160. Gardening Thoughts

Dang.  I just wrote a whole post but forgot to hit "save" and lost the whole thing.  I'm not blaming Typepad for this one -- this one was my fault for sure. Then again, if we had a nice auto-save feature like gmail does, well, then.... I know, I'm asking for the moon.  Never mind.

Now I'm in the position of trying to recreate my lost post.  You know that just never can happen.  You write something, and then you're drained. It's gone. It's almost impossible to do as good a job again, assuming it was a good job in the first place. You've run out of verve.

So I'll sort of back my way into it by pasting the comment from Carol that I was going to END that post with, and see where it takes me.  Should be interesting. I've already changed the title.  The original title was "Staging a Heat Wave Intervention," but by the end of the post I was ruminating about some different things.  Oh, the ways the human mind works. So, the comment from Carol was this:

I was just saying the same thing to my mother last night.  We are overrun by the spinach, lettuce, kale and broccoli rabe at the moment. I said I don't understand why more people don't do this and she said it's too much work.  Rubbish.  Too much work is strapping 2 young kids in the car and running around a nasty grocery store while the littlest one tries to pull things off shelves and the bigger one whines for something and you pay high prices for bashed up organic produce flown from 2000 miles away.  I walk out to the garden at 5:30pm and figure out what's for dinner.  Now which one sounds like too much work?

That's exactly the way I feel about gardening.  I don't have young children, but the rest is the same. I will admit that there have been many years (before the raised beds and imported soil & compost) when I started out strong and pretty much gave up by the end of it. The hard clay soil and pests and weather (drought one year, too much rain the next) were such a constant struggle, and when I was doing depositions (Hopefully no more. More on that to come soon.) August was, without fail, a month when work got unmanageable and that was exactly the time when most things came ready in the garden. 

I cannot rave enough about how different my gardening life is with the raised beds and good soil.  It's truly a night-and-day difference.

Now, I know some people claim to have a black thumb.  I guess it's hard for us gardener types to understand that.  You put something in the ground, you water it, you weed it, you fertilize it if needed (hopefully not, except with compost).  I ask, "How hard can it be?"

All very simplistic and easy for me to say, I know.  But there are plenty of books on the subject and answers on the web. I know, too, that I have a bit of an unrealistic view about the time and mental energy it takes.  I'm not a regular 9-to-5 worker, and I don't sit in I-95 traffic on my way to and from work, either, or have to ferry kids to soccer games or ballet lessons. And this time of year, the garden is my focus. I get joy and relaxation out of it, but I can understand how someone else might not.  It would be akin to telling me that fixing an automobile engine is easy, or asking me the question, "What is so hard about sitting down  at the spinning wheel every day?"  "You can always make time."  It's all a matter of personal interest.  I get that.  I do. 

Recently I've received comments on a regular basis thanking me for the gardening posts.  Some people have even said that I've turned them on to gardening, and that I make gardening seem accessible.  That is one of the best things I've ever heard!

But I have also realized I often write about gardening in a quite non-serious or flippant manner, because I have made the big mistake of assuming that everybody is on the same page, and everybody already knows what I know. I grew up with this stuff, and I make the mistaken assumption that everyone else did, too.  (Dumb as rocks and self-centered to boot; that's me.)

While I don't want the blog to become anything like a learned treatise on gardening -- I don't have the qualifications to even attempt that, and that's not what the blog is about -- I will make a pledge to you now, as a thank-you for thanking me for the gardening posts, that I will try to be more clear and descriptive, and do a better job of explaining things that might need explaining. Who knew I'd become a gardening missionary?  And yet, here I am, and happy to be of service.  Hm...perhaps another change in the blog name is in order.

What brought this up, you ask?  I have recently given my physical therapist a couple of gifts of green things to eat and we had several conversations about how the stuff grows.  She asked me if I'd be willing to give an informal talk about vegetable gardening if she got several people together. She said, very sincerely, "Because we just don't know.  We need instruction."  I told her that I don't have the qualifications to do such a thing, but she said, "It doesn't matter.  We need something akin to Gardening for Dummies."  She wants to learn. She is a very strong and healthy-bodied person, (ahem, black belt in jiu jitsu or something) who clearly practices healthy habits, but she said she had just learned what kale was, after I'd given her a gift of some baby kale mixed in with lettuces and things.  Now she's "eating it like a bunny."  I told her a little bit about asparagus, and David's appointment followed mine.  He came home and said she'd said to him, "Asparagus is a perennial!  Who knew?!" I told her about heirloom vegetables and seed banks and composting and .... cripes, when people are working on your shoulder and your biceps and your ribs and your neck, I guess you talk a lot.  Or I guess I talk a lot.  Yeah.  We already knew that. 

I told her about the blog, and maybe she's here reading this right now (hi, Cindy!), because there really is quite a bit of stuff about gardening, particularly this year, in my archives. 

*stopping to take a breath and look at the post from a distance*

Wow.  As I predicted, this post is completely different than the one it replaced.  All I was going to tell you about is me saving the cool-loving vegetables from the searing heat of this weekend.  I guess I'll save a thousand words with this:

The radishes would have been the first to bolt, so I pulled them all out. New radish seeds have been sowed. We ate what there were of the red globes, but now that I have a new appreciation for radish greens, I braised them together with the spinach and parsley and onions (to reduce some of the moisture content so the pie would not be soupy) and this became the basis for the Italian ricotta-vegetable pie that I mentioned yesterday. That was dinner Saturday night and breakfast Sunday morning. Yum!
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I imagine after listening to the speaker I am covering tomorrow night, I'll be redoubling my efforts in the garden, if that is possible. Then again, maybe not.  Most of what he advocates is "review" for me, so ...

Comments

[Sarah]

I hope to come to enjoy the gardening more. I am looking forward to the good food. We got a late start on it, but the opportunity arrived late, too.

[Mel]

I think one important thing is to spend a little time regularly with your garden. We've done a fair bit of landscaping over the past couple of years, but I try to pluck out weeds here and there as I pass by the beds and have generally managed to keep up with it (though I suppose I could be singing a different tune come August).

[sandy]

As a recent convert, those baby radishes are the cutest thing I have ever seen.
Have I mentioned how I hate the heat?
LX

[Ann]

I don't want to learn about gardening, I just want to ransack yours! LOL, seriously, looks great. UGH, small kids and the grocery store...makes me shiver all over. Glad Im done with that! I would LOVe to have a garden...no land that doesn't get peed on by the dog...:(

[Manise]

I love vegetable gardening! I affectionately call my veggies "my crops". You will be very pleased to hear that I bought 3'x3' black plastic boxes from you know where- my cedar ones from that same place after 9 years of faithful service are literally falling apart. My family was going to replace them for me, but after I saw how much more expensive they've gotten over the years and how much the S&H was, I canceled the order (while they were still on backorder). 2 of my original boxes will survive this season, so I spent a good chunk of yesterday emptying the old ones, replacing and filling 2 of them and adding a third to the mix. I did a sort of lasagna filling of the boxes and used the cartons they came in for the bottom footprint as you did. I used most of my newly made compost, found more leaf mold in a heap I had forgotten about, and layered with soil from the other boxes. I plant today at last. My lettuces and cabbage are doing really well as well as the parsley and alyssum I plant for my beneficial insects and caterpillars.

[Carole]

I enjoy your gardening posts. And Dale keeps talking about raised beds and I told him he just needs to come over here and read you.

[margene]

How cool you'll see Michael! You'll love him.

[marianne]

Very cool on the M.Pollan gig! oh and.. Hi Cindy, I DO hope you're reading!
This all just makes me long for a nice sunny spot... back in my early 20s (that would be in the 70s :^) I discovered intensive gardening and for years grew amazing amounts of food, I remember that first year Dad came over to check it out, he was a firm believer from that day forward.

[Roxie]

That lovely image of wandering out to the garden at 5:30 and deciding what's for dinner completely ignores the double digging, the hours of weeding, the viruses and insects and drought and flood and thousand other ills the garden is heir to. And it also does not deal with the question of what to do with the surplus. (how do you identify someone who has no friends at all? He's buying zuccinis in August.)But if you can accept all the work leading up to that pre-prandial stroll, then gardening is bliss.

[Stacey aka The Loom Whisperer]

*cough wordpress cough* :D I love your gardening posts having grown up with it. We're talking mini farming. I learned to can and pickle quite well. I'd love to do more, but since moving to the desert, I don't know what to do. The who, what, when and where of it all. I've had limited success - this year, beans and tomatoes - if my mom doesn't kill them by flooding them out. (don't ask) I just read the seed packs and wing it.

[jessica~]

Oh, that will be an interesting talk! He's a great author. Mmmmm... radishes! Your post just reminded me that today is one of the days for the Farmers Market at City Hall Plaza. :) Having an issue with our "favorite gardening place". Has to do with me spending over $100 on an item that others stores apparently are selling for half that. Great.

[Marcia Cooke]

So, you're telling me to go out there in 97º heat and pull all my radishes?! So far, I'm doing alright with my combination of thick hay to insulate the soil and my row cover shade tent, but today might be the straw that breaks the camel's back! Definitely salad for supper, though!

[Linda Blum]

Lovely radishes. For years I have been tossing sliced radishes into stir fries at the last minute to take the place of water chestnuts (not allowed on the plate of otherwise easy going husband). Thanks to you - this week I added the tops in as the greens! Oh yum! Thanks Norma!!
Linda

[Carrie]

Ha, I don't mind growing them, but I don't like to eat them! (Especially since I believe we plan lettuces and spinach here in the winter time.) The DH is a meat-and-potatoes guy, and I am all about the bread, and neither of us is terribly adventurous. Well, not entirely true - I'd try your quiche or ricotta pie, and DH would try other things, but our tastes are so different that neither of us likes anything the same. I think DH would rather impale himself on my knitting needles than eat ricotta or quiche intentionally.

[Nora]

Norma strikes again! This is great. I grew up with gardening and I'm fairly familiar with the basics of where food comes from. I was stunned the other day when a friend asked if celery grows above ground, but then it came to me that most people are quite distant from the origins of the stuff they consume.

[Jenn C.]

I do really enjoy your gardening posts - you almost inspire me to give it another go, but my hate of the heat and the nasty bloodsucking mosquitoes we get here by our salt marsh (seriously, 18 bites in the 30 second walk to the corner of my yard to pick a single tomato) keep telling me to give it up as not worth it. I love reading your posts though - it's so fun, your absolute love of the process comes through in every post, and I'm getting great ideas for how to deal with all our farmshare veggies.

We signed up for a farmshare instead, and I'll hit the farmer's market every week because I have to go pick that up at the market.

[Cookie]

I enjoy the gardening posts because it's a chance for me to peek into another climate and see how you make it work for you. Then again, I'm another one who grew up gardening and learning the hard way. It's amazing how many simple things that we take for granted are total mysteries to some people.

I know what you mean about time. Before my mother retired, she would get home around six, change clothes, eat something and head outside. She would eat more as she watered and weeded her garden. I swear there were nights were she only went inside because it was dark out. It was her way of relaxing and shaking off the stress of the day.

[Adrianne]

I think it's quite nice of you to consider your readers as you craft your new blogs. It seems as if people have been very happy to read what you've shared so far. I've really enjoyed all the beautiful descriptions and pictures myself. I think it's a lovely, generous, thought to consider altering your perspective while you write in order to engage more of your readers. I look forward to finding out more about gardening from you as my knowledge is probably on the minimal side. We did a bit of gardening when I was small and I'm enjoying a large community garden at the school where I work. But, personally, I'm no expert, hardly knowledgable really.

[claudia]

You are covering Michael Pollan!!! Wow. I'd love to hear that. Just finished Eater's Manifesto.

So, here's the thing. Is there an equivalent in gardening to giving a spindle and a little roving to an interested, but non-spinning friend? Digging raised beds, starting seeds, etc. seems like buying a non-spinner and wheel and a dirty fleece to start out. Can I buy a tomato plant and put it in a container on my deck? Can I start a seed outside, tomorrow that will still grow enough in the time remaining in the summer to result in food?

What about a starter-gardening post for the interested but scared and non-confident?

[Ruth]

Oh how lucky - I'd love to hear Michael Pollan speak!

[carrie]

Wow, Michael Pollan!!Have fun! :)

[Lucia]

I have got to get a garden in. I have become very lazy; I have a few herbs, that's it. Since our soil is poor, having a garden will involve raised beds and all that. I plan to start small.

[Kristen]

Oh what a job perk that is! And Cindy is right, you'd be surprised what your enthusiasm and knowledge can do to inspire others!

[heather]

ooooh, i have such an intellectual crush on michael pollan. sure it's review, but it's fun review, no? thanks for the garden update. i need a kick in the butt to rip back some broccoli and other goodies my dog mauled and start afresh with new seed(lings).

[Katie B.]

I *so* wish I had brainspace for a garden this summer. Oh, well, I guess a baby has to be good enough. :D

[Seanna Lea]

I feel like I should know more about gardening than I do. My mom had gardens most of the time I can remember growing up. If there was a patch of yard, there were vegetables. But for some reason, I just can't remember which things were pulled when and how this was decided. I mean, for something like cukes it's pretty easy to tell when they are ready, but how do you know that you can harvest an onion (the mutant onion I planted outside my living room window last year is really tall, thriving even). I know that I should be able to find this information on the Internet, but I just never seem to get around to doing the searches.

It's one of the reasons I like your gardening posts. It reminds me that this is something I should remember how to do, and keeps it in my mind for that time when I have a yard to call my own.

[jessie]

I just tell myself "Things grow," and then get amazed every time things actually do grow. Even with neglect, stuff survives.

I recently read a quote that "the best fertilizer is the gardener's shadow," and I'm trying to keep that in mind on the days I'm inclined to skip the daily garden checkup. (It's hot, ya know?) But I'll be out there today, however briefly, just to be sure things are still growing.

[Allyson]

Perhaps you aren't an "expert," but your enthusiasm and love for gardening definitely made an impact on me. After a week of watching every little spot of our large (but very shady) back yard, my husband and I found a small spot that we thought might just work for a garden. We got a bit of a late start and I'm not so certain that we are doing everything in the correct order -- but the whole family is having a blast. There are tiny little hot peppers out there! Blossoms on the tomoatoes plants and lettuce to eat each night. We'll take what we can get this year and learn all we can in the fall and winter so we are better prepared next year. And all of this is because a "non-expert" inspired me. Thank you!!