Greetings friends, neighbors, gardeners and fellow citizens of planet Earth. One of the many wonders of this world we live in is inspiration. Where does it come from? Sometimes it surprises us and sometimes we can summon it. Often it summons us. Is it always wandering around out there waiting to be called, or is it spontaneous and serendipitous, springing up from some deep reservoir of creativity deep within each of us? Can we create without it? Perhaps, but not very well. Can we garden without it? Not really.
This afternoon I was given a meteor sized burst of inspiration. One that I could have happily done without, but inspiration is a free agent not waiting for our bidding or definition. Minding my own business at around 3:00 p.m, I went to my car, which was parked across the street in a friend's driveway to get a case of Feng Shui supplies left there after doing a job. When I arrived, I saw my friend and her dog wandering around the driveway looking a bit disconcerted. She started walking my way, but before she could say more than "I was going to call you", I saw that my car had been damaged badly by an enormous limb that had been torn from an old tree in her neighbor's yard. The limb, it seemed, was ripped from the trunk by a gale force wind and speared down at light speed severely damaging my poor car. The limb didn't fall lengthwise across the roof. Oh no, it was focused like a light seeking missile. It appeared to have been shot like a fierce bolt of lightening from the hand of the great god Thor straight at my car.
Sometime later and still a bit in shock, I watched my seriously wounded, but much revered car, being towed on a flatbed out of the yard and down the street.
Certainly there is something to be learned from an experience such as this. Should I take this personally? Well, if you think that there were probably a hundred cars parked in the vicinity, and an equal number of ancient and rotted trees scattered throughout the yards and roadside, that fate selected my automobile as its victim, makes one wonder.
How does the gardener take this huge load of compost and turn it into something helpful and perhaps beneficial. A tall order under the circumstances. I was taught that one should use ones' frustrations and difficulties in life to learn something meaningful. Reluctantly, and with a certain amount of resentment, I decided that some inspiration could come out of what was, so far, a disaster. We naturally think, it could have been worse. That I or someone else could have been in the car, or in the way of the catapulting limb. Then I thought, that if my friend's neighbor had taken down this tree which was rotted throughout, then this wouldn't have occurred. Perhaps my car wouldn't have been unnecessarily damaged, and I wouldn't be out a $500. deductible for my insurance. If we take proper care of our trees, bushes and shrubs then this sort of thing doesn't occur.
If we have our trees examined and pruned regularly then the squirrels don't have easy access to our attics and easements creating havoc and costly damage to our houses. If we take care of our trees then they are less likely to snap in the wind, causing costly damage to house, property and injury to our persons. It is true that full sized trees can be a big expense to keep healthy and safe, but learning how to prune and shape a tree when it is planted can help to off set enormous expense later on. Not wanting to turn this into some petty, spiteful rant, I wandered around my yard and began taking stock of what one can do during the winter that could be a benefit to our gardens as well as ourselves. I have always used my garden as a source of healing and refuge. When life gave me more than I thought I could bear, ( I am not referring to the car and tree affair), when we are laid low by grief, pain and sorrow. my solution is, and always has been, to go in the garden and pull weeds until the pain and hurt begin to subside. When troubled, I may spend weeks or months focused on my garden, carrying off wheel barrows filled with weeds to the compost pile. Profoundly difficult experiences tend to ease up with time and weed pulling. We do not forget these difficult experiences, but in time we can live with them and carry on.
Robert Frost wrote:
On a Tree Fallen Across the Road
(To hear us talk)The tree the tempest with a crash of wood
Throws down in front of us is not bar
Our passage to our journey's end for good,
But just to ask us who we think we are
Insisting always on our own way so.
She likes to halt us in our runner tracks,
And make us get down in a foot of snow
Debating what to do without an ax.
And yet she knows obstruction is in vain:
We will not be put off the final goal
We have it hidden in us to attain,
Not though we have to seize earth by the pole
And, tired of aimless circling in one place,
Steer straight off after something into space.
Robert Frost
So in this cold and snowy wintry landscape, survey your gardens and trees. When the only colors left are the sprays of grasses, gold, lavender and red, the precious ever green of the pine and cedar, and yellow witch hazel sprigs distinct against the steel blue of a winter sky.
Trim away the dead and broken branches, check the trunk for rodent damage, and a little later in the dormant season, spray with non toxic pesticides to protect against disease.
Take yourselves to a heavenly place such as Longwood Gardens in Kennett Square, PA. Long after the roses and lotus garden are put to sleep, the fountains are turned off, and the splendor of Christmas season enchantment has been packed away until next year, the conservatories are burgeoning with color, fragrance and a veritable feast for the eyes. And soul.
I was there this past weekend with friends who were visiting from Canada. As the large and gorgeous flakes of snow fell outside covering the landscape with a soft and dreamy blanket of white and glisten, we meandered through the greenhouses. Greenhouses artistically filled with fragrant stock, flowering grapefruit and orange trees, jasmine large and small, and orchids that were stunning, leaving you feeling blessed and gaping. Some photos follow.
The 2010 White Flower Farm catalog arrived in the mail this week, signaling the beginning of the gardening season. White Flower Farm is for me, and many others I am certain, the time honored stardard for flower nurseries. It is time to puruse and be inspired by seed and plant catalogs of every kind. Remember to buy as many heirtage and organic seeds and plants as you can.
Make a plan of your gardens and dream them into all their seasonal glory. A butterfly bush by the screened porch perhaps. Gifts for gardening friends; the new Double Stardards Iris for JoAnn's birthday? Maybe the exquisite Arisema Jack-in-the-Pulpit for Katharine's shade garden. And so it goes. Life springs eternal.
The gardening season has begun my friends. Actually, to my mind it never ceases, but just rolls on one season to another. Moving from winter white, brown and grey, to azalea and magnolia pink, lavender and red, with creek beds lined with golden yellow forsythia. On to summer green and technicolor radiance, easing back into the golden, red and crimson of Autumn. Thank you dear Gaia, we are blessed.
Monday, January 25, 2010
Saturday, January 9, 2010
Manure, Manure Manure
Happy New Year Gardeners
Wishing you and yours a perfectly joyous, incandescent, New Year filled with love, light and manure.
To the garden novice manure is some foul, stinking, odious substance best to be ignored and avoided at all costs. But to the the experienced gardener, manure is black gold which is vital to a healthy, happy, productive garden of any kind.
The 2010 Farmer's Almanac has an article on manure, not to be missed. The Farmer's Almanac is filled with humor, random earth/sky facts that one wouldn't find elsewhere. This year they put forth a great article regarding the importance of manure. Manure can be green, black, brown or compost which is still laced with shards of green veggie, reluctant to metamorphosize, specs of white or brown egg shell, or maybe a piece of walnut shell left by a foraging squirrel as a tribute to our effort. And his hunger.
"Manure, manure, sir, is the thing!!" A quote from The Old Farmer's Almanac, 1818 .
Read the article in this issue of the Farmer's Almanac, 2010. it's fabulous. Check out the photo of the bearded old Dude holding a cabbage the size of an asteroid. This is the result of healthy, nutritious soil. The Almanac always gives a projection for the weather ahead for the current year. I have never found them to be wrong. It's a miracle that year after year they get it straight. I use this information to plan ahead, because it helps to know what sort of weather we will be working with in the warmer growing months to come.
Is it going to be a cold summer in the N.E.? A rainy year in the Northern States, or perhaps an extra dry growing season in California. The Farmer's Almanac will give us a preview.
A tid bit about weather. In the Municipal Building in Stowe, Vermont, the annals of history record a time in the early 1800's when a group of farmers who had immigrated to the States from Sweden, pulled up stakes, plows and wagons, and in mass, left as they came for a warmer climate. Probably Minnesota. The year that pushed them out of the Green (so called) Mountains yielded snow every day; 360 days of the frozen white stuff, hardly a place to farm.
Children who are properly nourished look and perform at a much higher level than children who are denied healthy nutrition. A lack of awareness is the root cause of the physical and intellectual malnutrition that fundamentally disables so many children from getting what they need to be healthy, creative and productive. Many children are starving in the McMansions they live in, as they retreat to their state-of-the-art techno studios they call "their room", gorging on chips, soda and micro-waved food. Most American children don't know where their food actually comes from.
The Obama's, bless them, especially Michelle Obama, are teaching American families about respecting the Earth by growing and using healthy food, and beautiful flowers in the White House. Garden excess is shared with soup kitchens in their neighborhood. They are keeping honey bees at the White House as well as encouraging recycling of bio matter, and promoting the creation of our homes by using "green" materials. Much gratitude that we finally have conscious leadership.
Gardening, for most of us, is a seasonal activity. Dreaming and creating a garden plan is a quiet winter time activity. It is also the time when we are eating the veggies were have stored, or put -by using last year's garden produce. I miss the pantry and root cellar I once had, where we stored the canned tomatoes, peaches, jam and pickles we made from our garden produce. We had a root cellar as well, where we could store produce that grew beneath the ground, and kept so well in the cool dry cellar. Some we stored in sand. Carrots, potatoes, rutabaga, celeriac, parsnips and turnips all store beautifully in a cool dry place. Left in the soil over the winter,root crops such as carrots, and parsnips must be dug early in the Spring so that they don't rot, but taken out of the soil as soon as the soil begins to warm, they are more delicious than any one has ever tasted. We used shellac to preserve watermelons grown the summer before, so that we could have our own fresh watermelon for Christmas.
A favorite was the violet syrup we made from the violets that grew wild in the Spring. The snow on top of a mountain is as clean and pure as it gets, so in the winter we would fill paper cones with fresh snow and pour the violet or new maple syrup over the snow. Wonderful to taste and beautiful to see. Kids of all ages love it.
If your garden passion is floral rather than vegetable, this is still the time to hunker down with seed and plant catalogs and start to design the garden for the year ahead. I have a personal passion for heritage seed. This is seed that can be kept and used from one year to the next. They can be shared or traded with friends or on a trading site - why not start one of your own. Heritage seed is also referred to as heirloom seed. Organic seed means that they were produced without the use of chemicals or artificial substances, but they can still be hybrid. Heirloom/heritage seed is usually grown naturally with the use of healthy bio-organic techniques and products. Look for this information before ordering.
Hybrid seed, as you may know, cannot reproduce itself from one year to the next. This is seed that has been genetically tampered with so that it looks perfect, has extraordinary color and size, but not much flavor and no longevity. It's a freak. Highly recommend using seeds that still are alive with genetic memory and will give us healthy, and abundant crops from year to year. If, God forbid, the U.S. experiences some form of devastating weather patterns, what would the masses eat, when the hybrid products they have relied upon commercially cannot produce.
There are many heritage seed purveyors out there. Have a look and see which appeals to you, and give them a try. I like http://www.seedsavers.org/, founded in 1975 and who are a non-profit organization who offer 25,000 varieties of seed "saved for future generations".
There are many heirloom seed sellers on line, so have a look and choose the ones who speak to you.
Before signing off this morning, I would like to suggest to you that you watch PBS television Saturday mornings. They offer so many great food programs, cooking shows and last but not least, great garden shows that teach and inspire. Not to mention the Australian hotties on the garden shows. Definitely a plus. Gardens are a beautiful art form, and so are gardeners.
Happy garden dreaming.
AVC
Will be posting another blog later in month to review garden design, and what it means to you.
Wishing you and yours a perfectly joyous, incandescent, New Year filled with love, light and manure.
To the garden novice manure is some foul, stinking, odious substance best to be ignored and avoided at all costs. But to the the experienced gardener, manure is black gold which is vital to a healthy, happy, productive garden of any kind.
The 2010 Farmer's Almanac has an article on manure, not to be missed. The Farmer's Almanac is filled with humor, random earth/sky facts that one wouldn't find elsewhere. This year they put forth a great article regarding the importance of manure. Manure can be green, black, brown or compost which is still laced with shards of green veggie, reluctant to metamorphosize, specs of white or brown egg shell, or maybe a piece of walnut shell left by a foraging squirrel as a tribute to our effort. And his hunger.
"Manure, manure, sir, is the thing!!" A quote from The Old Farmer's Almanac, 1818 .
Read the article in this issue of the Farmer's Almanac, 2010. it's fabulous. Check out the photo of the bearded old Dude holding a cabbage the size of an asteroid. This is the result of healthy, nutritious soil. The Almanac always gives a projection for the weather ahead for the current year. I have never found them to be wrong. It's a miracle that year after year they get it straight. I use this information to plan ahead, because it helps to know what sort of weather we will be working with in the warmer growing months to come.
Is it going to be a cold summer in the N.E.? A rainy year in the Northern States, or perhaps an extra dry growing season in California. The Farmer's Almanac will give us a preview.
A tid bit about weather. In the Municipal Building in Stowe, Vermont, the annals of history record a time in the early 1800's when a group of farmers who had immigrated to the States from Sweden, pulled up stakes, plows and wagons, and in mass, left as they came for a warmer climate. Probably Minnesota. The year that pushed them out of the Green (so called) Mountains yielded snow every day; 360 days of the frozen white stuff, hardly a place to farm.
Children who are properly nourished look and perform at a much higher level than children who are denied healthy nutrition. A lack of awareness is the root cause of the physical and intellectual malnutrition that fundamentally disables so many children from getting what they need to be healthy, creative and productive. Many children are starving in the McMansions they live in, as they retreat to their state-of-the-art techno studios they call "their room", gorging on chips, soda and micro-waved food. Most American children don't know where their food actually comes from.
The Obama's, bless them, especially Michelle Obama, are teaching American families about respecting the Earth by growing and using healthy food, and beautiful flowers in the White House. Garden excess is shared with soup kitchens in their neighborhood. They are keeping honey bees at the White House as well as encouraging recycling of bio matter, and promoting the creation of our homes by using "green" materials. Much gratitude that we finally have conscious leadership.
Gardening, for most of us, is a seasonal activity. Dreaming and creating a garden plan is a quiet winter time activity. It is also the time when we are eating the veggies were have stored, or put -by using last year's garden produce. I miss the pantry and root cellar I once had, where we stored the canned tomatoes, peaches, jam and pickles we made from our garden produce. We had a root cellar as well, where we could store produce that grew beneath the ground, and kept so well in the cool dry cellar. Some we stored in sand. Carrots, potatoes, rutabaga, celeriac, parsnips and turnips all store beautifully in a cool dry place. Left in the soil over the winter,root crops such as carrots, and parsnips must be dug early in the Spring so that they don't rot, but taken out of the soil as soon as the soil begins to warm, they are more delicious than any one has ever tasted. We used shellac to preserve watermelons grown the summer before, so that we could have our own fresh watermelon for Christmas.
A favorite was the violet syrup we made from the violets that grew wild in the Spring. The snow on top of a mountain is as clean and pure as it gets, so in the winter we would fill paper cones with fresh snow and pour the violet or new maple syrup over the snow. Wonderful to taste and beautiful to see. Kids of all ages love it.
If your garden passion is floral rather than vegetable, this is still the time to hunker down with seed and plant catalogs and start to design the garden for the year ahead. I have a personal passion for heritage seed. This is seed that can be kept and used from one year to the next. They can be shared or traded with friends or on a trading site - why not start one of your own. Heritage seed is also referred to as heirloom seed. Organic seed means that they were produced without the use of chemicals or artificial substances, but they can still be hybrid. Heirloom/heritage seed is usually grown naturally with the use of healthy bio-organic techniques and products. Look for this information before ordering.
Hybrid seed, as you may know, cannot reproduce itself from one year to the next. This is seed that has been genetically tampered with so that it looks perfect, has extraordinary color and size, but not much flavor and no longevity. It's a freak. Highly recommend using seeds that still are alive with genetic memory and will give us healthy, and abundant crops from year to year. If, God forbid, the U.S. experiences some form of devastating weather patterns, what would the masses eat, when the hybrid products they have relied upon commercially cannot produce.
There are many heritage seed purveyors out there. Have a look and see which appeals to you, and give them a try. I like http://www.seedsavers.org/, founded in 1975 and who are a non-profit organization who offer 25,000 varieties of seed "saved for future generations".
There are many heirloom seed sellers on line, so have a look and choose the ones who speak to you.
Before signing off this morning, I would like to suggest to you that you watch PBS television Saturday mornings. They offer so many great food programs, cooking shows and last but not least, great garden shows that teach and inspire. Not to mention the Australian hotties on the garden shows. Definitely a plus. Gardens are a beautiful art form, and so are gardeners.
Happy garden dreaming.
AVC
Will be posting another blog later in month to review garden design, and what it means to you.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)