Mid May, 2008
Dawn Garden
With grocery and gas prices heading for the stratosphere and plantlady pay hovering barely above what it was when I first strapped on my pruners I have lately been rethinking my backyard garden. During the 80s I kept a small “pea patch” that came in pretty handy during a series of uncomfortable gaps between jobs - it kept me in green beans and tomatoes, sugar peas and crisp lettuce. By the mid-90s however when prices were saner and I was fully employed, I began to wonder if grubbing in the cold earth for a few spindly carrots and beans was worth the dirt manicure.
About seven years ago the question became moot. I was handed the perfect excuse to pitch the farm girl routine altogether when a major earthquake collapsed the drain field, destroying my vegetable beds completely. The excavation to restore the drain field left my yard looking like ground zero - a bare flat square of rocky dirt. I didn’t have the heart to go through all the rigmarole of planning and planting another complex vegetable garden - instead I put in a back-to-nature wildlife refuge using mostly native plants and hardy herbs that fend nicely for themselves. It has been a lovely and blessedly low maintenance choice, providing food for squirrels, birds, raccoons, slugs, bugs, bees and the occasional wandering urban rat (yuck).
Recently each trip to the supermarket produce section stirs nostalgic longings for the days I could put together a fantastic veggie stir fry from whatever was growing ten feet beyond my kitchen door - a bounty of fresh food, nearly free (seed packs cost very little) and 100% organic. Such a deal! So this Spring I decided to get back into the vegetable growing game - at least in a modest way.
My parents kept a large garden on the farm where I grew up. Every summer Mom would can a gazillion Mason jars of produce to last us through winter. The garden was a neat fenced rectangle behind the house between the apple orchard and the chicken coop. I can see now that we were fairly self-sufficient - we kept a few dairy cows for milk and butter, chickens for eggs, a collection of pigs, and a small herd of beef cattle that provided a steer a year for the freezer. Let’s not forget the apple, plum, and cherry trees nor the raspberries and blackberry that provided cider, jam, jelly and pies! Sounds like paradise until you think of the dawn to dark work it took to keep the farm going. I hardly saw my parents from the first day of Spring until the last ear of corn was husked in Fall.
So, does rediscovering my veggie garden roots (pardon pun) mean I dig up my native wildlife preserve? Do I tear it from the land and sent it off to the composter? Will the critters starve who have learned to depend on my yard for sustenance? Not quite. I have come up with a compromise. You see, I figure there is plenty of room out there for everyone. - and all veggies are “native” somewhere (or were at one time in a less fancy ancestral form). Instead I’m tucking vegetable starts betwixt and between what is already there. No manicured rows of perfect produce for me! I have broadcast carrot, beet, lettuce and radish seeds over any open ground, letting whatever decides to germinate do so where and when it will, just as it would in nature.
I am not even keeping track of where I scattered what. Whatever springs from the soil will be a marvelous surprise. Imagine feathery carrot tops fringing a bank of glossy purple veined beet greens! My only concession to order is that along the north fence I ran a row of sugar peas that bloom bright pink and I built a bamboo trellis for scarlet runner beans.
My cousin Victoria’s garden is set up with raised beds to facilitate easy maintenance. It is also quite beautiful, the plants showcased as if framed for display. What a joy to sit in that garden as sunlight plays over its subtle colors and textures. Sure, formal gardens dolled up with clipped hedges and hybrid roses are pretty things but don’t underestimate the beauty of blue-green cabbages spangled with crystal raindrops. Ornamental does not necessarily mean inedible!
OFFICE PLANT TIP: As the days get warm and sunny, many people are tempted to put their indoor plants out on the deck or balcony for a “vacation” in fresh air and sunshine. Please don’t do it! The leaf surfaces of you plants are used to low light levels and have zero protection from UV rays - they will burn quicker than a bug on a griddle. There just isn’t an SPF40 sun block for office plants. In addition to the fry factor, putting your plants outside exposes them to insect infestations and dehydrating wind.
That being said, if (and this is a big if), you have a protected location that is consistently shady you might get away with putting your plants out for the summer. Place them where they are going to “vacation” and leave them out until the first cool nights of Fall - it is way too traumatic to move them back and forth between indoors and outdoors. Before you return your plants to their indoor locations wash them thoroughly with soapy water to banish any hitchhiking pests.
No comments:
Post a Comment