• Tag Archives vegetables

  • A Time of Burnt Sacrifice

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    85  bar steep fall 29.89  0mph WNW dew-point 68  Summer, warm and sunny

    Waxing Gibbous Thunder Moon

    We long ago passed the midpoint of summer, June 21, and have begun the fattening, browning, bursting journey to the harvest season.  It begins in earnest as July ends, but some early givers have offered themselves already:  lettuce, beans, beets, carrots, onions and garlic.  We all, at least all of us up north of 45 degrees latitude, await squash, cucumbers, corn, watermelon and the full seasonal abundance of beans and peas and tomatoes.

    Even the angle of the sun reached its apogee at the Summer Solstice and has begun steadily declining since then, shortening the day and lengthening the night.  The deepening shadows of afternoon tell the tale, too, as does the now far gone blooming of the daffodils, tulips and scylla.

    This partly benighted soul finds a comfort in the change, preferring the winter to the summer solstice, the sweet melancholy of fall to the bursting forth of spring.  When the wind direction swings to the north, and the winds begin to howl, then the weather begins to stir the deep reaches.  The inner cathedral gains in holiness as the need for candles increases.  Walking those corridors, those ancient trails of the interior journey, demand a commensurate gloom, or, at least, welcome it.

    Until then, Persephone above ground keeps us focused on food and external pleasures.  We soak in the sun,  till the earth, travel the highways and airways.  This is, too, a time of burnt sacrifice, smoked hecatombs appearing on decks and patios across the land.


    📂This entry was posted in Faith and Spirituality Garden 📎and tagged

  • A Healthy Garden

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    79  bar steady 29.84  2mph E dew-point 57  Summer, sunny and warm

    Waxing Gibbous Thunder Moon

    The garden.  When I refer to the garden in these posts, it is a term of compression.  It would be more accurate to refer to the landscaping, the woods, the perennial gardens in back and those in front and, finally, the vegetable garden in raised beds.  I give a lot of thought and care each year to the plants in all of these places.

    While I try to do things in an aesthetically pleasing manner, my various efforts never achieve the shine of the  gardens in the newspapers.  I’m not a perfectionist, so the weeds here and there, the plants that have overgrown their neighbors do not bother me.  There is time to get to them and I if I don’t get it this year, then next year.

    I do care, a lot, about the health of the individual plants.  In my gardening world a diseased or dwindling plant gets a lot more concern than the niceties of the border.  As a result, our garden tends toward the lush, the verdant, but not always the well-conceived, artful display of blooming varieties carefully placed for height, leaf texture and color.  I’m impressed with folks who can achieve that and on some days I wish I were one of them.  But I’m not.

    Gardens and landscapes and woods work on many different levels.  In my case the chance to think about the plants, to place them and nourish them, to reconfigure the whole when shade has outstripped light or the soil needs amendment satisfies me.

    When Kate’s 60th birthday was on the horizon and she warmed to the idea of a purple garden, I had a great time assembling various purple flowering plants, amending the soil in each one of our beds and replanting everything, established plants and the new ones.  It tickles me now that the purple garden is in its fourth year and that it comes into its own in August, the month of her birthday.

    Not sure what I’m trying to say here.  I’ve just been outside pruning, spreading some mulch on areas I missed the last time around and I feel a little sheepish about the unplanned, somewhat haphazard look of things.  On the other hand, by my own standards, the garden looks fine.  One of those endless loop deals where the stuff you do is fine with you as long as you don’t compare it to anybody else’s.  Yes, I know.  Comparing is foolish and mentally harmful.  Yet it creeps in from time to time anyhow.


    📂This entry was posted in Garden Great Work Our Land and Home 📎and tagged

  • Vegetables Amidst the Flowers

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    70  bar steady 29.82  6mph SE dew-point 54  Summer, cool and sunny

    Waxing Gibbous Thunder Moon

    The storm has passed and the air shines, cleared of dust.  Clarity is a July morning after a rain.

    The lilies open more and more with each passing day.  The squash and cucumbers we planted in the perennial beds beside the patio have begun their long and winding way.  Yellow squash blossoms promised fruit to come.

    In several places now we have combined perennial flowers with vegetables.  In one raised bed Asiatic lilies have risen and now bloom amongst heirloom tomato plants with sturdy branches, heirloom beans and a few leaves of lettuce not yet picked.  The beets and the carrots have a Stargazer lily and a daisy in bed with them while the green peppers grow amidst bearded iris, Asiatic lilies and Russian sage.  The garlic grow only with their own kind, likewise the onions though the corn has bush beans in between the rows.

    This mixture appeals to me because it defies expectation.  It is wonderful to see plants with such different missions growing alongside each other.  Is it optimal for either?  Maybe not, but who cares.

    Kate sewed yesterday.  She has made Gabe two small suits, same pattern with different cloth.   He will be quite the little gentleman in them.  She’s happy to be back at the sewing, creating.  It’s important to her sense of self.

    Groceries this AM, then more UU history.  Later on a party at the Stricklands for Kate and Clair.


    📂This entry was posted in Family Friends Garden Weather +Climate 📎and tagged

  • The Fireworks I Like Best

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    79  bar steady 29.90 1mph NW dew-point 53  Summer, warm and sunny

    First Quarter of the Thunder Moon

    Research this morning on UU history in the Twin Cities.  The liberal religious tradition, as represented by the Unitarians and the Universalists, came here, at least it appears at this point in my reading, with Yankee businesspeople.  Lumber and land were the initial draw.  The Unitarians were an educated group who believed in education.  The Universalists were lumber folk initially.

    Both groups had the stamp of privilege, what one author calls Old Stock American, early residents of the colonies whose culture bore, for the most part, the stamp of Great Britain.  One article on the Bisbee/Tuttle controversy referred to Minneapolis as a Universalist town.

    I enjoy this kind of research, just as I enjoy the art history research.  As I have collected data over the years, each new accrual both gains from and adds to the context, the rich web of history, philosophy, literature, paintings, sculpture, theatre and political analysis that remains from years of study.  This gathering of threads together is one of the chief benefits of aging.

    The garden has finally gotten its heat and the vegetables have jumped up in response.  The squash have spread, the beans have climbed, beets have pushed above the surface and the corn has begun to reach for the sky.  The firecracker lilies and other Asian lilies have also opened and the first hemerocallis, too.  Soon the liguria and the clematis.  This is the true independence day celebration, the kind of fireworks I like best.


    📂This entry was posted in Faith and Spirituality Garden Writing 📎and tagged

  • The O Club

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    73  bar falls 29.59  0mph E  dew-point 63  Beltane, cloudy

    Waxing Crescent of the Flower Moon

    Finished putting down Preen in the flower beds.  The straw for mulch in the vegetable beds took a bit longer, but not much.  The beets have grown, as have their bedmates, the carrots.  The corn is ankle high by the 8th of June.

    The garlic nears its time for harvest.  The water is shut off and I wait now for the stems to die back.  Don’t know why I’m so fascinated with growing garlic, but I am.   Looks like a good crop.

    The onion bed, too, has made great strides.  Green hollow leaves spear through the hay, sending food down to the bulbs underneath the ground, energy Kate and I will harvest.  Two hills of gourds and one of squash have broken through and begun to leaf.  The beans Kate planted are on their fourth and sixth leaves.  Lettuce sown a while back has enjoyed the cool weather and begun to flourish.

    The tomato plants outside have yet to go through a real growth spurt and I finally pruned back the one inside.  A different, more hydroponic friendly variety will produce better and now I have to find one.  We continue to harvest lettuce each day for salads, so lettuce works.

    We have a few other stray plants in odd locations some watermelon, cucumber and peppers.  They’re all healthy.

    The bearded iris have begun to bloom, while the smaller purple varities have begun to fade.  Not much else blooming right now, save for the lilacs, the bleeding hearts and the annuals Kate planted.  The garden is lush, green. Healthy.

    The almost II lieutenant called.  It has hit him that he needs a bed.   All the officers have to live off base at Tyndall and he will be there for well over a year.  He’s going to have to fly to Denver, rent a U-Haul truck and drive back to base.  He does not, however, have a bed.  Don’t know what to say to him.  Suppose I could drive the truck and take the bed in his old room down to him.  I don’t know.

    He’s cranked.  His class got initiated into the wonders of the O club, as he called it.  The Officer’s Club.  It has traditions, though what they are he didn’t say.  His skin color has worked to his advantage so far.  He’s been picked for some extra duties, to show Generals and other dignitaries around OTS.  Face time with the high command.  He says he knows who he is and if they want to work it that way it’s ok with him.


    📂This entry was posted in Garden 📎and tagged

  • An Appetite for Nutrient Fluid (not an alien)

    Posted on by Charles 1 Comment

    56  bar steady 30.05 4mph N dew-point 43  Beltane, sunny and cool

                              Waning Gibbous Hare Moons 

    “Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.” – Leonardo da Vinci

    Less is more -always; and explore constantly.  Mario Odegard, Viking Explorer and Woolly Mammoth

    Up earlier again this morning to take advantage of the cool temps.  Amended the second tier bed close to the house where we have had problem after problem with growing things.  This time I added two bags composted manure and a cubic foot or so of sphagnum moss. 

    It’s too shady for sun plants and too sunny for shade plants.  Gotta find something that swings both ways and can tolerate our winters. 

    Meanwhile on the hydroponic front my tomato plant started from an heirloom seed now reaches close to the ceiling.  It’s a good 2.5 feet tall, headed toward its interior limitation.  It has several small yellow flowers, but no fruit as yet.  Yes, the tomato is a fruit, not a vegetable.  The astonishing thing is its appetite for nutrient fluid.  It’s going through about a gallon every four to five days.  When the fruit begins developing, I imagine its appetite will increase again.  The lettuce produces enough leaves every few days for a salad a meal for lunch and dinner.  Both the lettuce and the tomato plant are the products of one seed germinating, coming to maturity and growing its edible product.

    Outside, however, if we were pioneers and our lives depended on the crop, I’d be seeking part time employment.  To pay for food next winter.  The cucumbers and morning glories I grew inside so well atrophied and died outside.  The three tomato plants, on the other hand, have done fine outside.  After puzzling over the difference for a week, it came to me this morning.  The tomato plants were in soil in pressed peat moss containers.  They had a much larger soil contained root system.   The morning glories and the cucumber were in smaller, compressed soil seed starting clumps.  That meant their root system was much more exposed, having grown in the nutrient solution rather than soil. 

    The take away for me is this:  if I’m going to transplant it outside, start it in a larger ground ready pot with potting soil.  It’s a learning curve.

    On the other hand, we do finally have several germinated seeds in the garden, too.  The Country Gentleman corn has begun its skyward journey as have the Ireland Annie, Dragon’s Tongue and another one I can’t recall.  We also have beets, carrots, peppers and onions, lots of onions, doing well.  We need a stretch of hot weather to get these puppies on their way.  So far they’ve been sluggards.

    Though I’m signed out now for the summer, I’m headed into the art museum today for a noon tour.  Carol Wedin, a fellow docent who prefers Asian tours, called me, sick with a cold and asked me for help.  Sure.  She is a wonderful botanical illustrator/artist.

    Kate’s off getting her nails done; Lois is here cleaning house and I’ve got to get in the shower to get ready for my tour.  Bye for now.


    📂This entry was posted in Art and Culture Garden 📎and tagged

  • 2008 Gardening Season Is Underway

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    59  bar steady  29.83 3mph WNW dewpoint 31  Beltane

             Waxing Crescent of the Hare Moon

    Hemerocallis (the daylily) is a sturdy member of the plant kingdom.  Every time I plant, no matter where I plant it, nor the care I give it, the daylily spreads and grows happily.  That’s why years after the fact the foundation outlines for many rural home are still obvious, tiger lilies continue to grow and bloom just like the house was still there.  Today all the daylilies in the first raised bed we ever had, made, as all of them, by Jon, got moved. 

    Jon also put in a cedar rail fence and last year I deconstructed it down to the original cedar fencing. We had him add wire fencing to keep out nuisance animals–our dogs.  An older me saw them as less of a problem, Kate agreed, so down the wire fence came.  The daylilies have gone from the bed to the edge of the cedar rail fence.  Two peonies have likewise made the transition, but they went into a tree circling bed that is about a quarter finished.  We have a young, sturdy elm on the fence line.  I removed the fence around it and will soon complete digging out a circular bed around its dripline.

    The former daylily and peony bed will get sweet corn.  I’m also going to try the Native American method of planting climbing beans at the base of the corn stalk.

    Three tomato plants grown from seed to 1 foot + under the lights are now in place, too.  They went in the former lily (Asian and other true lilies) bed.  I’m taking a chance planting them directly outside with no hardening off, but I wanted to try it, see how it works.  If they die, we’ll buy a couple of tomato plants.  If they don’t, I can skip a step in the future if I watch the weather carefully.  Which I do.

    Also had a brainstorm for what to do with the hill that has succumbed to raspberry canes.  Moss.  This is a shady area and I read an article about how to convert lawns to moss.  It won’t work for our front lawn yet, but it should work on this slope shadowed by the seven oaks at the top.  Gonna try it.  The result can’t be worse than what we have.

    While I dug and transplanted, Kate made a trip to the Greenbarn, a nursery and garden store up near Isanti.  She bought a number of things:  impatiens, onion sets, Coleus, sphagnum moss, small onion sets already well underway, some seeds as well as other things.  Anyhow all this means the 2008 gardening season is off and growing.


    📂This entry was posted in Garden Great Work 📎and tagged

  • Bared Roots and All

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    38  73% 23% 0mph SSW bar29.12 steady  windchill39  Winter

                           Last Quarter of the Winter Moon

    Think I lost a post somewhere in cyber space, one from this morning. 

    A miscellaneous day so far.  Kate and I decided on the kinds of vegetables we want to grow.  Next I’ll look at her choices for varieties and the seeds we bought at Seed Saver’s Exchange outside Decorah, Iowa.  With those in mind I’ll put together a planting plan which will include when to plant or start seeds indoors, companion plants, a plan for optimum soil rotation over the years and the amount of vegetables we plan to consume over the summer and fall, plus those we want to put away in the root cellar-to-be or through canning or freezing.  If I have to order some new seeds or plants, I’ll get those orders in early.  I’ll also put together a tree and shrub order for the bare root plants that the Anoka County Conservation folk sell in early May.

    Later I edited my sermon for March 23rd, a sort of where I am now in my own theological/ge-ological thinking.  Decided to wait until March to put together the one page digest on Transcendentalism so I’ll be familiar with it as the day arrives.

    Ordered some meds.  Lipitor this time.  Took a nap that included another dog filled dream. 

    I also finished all the material I printed out from the Real Politics website on the Democratic race.  It’s a real nubby matter right now with conflicting data, streaks rather than whole waves of momentum.  So far Clinton remains ahead in national polls, but the electorate is tricky when they sense someone fading in the stretch.  They’ll bale and move toward someone they believe can win.  How white men and Latinos vote may decide the race.

    Doesn’t seem like much, but it took all day.  time for a workout.


    📂This entry was posted in Garden Politics 📎and tagged