Happy New Year!

I can’t help it. I am always overtaken the morning of January 1st by unrelenting optimism. The bustling hubbub of Christmas and two birthdays is over. The dear old dog, so recently terrified by neighborhood pyrotechnic reveling, is now resting peacefully. No one has to be anywhere and I can turn my attention to my favorite place – the garden.

2013 has started off in a particularly enticing way, as the sun, a rare visitor recently, sent its full splendor in through the windows first thing.  A good layer of frost had transformed the mess of unkempt leftover garden twigs into a sparkling kaleidoscope of textures. After my regular farm chores to tend to the chickens, I decided to start the new year off right and resume my morning walks around the garden to see what there was to see. For all the rain, I hadn’t really looked too closely at the legacies remaining from the 2012 gardening season. Several Savoy cabbage, planted as an afterthought between the dahlias, have come into their time and promise some good winter greens. A little delicata squash was hiding under some leaves and will make a tasty addition to something. Some strawberry plants have jumped their boundaries and made themselves at home in a pot. A good batch of chard, now sweetened by frost, will make it’s way into Hoppin’ John with Cornbread today. Best of all, when I thought all the flowers were gone, I saw this little cheery calendula, a picture of optimism.

Now, on to the taking stock of seeds, perusing catalogs, garden bed planning, etc. My 2013 plan is to make better use of vertical space with trellises and use my square footage more wisely to grow edible items. As many gardeners claim with a new season’s enthusiasm: this year I will be a better weeder and a more efficient waterer! I wish you all the best in your gardens in 2013, and in the rest of life as well!

The Long Cool Days of Summer

Winsome Dahlia, the first lady of the season.

This morning it was raining and in the low 60’s. I can find comfort in that status when most of the country is experiencing record-breaking heat. I’m sure my garden prefers it as well. It is easy to understand, however, why so many in our fair Northwest have been grumbling about the serious lack of summer weather this year. The plant life, however, seems oblivious in the garden, aside from the straggly tomatoes and peppers of course. This afternoon, as the raindrops subsided and things dried off a little bit, I went for a tour of the garden with a bowl and my 8-year-old son.

We discovered that the first of July had some gifts for us. Not many, but a few raspberries in the side yard, yielded easily when pulled from the stem. Amidst the tangle of grass and mint by the cherry tree, a good handful of red juicy strawberries had been secreted away from the birds that stand sentinel on the telephone wire, waiting for the second that the cherries are ripe. The snow peas are absolutely exploding with pods. We picked so many, that we had to empty the bowl and come back out. This led to a splendid risotto with snow peas and herbs from the garden for dinner.

The flowers are in their heyday, despite the lack of sun. And today, I found the first open dahlia. It is a Winsome dahlia from my favorite Old House Gardens. I ordered over the phone a few years ago and just asked the nice lady which one she liked. She named Winsome, so we just threw it on the tally. She is a lovely dahlia and it looks like the sun is radiating out of each flower, even on a drab day. The dahlias may come a little late to the party, but they stay to the very end in November, when everyone else has gone to bed.

It always brings me such joy to make these new discoveries in the garden. It is my greatest love that does not have a face. Nowhere do I feel more at home. I wish for everyone to be able to find that place in their lives, where they can completely immerse themselves and let the mind wander away for a while.

An Exploding Garden

I absolutely adore this time of year. Absolutely adore it. Yesterday, on Mother’s Day, I spent most of the day in the garden. I have a habit of collecting plants when I am at a nursery, or a garage sale where they are selling plants, or the grocery store. Mother’s Day afforded me the opportunity to get every single one of these plants into the ground, even the ones that were leftover from last year, sad and rootbound in their tiny little pots. I am a terribly disorganized gardener and I don’t care who knows it. I randomly shove things in where they have space, mixing together the flowers and the vegetables. It seems to me that’s the way nature would do it, instead of in tidy little rows. So pickling cucumbers will pop up next to my new dahlias and the onion starts are protecting the rose bushes. 

The lineup in the magical show of the spring garden is in full swing. Right now the red poppies are in full bloom along with the forget-me-nots, Spanish bluebells, lilacs, and lupines. Close behind are the climbing rosebushes that have reached the roof of the house and 6 different varieties of peonies, including the one transplanted from my Grandma’s yard. The weather is kind, the birds are ecstatic. I am ecstatic. I will remember that when I become a slave to the daily need to water a large portion of the garden.

Guess who’s coming around the corner?

The year is beginning to parcel out its small gifts, despite the persistent dreary rain. This morning I discovered this tiny, lovely crocus in the front garden, seemingly springing up overnight. Instantly, my thoughts turned to the hopefulness of spring. For lunch I made a simple soup with some of the garden’s other early gifts: new chives, baby mustard greens and a fresh egg.

Strange life forms in dark days

One of the best parts about having chickens is the necessity to tend them. Each day brings at least 2 compulsory adventures into a small part of the natural world to let the ladies out, feed them and tuck them in at night. Yesterday on this daily mission, I liked the way the air felt in my lungs and looked around for some legitimate (i.e. chore-related) reason to dally al fresco while the children went about interrupting their father hard at work inside.

It seemed perhaps it was a safety hazard for wet leaves and mud to be blanketing the stone and brick stairway up into the back yard, so I went about removing them. In the fading light of a near solstice afternoon, I turned my head and noticed these strange life forms on the rockery. Are they mushrooms? Lichens? What? Our damp, cold weather from November to March sponsors so many of these  mossy alien life forms that there must be a reference book specific to them, such as “Primitive Winter Plant Life of the Pacific Northwest.” If not, maybe I should write one. Or at least get a closeup lens to better capture them.

What year is it?

A boy and his pumpkin

Towards the end of 1st grade, Sam’s class planted pumpkin seeds in a small amount of dirt in a dixie cup. The students measure how the seedlings grew and kept a botany journal. (Way to go, public school!) When it came home two weeks old, it was scraggly and tired. But we found the sunniest part of the garden and carefully planted it there. I’d like to say that Sam nurtured it entirely on his own, but this would be a fib. He did gladly water it when I reminded him, and I watered it the rest of the time and kept the volunteer tomatoes from crowding it. There were other pumpkins on the vine which withered or disappeared mysteriously; but one pumpkin remained.

Today, Sam and I removed that pumpkin from the vine. He picked it up and promptly dropped it due to it’s girth and weight.Fortunately for it’s proximity to grass, it is still intact. He grinned widely and was very proud. In a few weeks, it will be Sam’s very own homegrown Jack-o-Lantern. As much as I would like to project my love of the garden onto this boy of mine, when I asked him if he wanted to grow pumpkins again next year, he said, “Yeah!” and then, “Mama, did George Lucas make that Star Wars video game?”

Harley the Kitten

Flower of the Day

I love dahlias. They are the last ladies in all their finery who are still dancing at that great party called summer, when most guests have left or fallen asleep. Here is Jane Cowl making a cheery addition to the breakfast table.