Category Archives: Garden

Garden, Great Work, Politics, Travel, Weather +Climate

With Thoughts of Green, Growing Things Dancing in My Head

December 29, 2009 Charles Leave a comment

Winter Waxing Moon of Long Nights

We’ve warmed up to 0. Midmorning’s brittle sunshine diffuses in the hazy, partly cloudy sky. The whippets go outside, pee, turn around and come right back inside. Rigel, unphased, continues to hunt around the machine shed, staying on the hunt for hours at a time. Sometimes she comes in after midnight, too. Vega prefers the comforts of home, a couch, a bone, heated air.

A subtle change has occurred in my inner world. I have begun to wonder where the seed catalogs are. I have one in hand but I didn’t like their seeds so I’m waiting for others. This year’s garden will benefit from last year’s mistakes. In particular I’m going to make a real effort with leeks, have a better onion crop (sets), plant fewer greens and harvest more regularly (in general), beets, beans, one squash, not many tomatoes since we stocked up this year. I’ll plant potatoes again, too, but this time I will store them in the basement rather than outside in the garage stairwell.

It is time, too, to get back to work on legislative matters for the Sierra Club. I got a call last night from Josh Davis about a meeting of the Club’s political committee next week. No tours for the time being, just fine with me. After Sin and Salvation followed by the Louvre, I can use a rest.

In the middle of January I head out to Denver for a week to take in the Stock Show with Jon and Jen and Ruth and Gabe. This is a premier event of the western US. I’m going just to see what it’s like.

Aging, Dogs, Family, Friends, Garden, Great Work, Health

Garden Crusader

November 7, 2009 Charles Leave a comment

Samhain Waning Dark Moon

Welcome to another sunny, warm November day. These are days I’ve come to expect from October, but, as Paul Douglas often says, nature tries to balance, so here we are close to Armistice Day with a 60 degree and bright day about to unfold. That means time to finish what I hope will be the last Rigel barrier of the season, extending a wire across the top of our wooden orchard fencing to make it really, really hard for her to get a purchase.

Kate’s lying low for the next few days, taking care of that not yet healed back. A wise decision on her part. She’s most at risk just as she begins to feel better, chasing down dogs, picking up the mail down our sloped driveway, loading and unloading the dishwasher, making Danish pancakes. These are all part of the routine of a normal life, not important, perhaps even a bit annoying on a daily basis, until you cannot do them at all, then they loom large as important, even critical parts of identity.

A shout out here to Vicki Nowicki. I met Vicki at the annual Seed Saver’s Exchange conference in July. I ate dinner with Vicki and her husband. We talked about permaculture, Celtic holidays, the odditys of American landscape preferences and the importance of becoming native to a place. Vicki told me she’d won a Garden Crusader award from Gardener’s Supply Company. The notice came today in a e-mail from them. I’ve excerpted a bit from the interview with her.

When we spoke, and as I read this, I found myself speaking when she talked. We were in synch. She also has a Liberty Garden project that I admire.

2009 Garden Crusader Vicki Nowicki

Vicki’s life work has been to help people slow down, learn about the land they live on and take better care of it. “What I’ve been trying to do for 30 years is to glorify the place where you live,” she said. “I want to use food gardens to nail people down to their place. A garden helps to reveal the nature of your site and bonds you to the land,” she said. “When you have a garden instead of a lawn, you are now producing something, not just consuming at the maw.” 7150-nowicki-bench

Liberty Gardens

Her newest project pulls together everything she knows and believes about gardening. It is a website called libertygardens.com. The site will include tutorials and garden journals and will be a resource for anyone interested in gardening.

Here is how she describes it:

“It’s for the 21st century and it’s about growing food at home in order to make it a home. Our lives will change and our world will change when we start to plant food gardens at home. It’s a simple act that each person can choose to do at any time without a new law being passed, or a feasibility study being run or a stimulus package being doled out. But talk about a shovel-ready project! If our land is worth caring about and if our families are worth caring about, we can each choose to create the food supply that we have been asking for. We have the liberty to choose what to grow and how to grow it. People have always done it.”

And with Vicki Nowicki’s help, more and more people will be joining in, and doing it too.

Aging, Dogs, Garden, Health, Sport

A Good Day

November 1, 2009 Charles Leave a comment

Samhain Full Dark Moon

Rigel and Vega spent much of the day defending us from visiting neighborhood dogs. Of course, thanks to our record setting fence-lines no battle could be joined, but jaw-boning was much in evidence. This evening they came in, flopped down on the couch and went to sleep. That is except for the show on birth and babies in the animal kingdom. Rigel turned her head toward the TV and watched a mule-deer born, penguins enfolding their single chicks and musk-ox turn to face down the white wolves of the Arctic. Would loved to have been inside her head.

Kate worked outside today, weeding the blue-berry patches and other parts of the orchard. The good news is the clover has become established and has choked out the weeds. The bad news is that the clover threatens to choke out the blue-berries. Sigh. She is only two weeks out from her procedure tomorrow. Amazing.

Our defended (defenced?) vegetable garden can now be worked without fear that a Rigel or a Vega will come along later and try to emulate any digging I might have done. Their work is not up to my exacting standards. The last greens came out today with the exception of some Swiss Chard that still has vitality. All that’s left in the garden now are strawberry plants, asparagus, garlic, parsnip and carrots. The first two are perennials, the latter three crops from this year that can stay in the ground for a while, carrots, or need to over winter, the parsnip and garlic.

I couldn’t bring myself to patch the damage from the dogs. It is quite extensive and I find myself reactive when I work on it. It will keep until next spring.

Then of course there was the Vikings-Packer game. Our defense had a bit of a let down late in the third quarter and the first part of the fourth, but they played brilliantly otherwise. So did Favre. At one point a Packer named Jennings fell on the Viking sideline very near Favre. Favre’s concern and his action, bending down to see how Jenning’s was, moved me. He seems to genuinely care for his team mates both current and former. He also plays like a little boy, jumping and waving his arms, picking up players who’ve just scored a touchdown.

After the game he had an interview in which he spoke warmly of the Packers and the fans there. It was a mature and sensitive moment.

It’s fun to see him play as a Viking. Didn’t think I’d feel that way, but I do.

Aging, Garden, Health

Not much

October 26, 2009 Charles Leave a comment

Fall Waxing Dark Moon

Kate and I had our business meeting today. I mailed a check to Allianz for Long Term Care Insurance. Having Kate home right now is like a trial run for her retirement. The big difference will be that she will be able to add her energetic presence, too.

She folded the clothes today, so she’s by no means just lyin’ around, but by next year she should be patched up and ready to rock.

Work outside has come pretty much to a halt. Not that there’s no chores left, but a combination of wet weather, home distractions and doggy meddling has frazzled my energy there. I hope to get back to some of it before everything freezes up. Don’t know quite what to do about the bees. I do know I plan to keep bees next year, too, perhaps in my own hive boxes.

Aging, Faith and Spirituality, Family, Garden, Our Land and Home

The House That Harvey Built, We Have Made a Home

October 20, 2009 Charles Leave a comment

Fall New (Dark) Moon

The house that Harvey built ( Harvey Kadlec) as a model house for Kadlec Estates–3122 153rd Ave. NW, Andover, Minnesota–became a home long ago. The kids have contributed memories and projects. The land around the house has had many iterations of plants and vegetables. Kate has sewing materials and tools scattered here and there. I have books and computers. vegachair

With Kate off in the hospital this home reverts part way to house. Without her here part of the spirit of the home dwells elsewhere.

Houses are inanimate, things of wood and metal, pipes and plastic. The house, or the apartment, at least in America, will have serial occupants. Except for those folks who work with architects, their construction and siting decided by someone else, often a construction company, these sophisticated shells provide shelter from the elements and changing seasons. Various ports of entry connect a house to electrical service providers, a gas company, a cable or satellite service for TV and broadband internet, water and sewage removal. Often a patch of earth surrounds the house, a buffer between the house and the outside world.

A home, now that’s another matter. A home is a house (or apartment) that has been made real in the Velveteen Rabbit way. It may have a step or two that jiggle when walked upon. Maybe one or two windows have their weatherstripping coming loose. The floors probably have scuff marks and once pristine walls have chips showing the wall board beneath. At any time there is probably a light bulb out somewhere. The gas fireplace stopped working two or three years ago. The water pressure is not what it once was.

That brand new furniture that looked so good in the show room? A dog is asleep there now with a young boy. The cat scratched the chair and though long dead her mark remains. The beds in the home have bred dreams, consoled sadness and rocked with anticipation on holiday mornings. Showers have cleansed little boys before t-ball games, girls before prom, mom and dad before anniversary dinners or after funerals.

Cars have been dissected across the dining room table. Gardens planned. Weddings, too. Thanksgiving dinners and birthday parties. The oven still has the remnants from a first cake.

Family, Garden, Memories, Sport

The Day So Far

October 11, 2009 Charles Leave a comment

Fall Waning Blood Moon

Over to Joann Fabrics this morning to pick up some butterfly brocade for a dress Kate will make for Ruth. As the only guy in line to have fabric cut, I had a chance to observe the female of the species in one of her traditional habitats. The woman in front of me had on a pink fleece and nice pink bow in her hair. She also stood about thirty feet behind the cutting counter, making those of us behind her stand right smack in the aisle where people pushed their carts. I see this same behavior sometimes at traffic lights where someone (gender not at issue) chooses to wait three car lengths behind the next car. What’s up with that?

When I got home, I plucked the decorative squash from the vine, then went over to the black beans still on the vine and gathered them into one of our large woven harvest baskets. That’s the end of the harvest. As the WCCO weather guy put it in the paper this morning, the growing season is over.

After this I made a sugar cream pie, a Hoosier recipe I learned. It’s a childhood favorite and it pops up in my need to have box once in a while. It has four ingredients: flour, sugar, butter and cream. Easy to make and no nutritional value at all. But boy is it tasty.

Spent a couple of hours watching the Vikes beat the Rams. They looked pretty good. Won 38-10. Tavaris Jackson passed for a touchdown late in the 4th quarter. That’s a hopeful sign.

Art and Culture, Garden

The Louvre

October 9, 2009 Charles Leave a comment

Fall Waning Blood Moon

Yesterday was politics. Today is the Louvre. I was a late addition to the Louvre exhibition touring list and the training is today. This exhibition focuses on the question of the masterpiece. It includes a Vermeer, amazing when you consider there are only 36 Vermeer’s in the world. 9 of them are in New York City on Museum row and the rest in Europe.

We had a hard frost last night with several hours below 28 degrees. That pretty much knocks out blooms and most plants.

The longer hours yesterday in the city made me a bit weary, so I’m heading in today with less than a clear head. We’ll see about the learning capacity when I get there.

Garden, Great Wheel, permaculture

A Satisfied Mind

October 8, 2009 Charles Leave a comment

Fall Waning Blood Moon

Yesterday I dug potatoes. It was the first time I’d done that save for a few new potatoes I dug during the growing season. It was wonderful. You loosen the soil with a spading fork then dig around hunting for buried treasure. Each time I came up with a potato I felt great.

A garden combines several satisfactions. The first is co-creative as you care for the soil and the seeds, then the plants as they mature. As with the bees, it is a mutual endeavor, the gardener and the plant world. The garden itself yields wildgrapes09 intellectual puzzle after intellectual puzzle. What’s going on with that plant? How do I improve the soil? How do I keep the dogs out? (ooops. sorry.) Solving those puzzles is part of the fun.

Then, too, the garden has an aesthetic. Flowers add color, but so does the blue green kale and the purple and green of the egg plant. The beauty has a seasonal dimension, too, as the wonder of germination gives way to maturation. Each plants fruits then add yet another layer: tomatoes in red, yellow, orange and white, potatoes white and covered with soil, purple and white egg plants, beans with purple and yellow pods, graceful carrot and parsnip fronds.

Toward the end of the growing season those vegetables planted for storage and preservation then come into the house for canning, freezing and drying. As the snow storms come, they will fill in for the fresh vegetables eaten straight from the garden.

The act of harvesting is so primal I wouldn’t doubt our response to it swims in our genes. Carry in a wicker basket filled with ripe tomatoes, squash, cucumber, carrots, beans, egg plant, greens and the planning and digging and nurturing all makes sense. In a physical, basic way.

Eating of course is the satisfaction most apparent and is nothing to disregard, but it comes late in the process.

For those of us who find decay a fascinating part of the natural process there is another satisfaction. The reduction of the plant bodies themselves to compost returns nutrients to the soil and completes the cycle.

There is too one last satisfaction. As the snow swirls outside and the temperatures are far, far below survivability for any vegetable, I can plan next year’s garden with colorful seed catalogs. This includes the February and March and April sowing of seeds for plants to transplant into that very garden.

So, take that Rolling Stones, I got my satisfaction.

Dogs, Garden, permaculture, Writing

Gnashing of Teeth

October 7, 2009 Charles Leave a comment

Fall Waning Blood Moon

Back to the gnashing of teeth. When I went out to plant the garlic this morning, I discovered Vega and Rigel had decided to become gardeners, too. They dug up beds, they dug up around beds. They moved a lot of soil, none of it in a constructive manner.

This almost made me cry. After some unpleasant words and gestures, a bit of stomping around, I called Dan the fence guy and said, “Dan, I need another fence.” When he finishes, this yard will have more fence than many cattle ranches. It will take days just to walk the fence line. And this all inside an acre and a half.

Anyhow, I planted the garlic, covered them with six inches of straw and protected them with left over chain link fence. Later in the day I mulched the parsnips, which will over winter along with the garlic, and the carrots. I’m going to try storing them in the ground with a heavy mulch to protect them. In theory, then, I can go out in the middle of winter and harvest fresh carrots.

The potato harvest is now in, too. I dug up the Viking Purples (no kidding) and the rest of the white potatoes, washed them off and left them in a large plastic boxes to cure. They stay at room temperature for two weeks, then downstairs to the coolest storage we have. That’s outside the house at the bottom of the basement stairs, but still inside the garage.

Got some nice feedback today on my organization skills for the Sierra Club and on my writing from a fellow Docent. Also, a good nap. That all helped.

Big dogs bring big problems and big rewards. Can’t get one without the other.

Garden

October 7, 2009 Charles Leave a comment

Fall Waning Blood Moon

Planting and harvesting today. Potatoes come out, garlic goes in. I know, I’ve been meaning to get to that garlic for some time. Today, though, it will happen. This is the right time according to most things I’ve read though I wanted to try a different method this year, but didn’t get to it.

Conference call at 11:00 so out the door and outside right now.