Lughnasa College Moon
The garlic harvest:
Category Archives: Garden
Gathering
Lughnasa College Moon
Out for a brief round of harvesting this morning: raspberries, tomatoes, peppers, beets, onions. The big raspberry harvest is still ahead of us; the goldens have only begun to ripen and they’re the largest number of canes. We’ll still have more beets and carrots, plus the leeks which have matured early this year.
The August grass dripped with dew and soaked my outside Keen’s, then the lower part of my jeans as I worked. A garden in the morning, before the heat has come, while droplets of water still cling to bent over leaves is a place of promise. It is the Lughnasa/Mabon/Samain season captured in a moment in a time. The harvest is the zenith of gardening’s purpose, at least vegetable gardening.
We can imagine folks bent over their tomatoes, their green beans, their cucumbers, their squash. Striding through raspberry canes and, armed with scissors, headed into the grape arbors. They’re all over the state, all over the nation in these months, gathering food, the oldest of ancient traditions. How can the future be bleak in a garden, in the morning, in the harvest season?
The Season of Harvest
Lughnasa Lughnasa Moon
Lughnasa celebrates the beginning of the harvest. Already underway by August 1st, at least here, and continuing through early to mid-October the harvest is concerto after concerto, first the beet and carrot concerto, then the onion, then the garlic. Soon the green beans and the sugar snap peas chime in and the collard greens play their deep green notes and the chard lights up the hall with its rainbow of colors. The opposite of chamber music garden music counts on ancient melodies like the sound of the rain, the wind and thunder of storms, the subtle bass notes of fertile soil.
(alma-tademas-harvest-festival)
We have already passed the allegro first movement and now enter the adagio, the time when various crops come slowly to maturity in late summer and early fall. Around Mabon, the autumnal equinox, the grain crops and corn and beans will begin to peak, the sound of combines and corn pickers, the brilliant blue notes of the September sky, grain falling into golden piles on the wagons, yellow corn piling up. And finally, as October sees the first frosts and the last of the crops come in, the final movement, begun in a frenzy of gathering will trail off, cold and bleak, senescence browning the once vibrant greens.
At the end, summer’s end, is Samain. It marks the end of the growing season and thins the veil between the worlds. As the vegetable world dies again and the fallow season begins, Samain is a time between rich, fruitful life and the darkness and chill of death. It’s an appropriate time for the barrier between the living world and the world of those who have died in it to become permeable, for the dead to come to the living and the living to the dead.
We are now in the harvest season punctuated by Lughnasa, Mabon and Samain, beginning, middle and end. Dance to its music. The music of life renewed and come bountiful.
Time-Shifted
Lughnasa Lughnasa Moon
Went out to the garden this morning after a week plus of packing, focused on the move, head and heart already time-shifted to matters months away. Oops. Lotsa weeds. Lotsa ripe vegetables. I was ashamed to see the shape of our garden. We plugged away at it until the gnats got too ornery. Got most of the beds mostly weeded. All the vegetables that were ready picked. Gotta spend more time out there over the next month or so.
The second planting of beets, some of the first crop of carrots, giant garlic bulbs, more onions flopped over, green beans (some gnawed at by tiny teeth. chipmunks? mice?), cucumbers, tomatoes and basil. The leeks look well ahead of schedule, almost mature now in mid-August where I picked them last year in late September. Lots of chard and collard greens left, too. Some peppers growing large.
The raspberries have just begun to come. Some of the reds have turned red, but not yet the deeper shade closer to maroon or purple that signals ripeness. The goldens have the berries formed, but no color yet. We’re entering the period of rapid maturity, for the vegetables, fruits and the weeds. This is the other burst of activity that the garden requires and it started a week ago without us.
Nature, as I was reminded by a Science Friday program, abhors empty ground. The raw soil in between rows and plants quickly filled up with weedy ground covers, spikes of grass, hopeful elm saplings. This is why no till ag is so important, but also why it’s practiced rarely. No till controls this ground covering tendency by having agriculturally useful plants in place of weeds.
Anyhow, back at it. And just in time, too.
Way In The Move
Lughnasa Lughnasa Moon
Interesting. I’ve been living in the move. Too much. Pushing to get stuff packed, get the exterior work, house and grounds, underway, looking at movers and thinking about storage. Pushing. Turning on my phone and my jambox, listening to country music, Porgy and Bess, the blues, Coltrane while I fill boxes. Stuffing my life in liquor boxes, slapping on red or green tape, some packing tape, stacking them up. In the move. In it.
So much that this week I’ve done no Latin, little gardening, no writing other than the blog, been to no museums and taken little time to just consider life, be with it, flow toward the future. Except with the move. It’s as if I’ve time-shifted myself to next year, setting aside now for then.
But this is a long walk, not a sprint. And I’ve been sprinting. Time to slow down a bit. 
Smell the Latin, pick a tomato. Thin the third crop of beets and carrots. Bring in the onions from the shed.
Tomorrow we’re going to work outside and in the garage. A combination of then and now.
This balancing first toward the future, then back to the present, a sort of see-saw of attention and energy seems understandable to me, part of the inner work of leaving while staying. Staying while leaving.
Goldilocks and the Family Garden
Lughnasa Lughnasa Moon
There’s a Goldilocks’ quality to gardening. Not too much, not too little, but just right. The Goldilocks’ formula applies to water, soil additions, number of plants and temperature. The gardener can control soil additions and the number of plants with relative ease, confident in her adviser’s soil tests and their recommendations for additives. Likewise, though the temptation may be too either over plant or under plant, get more vegetables per square foot or give the plants room to grow, a wise gardener develops a feel for how the beets perform in her garden, carrots, tomatoes and spaces accordingly.
The temperature, especially in northern or high altitude climes, might need some control though here at Artemis Hives and Gardens we’ve not added hooped plastic over our beds to extend the growing season, either early or late. Plants can be started inside to counter the prevailing outside temperatures of late winter and early spring. But, for the most part, we’ve accepted the temperature that the sun and the clouds and the zigzagging jet stream have given us.
We can, and do, add water during periods lacking rain, but we cannot adjust the water that comes from rain. This year we’ve had too much. A sticky fungus has attacked the peppers and the raspberries, a not uncommon result of too much water. Each year brings some challenge, this year it’s too much rain and that’s the one element we can do little about. We need not too much water, not too little water, but just the right amount.
Shorter, More Intense
Lughnasa Lughnasa Moon
Did some climatological research yesterday about the Idaho Springs area. This is life a 7,500 feet +. It’s cooler when Minnesota is hotter and warmer when Minnesota is colder. So far, perfect. Still winter, but not so brutal. The gardening zone, based on winter low temps is 5a. That’s roughly what Andover is said to be these days though I find it more like 4b. Still, let’s call it equivalent.
The big differences are in rainfall, about half of Andover’s in Idaho Springs, and growing season. The first frost in Idaho Springs is between September 1st and September 10 over against October 5-10 for Andover. The last frost was the big surprise to me-between June 21 and June 31. An early last frost would come on the Summer Solstice!
So. This will be a far different gardening environment from Andover, one requiring either starting of plants or protecting plants planted outside or both. One factor I haven’t researched because I’m not sure how to is the strength of the sun. Elevation both thins the air and puts the garden closer physically to the sun. This results in a higher UV index overall and I imagine (and stepson Jon says it’s so) this will result in accelerated plant growth. If I can prevent the sun from burning the plants.
This will all require a lot of new learning, but it will be that learning that will eventually marry me to a new spot on the planet. I’m looking forward to it.
A Purging We Will Go
Lughnasa Lughnasa Moon
Over the weekend and as deep into this week as I need to go, I’m packing up my former study. I’ve purged one file cabinet and consolidated its content into boxes for moving. A horizontal cabinet awaits attention. A large plastic tub full of art supplies went into the move with care pile. One small bookcase has been emptied and moved. The shop work bench I’ve used for storage is empty, too. That old printer, the one I bought in 1994, is in the truck and ready to go to a recycler. An HP laserjet, it still functions. That leaves three larger bookcases and some miscellaneous things on various surfaces, plus the art on the walls.
(what I hope to create in Colorado, my own version of this.)
When this room has been tidied up, the next and last big push begins. My study. This room has walls of books. Many will go in boxes with red tape, but most will not. The other areas have gone well, but this one will present some difficulty. So many projects. Some of the past, some of the future, some of today. Which ones do I imagine I’ll continue in Colorado? Which ones have enough spark to be valuable in the final third of my life? These are hard decisions for me and packing this room will be both valuable and difficult.
This is a chance to prune my work over the last third of my life, clear out the branches that have grown across each other. Take out that large branch that flourished then died. Increase the circulation amongst the remaining branches so they have air, can breathe. Pruning gives renewed vigor to plants and I hope to achieve the same thing when I pack up these materials, those closest to my heart, leaving behind what I no longer need.
Among the Gooseberries
Lughnasa Lughnasa Moon
Gooseberries favor the small animal, especially birds, who can either land on the stem among their thorns or reach up with small paws to retrieve the prize. The larger animal like the one seen here must carefully grasp the branches where the thorns are not, wear protective clothing for vulnerable skin and have on gloves to guard the even more sensitive fingers and palms, the hand as a whole. Having done that, though, the gooseberry rewards all of them with a tart sweet berry that might make the body of a clever purple or green goblin, especially if he were fitted with an acorn head carrying its jaunty cap.
Oh, and the smart gardener (not me) would plant them with sufficient room around each bush to easily access the branches. This cramped planting requires perilous maneuvers.
On the other hand this gardener (smarter in this instance) did move all these gooseberry bushes. They languished in the shade during the day and he dug them up and replanted them in this sunny spot where they thrive. This is about learning the language of plants. They speak with leaf color, insect infestations, poor fruit production, spindly branches. The gardener must listen intently as the plant communicates its needs, then do what is necessary to meet them. If a plant can be placed in a location right for its health and provided with adequate nutrition and water, then it will produce and produce and produce without much care.
Moving/Gardening Fatigue
Lughnasa Lughnasa Moon
Both of us have experienced moving/gardening fatigue this week. Living in the move helps, but it doesn’t eliminate the stress of so many decisions large and small and the feeling of hanging over a precipice neither able to fall or retreat. The garden, we both realize, has grown beyond our energy levels, not our capacities, though there is not a functional difference.
It’s a relief to share these feelings, to know that your partner has the slows as well as you. Of course, that’s the definition of a good relationship, sharing the journey, the ancientrail of marriage.
Even with these feelings I harvested what became eleven pints of canned collard greens, enough chard to last us for several meals, carrots and beets we’ve already eaten. Also, I have gotten a fair way toward packing up my garden study, tossing no longer needed files, boxing no longer needed books. The Dremel and some books on Chinese went in one box to move. Two garbage bags weighted down with paper are in the larger recycling bin delivered last week. A file box containing material from a file cabinet I plan to sell is full.
Plus this week we met with our final realtor and looked over material she sent us this morning in our business meeting. Not like nothing’s happening. Just weary of it this week. This will pass.