hand in a moment of gentleness to soothe my spirit, to take in the miraculous beauty of my life. In these moments of reflection, I know that I am enough, and my efforts are enough. Yes, the tea leaves tell me I have work to do, but the tea itself reminds me to take my time, to relax, and to trust that it will all get done in good time.

Cover Crop

December 6, 2012 by admin

The garden is quiet; most of my vegetable beds are empty, and the fruit trees have gone dormant as the winter darkness descends. I have many plans for the garden and dream eagerly of spring when I can load the beds with fruit, vegetables, and herbs. In the meantime, the beds beg for cover crop, a mix of plants that fertilize the soil and protect it from winter conditions. “Green compost,” it’s called. One of the eight beds has a thriving crop, while the others wait for my loving attention. Come spring, I will chop up the cover crop and turn it into the soil, where it will work its magic.

Gardening creates a balance for my writing. The physical work and time outdoors offsets the hours spent hiding behind a computer. Every time I harvest a vegetable or clear out a weed, plot problems resolve more easily. Scenes appear that provide juice for the story. It’s as though the ideas are in the very soil, and I need only dig my hands in to pull them out like so many beets.

I have avoided the garden lately for reasons I cannot detail here. In my absence, weeds have cropped up, and the remaining greens wonder when I will harvest them. The naked beds call to me to protect them from the winter elements with cover crop or mulch. I long for the day when I can once again dig my hands into the dirt without looking over my shoulder in fear, and I long for the day when I no longer feel the need to restrict and censor what I write here.

Being a spiritual sort, I have puzzled about this, asking myself and my higher power, “What is the lesson here?”

Yesterday I took a deep breath and walked outside, bucket and trowel in hand. I dug up weeds. I planted my cover crop. Is it too late to do that? I don’t really know, but all I can do is try. Somehow it felt that as I created protection for my garden, I was protecting myself as well. By confronting my fears, I could start to take my power back.

One of my fictional characters is having a tough time of it these days. She’s unwittingly gotten involved in a scandal that has cost her her job and her relationship. I’ve toppled her from a high perch, and now she will have to find out what stuff she’s made of. She’s going on her hero’s journey, and I’m not sure how I’m going to dig her out of her many jams just yet. All I know is that for her to have her journey, I must have mine.

As I dug in the dirt, I had a plan. If anything bad happened, I reminded myself, I could walk away without a word and return another time. Thankfully, though, the negative force was nowhere to be found, and I had sweet peace in the garden. I nearly wept with joy, as though reconnecting with a dear friend. I wrapped my cover crop of self-compassion and protection around me, reminding me that I am strong. This, too, shall pass.

Under The Fig Tree, I Follow the Magic

July 11, 2012 by admin

This is the neighbor’s yard, but the furry visitors figure in to this story!

In my back yard, at the bottom of a slope, a fig tree stands, sprawling, with raw amputations of some of its branches, leaving rough, jagged stumps. Branches spill over the deer fence into the vegetable garden. Other branches crisscross each other in competitive fury. Unpruned, unguided, and unruly, the fig tree remained gnarled and bare as spring arrived. While flowers bloomed and cherry trees dazzled with vivid whites and soothing pinks, the fig tree showed no interest in joining the springtime fun.

I would ask local gardeners what they thought. “Do I have a dead tree?” or, “Is it normal to be dormant this late?” They would shrug their shoulders. “Wait and see,” they all said. I didn’t want to do that, of course. After decades of city and corporate life, I’m still sort of a Type-A girl. Still, when in Rome and all that. So I took a deep breath and waited, and tried not to worry about it.

Sure enough, at some point about the beginning of May, tiny shoots of green appeared, shy and tentative. I started picking off last year’s fruit, dried and withered from lack of interest. Unable to maneuver a lawn mower to that part of the yard, I worked the weed eater to cut the grass around the tree, thick with moisture from collecting run-off from the slope above it.

The more I get to know the tree, the more I find myself hanging out underneath it. It fascinates me. I find myself patting a branch here and there, running a hand along places where bark is stripped, and I caress the rough, crude cuts. It is deeply wounded, and yet resilient, determined, audacious.

As the leaves grow and multiply, new figs begin to form. A couple of raucous crows, uprooted from a damaged madrona tree that neighbors removed, have found a bare branch on which to perch and groom each other. “Welcome to your new home,” I tell them. “You’ll be safe here.” I am happy for the crows, and happy for myself.

The more I stand there, the more a vision arises. I see a Buddha in quiet repose under the tree. I see benches where I, and perhaps others, can sit in contemplation.

Inside the house, I visit my friend Google, which tells me that the bodhi tree, where the Buddha attained enlightenment, is a variety of fig. Of course, Adam and Eve made their first clothes from fig leaves, and fig trees show up in Egyptian, Greek, Roman, and Islamic stories and legends. There is something far more interesting going on here than the fig newton cookies of my youth.

I order a cookbook, Under the Fig Leaf by Sherri P. Lee, that tells me when and how to harvest the figs. While I wait for them to ripen, I am learning how to freeze them and dry them, and how to prepare them with meat, with salads, with desserts. There are even fig martinis! I have eaten only a handful of fresh figs in my lifetime, so I explore the mysteries in the hopes of using them, and not letting them die on their branches.

First fruits, not ready to harvest just yet!

The deer who roam the city know this, too. A mama doe with her two fawns traverses the yard nearly every day. She has found a place to stand on a terrace wall, where she can reach a few of the branches. She has stripped one bare of all its leaves. On the other, she nibbles at leaves and bites at the not-yet-ripe fruit. These are for her, I decide. There is abundant fruit, with plenty to share with a hungry mama.

It would seem in a place like this, teeming with verdant fertility, one could spend a great deal of time. Perhaps it is a magic place, where one can let go of cares and worries and bring dreams into focus. The vision continues, and with it I hear the soft whisper of inspiration. “Add an entry,” it says, “and cover it with vines. Then circle the tree with a labyrinth…”

A labyrinth. Why not? I have already spent time here and know the power of this spot for meditation. I first walked a labyrinth years ago, when I, like the tree, was wounded and unruly. Since then I have walked labyrinths wherever possible, even at Chartres Cathedral in France, though my personal favorite to date is the outdoor labyrinth at the Kripalu Center in Western Massachusetts. Walking the labyrinth, we are told, shows us our life and ourselves. It is a powerful walking meditation.

I measure the area. Could it work? I see a narrow path lined with shade- and moisture-loving flowers and ground covers. I find statuary online: a Buddha, Quan Yin, and even the whimsical, like meditating frogs and cats. I weep with joy at the vision, even as I am bowled over by what it will take to create it. I start to calculate when to cover the grass in order to replace it; when to call an arborist to tend to the fig tree and begin to heal the abuse it has endured; how to create and build the labyrinth; what to plant; what to include.

Over the years I have learned to never question a vision. I consider it a requirement of my existence to bring a vision to the fore. It feels a little like “Field of Dreams” to me, except that I don’t have to risk losing the farm. It is that mystical pull to creation — the same thing that makes writing an absolute must, the same thing that somehow brought Henry and I here, to this town, to this home, to this new life. Under the fig tree, I follow the magic, the next spiraling steps, of my journey. Like a walk in the labyrinth, there is no goal, no end, no “there.” There is only the walk.

Now I Understand Cat TV

May 18, 2010 by admin

Reports are surfacing that Americans are watching more television than ever, with some estimates of up to 40 hours per week. This doesn’t include time spent with video games, e-mail, or other electronic media. We love the colors, the picture quality, and the passive entertainment, especially when we’re tired. While I don’t spend nearly that much time watching television, I do have my favorite shows–I’ve been in mourning since Ugly Betty’s cancellation, because she always made me laugh regardless of how difficult my day was.

Of course, humans are not the only species that enjoys kicking back and watching the world unfold. If you’ve ever had a cat, you know that they love a good warm spot to look out the window and study all the goings-on. For hours on end, they can watch grass growing, squirrels running up and down trees, and the occasional person walking the sidewalk with that most horrible of creatures, the dog (not my opinion, the cat’s).

It’s a slow pace, the life of a cat. We’re all so busy and important these days that sitting and watching the world seems pointless. There’s always so much to DO.

When we moved into our home and I had the brilliant idea of putting in a garden, I had no idea how much my life would change. Now, don’t get me wrong, there’s a lot of “doing” involved in creating a garden. We’ve hauled in concrete half blocks, shoveled dirt, added compost and mulch, weeded, potted, repotted, etc. Building a garden from scratch takes a lot of work, and I’m glad I didn’t know how much before I got started!

Each day, early in the morning, I take a walk among the plants. I pick fruit from precocious trees so they can grow a better foundation. I lift weeds from among the sweet peppers. I make sure my thirsty irises have enough to drink.

One day I discovered my milkweed stripped bare of its leaves and covered with Monarch caterpillars. Concerned that they didn’t have anything more to eat, I ran out and bought more milkweed to plant, which made my guests quite happy. I left the pitiful, empty stalks of the milkweed in the ground, and lo and behold, within a few weeks new leaves sprouted. Later, I discovered cabbage worms on my broccoli, which sent me running in a panic to my organic gardening books. Attract wasps, they said, by planting some mint. Okay, I can do that. Actually, it’s a huge broccoli plant, so right now while the mint grows we share an uneasy coexistence. I don’t mind if they chew on leaves, but could you please leave the heads alone?

The peppers grow, and we’ll have cantaloupes in a few weeks from a wild tangle of curving leaves and yellow flowers. Of the package of seeds I planted, four sprouted, and it appears that those four seeds may feed an entire neighborhood. And as for me, while I do take an active role in the garden, feeding the plants, adding diverse species, etc., my main job is to observe. Nature works in her own way. I never thought I would be so enthralled by a caterpillar or by the appearance of a tiny pomegranate. But in these moments, connected to nature, I become part of it, maybe even part of the original Garden. When I am there, I feel closer to a state of pure being than in any other place. It’s better than any television show I could watch, because it’s real–no acting, no pretending, no charging admission. Now, even when I’m in the house, I find myself sitting in the sunroom, looking outside at the garden, just watching, just observing. Cat TV.