I REVISIT THE "VICTORY GARDEN" CONCEPT

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.

BELTANE VACATION/GOING TO POT

Week Four, April 2008




A PLANT LADY'S LIFE IN GEEKATOPIA

Happy Beltane! Hurray, I am on vacation this week! At least that’s what I was saying when I woke up on Monday morning - midway through the week things took a few unexpected turns however. More on that later.

Yes, plantladys do periodically take time off from their plant care routes - and what do they do with their hard-won days off? Bask on a beach in Maui? Fly off to Patagonia? Catch some fly fishing in British Columbia? Sleep around the clock? I can’t speak for all plant care professionals but when I manage to break away from paid plants I head for my poor neglected back garden to catch up on seasonal tasks.

Spring is dragging its feet this year. The lilacs are in tight bud whereas usually by May 1 the blossoms are nearly spent. Only the quack grass is thriving. Three weeks ago I planted sun flowers and corn - they are not up yet and I imagine the seeds rotted before germination when we were treated to a freak snow storm on April 19 (Yes, on Byron’s Death Day - how typical of Byron to be theatrical.).

The garden vacation started smoothly. I gathered together implements of the craft - rakes, weeder, hoe and shovel, pruners and lopers, twine, mallet for driving stakes, and my favorite Japanese bamboo saw. The battle was on! I trundled the bulky yard waste bin down the side of the house to the back garden and began grubbing out unwanted plant life.

Ten minutes later I was running for the house chased by a torrential downpour. Thunder rumbled in the budding trees and the very earth trembled. Here we go again, said I to myself. Where is all that “global warming” stuff when you can really use it?

The rain passed as quickly as it came and soon I was slogging around in the mud, happy as a pig in . . . well, slop actually. By dusk I had filled the yard waste bin and three huge paper yard waste bags with discarded perennials, prunings and weeds. It was a very good day but I was only half way down my “To Do” list. Tuesday and wednesday were a continuation of Monday except that the daily showers graciously held off until I collapsed each evening, allowing me to cruise through the projects relatively mud-free.

I should have known it couldn’t last - things sort of went sideways on thursday when I had to stop everything and help a loved one move out of his apartment (“Bad breakup” - haven’t we all been there? Absolutely.).

Then friday morning my boss pulled me in off vacation because my wonderful new partner, Molly (who had been doing a super job covering our route all by herself during my absence) was bitten by a giant dog (See my blog on route dogs - the culprit was Oz, the dog I didn’t think would bite. Wrong!). Our poor dear Molly! I just hope she doesn’t decide that plant care is too dangerous a job - wouldn’t blame her if she gave up the plantlady gig for something less hazardous, such as smoke jumping or underwater demolition. So much for the vacation!

OFFICE PLANT CARE TIP: The Repot

People always ask me about repotting their plants. Let me say that usually it is not necessary to repot a new plant. Most plants can live happily in the same old pot for years. But if your plant is sending roots out the bottom drain holes then it might be time to resoil it. Today I am repotting my 100 year old xmas cactus (see January Christmas Cactus blog post) which has been in the same pot for the last dozen years. Here’s the scoop (of soil):

1. Loosen the plant by running a knife around the sides of the pot - turn the pot on its side and gently slide the plant out.

2. If the plant is going back into its old pot, cut some of the roots off the bottom and sides of the root ball to allow for fresh soil. If you are going to use a bigger pot, score or loosen the roots so that they will grow outward into the new soil.

3. Do not go larger than one size up from the pot the plant has been growing in - pots are measured across the top, sizes going up in 2 inch increments (usually) - in other words, if your plant is in a 6 inch pot you don’t want to go any larger than an 8 inch pot. If the pot is too big the new soil will stay wet leaving your plant open to an untimely death by root rot.

4. Next, if you are using a terra-cotta pot as I am for the xmas cactus, place a pot shard over the drain hole to keep the soil from washing out the bottom - but make it a curved shard so water can drain (Under NO circumstances use a pot that hasn’t any drain holes! If you want to use a sealed decorative container ((We in the business call them “decos”)), pot up your plant in a plastic pot smaller than the deco and set it down into the deco. You may cover the rim with moss to hide the plastic pot rim. That way if you over-water you can pull the pot out of the deco and remove excess water - your plant will not have to sit in a stinky rotty swamp.)

5. Now put a layer of fresh potting soil in the bottom of the pot (an inch or so depending on the size of the pot). Set the plant on the fresh soil. The top of the root ball should be slightly below the rim of the pot (Otherwise when you water you’ll make a muddy mess all over the mahogany credenza and your fluffy white carpet). The root ball should be at the same level it was in the old pot - don’t bury the poor thing in mounds of smothering soil.


6. Next, pack fresh soil down the sides of the pot, tamping the soil firmly to eliminate air pockets (you may want to use a chop stick or the end of a wooden spoon). Almost finished! Lastly, water thoroughly until water comes out the bottom drain holes - repeat just to ensure the entire root ball is moistened. Let the pot drain. You’re done!!

Oh, one other thing: don’t fertilize you newly repotted plant for the first few months. It will be pretty stressed out as it settles into its new digs - stressed out plants only get more stressed when fed before they have nice new roots.

National Poetry Month/Spring Cleaning

Third Week, April 2008







A PLANT LADY’S LIFE IN GEEKATOPIA

Poem:
FIRST STOP

The congregation
assembles at the brown door
queuing for coffee -

double tall half-caff,
no foam, vanilla no room
Americano.

Beyond the window
cranes swing into position -
birth a new building.

Bare branches cradle
last year’s empty nests
filled with plum petals.

Off to work I rush -
Too quickly the cup is drained,
a calm moment lost.

Okay gang, no more Lord Byron for a while. Was that a sigh of relief? He is, I realize, an acquired taste - like pickled herring or artichokes. Actually, I am also a big fan of pickled herring and artichokes, though not on the same plate, nor at every meal.

That being said, I am still blithering on about poetry because April is National Poetry Month and I mark it by writing a few poems, reading a few poems - though sometimes I doubt that there is any real point to poetry anymore. Does it serve much of a purpose in the day to day mechanics of Twenty-first Century life? Nope. We poor bewildered poets are curios of a bygone age, the literary equivalent of button hooks and buggy whips.

I think that for most people poetry is a confusing anachronism - not worth the effort it takes to ferret out meaning or value. We poets have gone from being Percy B. Shelley’s “unacknowledged legislators of the world” to just plain unacknowledged (except for during Poetry Month of course). I’ll bet there are more people who crochet pot holders than write or read poetry. I could be wrong. I hope I’m wrong. Not that there’s anything wrong with pot holders! The world needs pot holders too.

Who knows what wacky weed Shelley was smoking when he envisioned poets as legislators of the world - though poets couldn’t possibly do worse than career politicians. Can’t you just picture the President in the coat closet penning a poem (as opposed to pinning a page). Still, Shelley had a point, given that poetry was the Hip-Hop of his era. As we all have seen, popular media has enormous power to swing opinion and morph policy. Just look at the influence of The Daily Show and the Colbert Report on this year’s presidential campaign! Especially in the under 30 demographic (Come to think of it, Shelley was under 30. Hmm).

OFFICE PLANT CARE TIP:

Spring cleaning time! Last week I talked about the importance of keeping your plants clean but neglected to mention “doing the dishes” - cleaning the pots and saucers. Mold, mildew, insects, and just plain filth hide in all the little ceramic crevices. What does is profit you to have a clean palm plant if there are voracious mealy bugs hiding in the saucer waiting to spring when your back is turned? But for pete’s sake don’t clean just once a year when the gunk is so thick you can write your name in it - a routine once-over with one of those disinfectant wipes is really all your pots need to stay bug/crud free and sparkling bright.

Lord Byron's Death Day

Saturday is the 184th anniversary of the death of Lord Byron. At the age of 36 he was way too young to die - from my elderly perspective, just a child - but any age is too young, isn’t it? Each year I think of him and what he might have contributed to the world had he just managed to live a few years longer. He might have finished his mammoth poem “Don Juan” - he might have led the Greek resistance against Turkish occupation. He might have traveled to America or helped liberate the Irish from the English. He had so many aspirations unfulfilled. Ah well . . .

On this occasion I thought I would post an excerpt from my own mammoth parody of “Don Juan” inspired by the International Byron Society 200th Birthday Tour of England and Scotland (111 pages. Yikes!):


"You will have heard of our journeys
and escapes, and so forth, perhaps
with some exaggeration; but it is all
very well now."
Lord Byron
(Missolonghi, 23 February 1824
Two months prior to death)


THE GHOST OF LORD BYRON PONDERS A TOAST OFFERED ON THE ANNIVERSARY OF HIS BIRTH

The candles snuffed, a still-life left
of rumpled serviettes and lipsticked goblets,
smeary serving plates and cutlery in disarray
waiting for a waiter's tray. Low voices
dwindled out the door - yet I lingered more.

Implications flooded from the words
the woman said - "To the next two hundred".
Spoken, irretrievable, unsettling -
was there to be no end then
to my restless wandering?
No denouement, no illumination -
down the eons chained a victim
of my early fame, my mortal life
the grist of sick imaginations -
accused behind my back of incest,
seen by some a satanist,
male chauvinist, egoist, sensualist?
A ridiculous collection of damnations
and irrefutable in my deceased
condition, my impossible situation.

Yet with that flash of revelation
I vowed to leave my prior, breathing life,
behind and concentrate on this ... whatever
it may be. Perhaps it is not worth my time,
thought I, to pine for what is gone.
And I have centuries ahead of me,
people to observe, places to Be.

I lingered days that week in Nottingham.
And I've been back since then --
once to watch the Byron Society plant a tree
upon the Abbey lawn (replacing an oak
I planted in the nineteenth century -
a dead stump now buried under ivy).
For I've learned that for a Pilgrim of Eternity
the goal and purpose of this life -
or any other form of sentience - is the journey.
And from all that I have seen and all I've been
I know I am nowhere near the end.

The End

The Cruelest Month/Creepy Critters

Week Two, April 2008

A PLANT LADY'S LIFE IN GEEKATOPIA





Poem: This week’s poem is by Dale Randall, member of the Burien Senior Center Writers’ Workshop and former plant care technician.

DON’T GIVE YOUR HEART TO A FICUS TREE
by Dale Randall
Don’t give your heart to a ficus tree,
Benjamina, more properly.
With all her charms she’ll lure you in
But then you’re subject to all her whims.
For awhile everything goes well
Then suddenly it all goes to hell!
“You moved me from my favorite spot!
And you seem to water me quite a lot!
And I saw that look of patronization!”
Then she drops her leaves in retaliation.
But leave her alone for a week or two
And she’ll be back to start anew.
Until the next imagined slight
And you struggle again to set things right.
A charming houseplant she may be -
But don’t give your heart to a ficus tree.


It's been a week of comings and goings, trouble and strife. Two employees left suddenly while two signed on. A ceiling tile unceremoniously crashed onto a bamboo palm at Estorian, crushing it flatter than a corn tortilla. One of our cats - the dauntless four pound runt, Shimmer - tackled a monster tom cat twice his size in the garden, coming out of the confrontation looking like he’d gone through a food processor. (It took us hours to clean up spatter patterns off the kitchen floor, the dining room floor, the living room floor, the hall floor - Shimmer may be small but he runs like a cheetah!)

I don’t generally do well in April - “the cruelest month” T. S. Eliot termed it and for good reason. In spite of the beauty burgeoning all around, a damp chill cuts to the bone - people (and cats) get grumpy with impatience and boredom. This month in 1824 Lord Byron died in Greece where he had gone to help liberate that country from Turkish occupation - I can imagine him saying to himself in that last moment on earth “Wait, wait, there must be a mistake! A fellow cannot die just as the sun is finally, at long last breaking through the storm clouds! A fellow cannot die just as he has begun his great work!” Well, obviously he can.

It was Easter Sunday (Eastern Orthodox), when the earth was about to break into glorious life. But Byron was wrong about the sun - minutes after he breathed his last a horrific thunder storm blew in from the sea, plunging Western Greece into darkness as sleet pelted the bleached white village. Some said it was a sign, an omen that Greece would never be free. Be that as it may, it certainly turned out to be a pretty a crappy day for Byron!

I am SO ready for a sunny weekend puttering around in the garden, filling yard waste bags, building trellises for beans and peas, planting lettuce, marigolds, broccoli - should have been out there weeks ago had the weather cooperated. Thus the gloom and frustration. But this weekend the forecast is for 70 degrees! If I disappear for a few days you will know where to find me.

OFFICE PLANTS: Mealie Bugs, Spider Mites, Aphids - Oh My!

In early Spring a lot of pests emerge looking for a meal (No, I don’t mean your creepy cousin.) Insects that are perfectly welcome in the garden (basically as food for other life forms) make pests of themselves when they show up on your office plants. If you ignore the bugs, your plants very quickly become an entree menu. So, what can you do about plant-eating insects?

It all depends. I realize that sounds like a cop-out but before you panic and grab a can of toxic chemicals you need to know what kind of bugs you are dealing with. Take a good look at the critters - use a magnifying glass and compare what you see to pictures in a garden book or research houseplant pests online. Once you know what is crawling around on your plant you can formulate an effective battle plan.

Wait! I’m starting at the wrong end of the issue. Far better than struggling against a marauding army of six-legged eating machines, try to avoid the problem in the first place. Clean, healthy plants are not be as vulnerable to pests - insects being as opportunistic as bacteria and viruses - so be sure you regularly feed and dust your plants. Yes, dust them - with a nice fluffy, clean, lamb’s wool duster (Don’t use feather dusters. They just scatter the dust around and are not easily washed.) A thin layer of dust dramatically diminishes the light getting to your plant, thus weakening it. Dust also harbors insect eggs and fungus spores - as well as making your plant look dull and dirty. A clean plant is a healthy, pretty plant.

Another handy plantkeeping tool is a spray bottle filled with soapy water - give your plant a “bubble bath” frequently. Use a gentle soap like Dr. Bronner’s Pure Castile Soap - I don’t like to use anything on a plant I wouldn’t use on my own skin since leaf tissues are delicate ecosystems. Soap not only cleans the crud off the leaves but it has the added value of killing spider mites. Unfortunately to dispatch other, tougher insects you will have to employ an insecticide - the good news is there are a number of safe, nontoxic insecticides on the market these days. Investigate horticultural oil - works great against lots of different kinds of pests (creepy cousins excepted).

The Caucus Race

A PLANT LADY’S LIFE IN GEEKATOPIA


First Week in April 2008 Part 2



Yes, this week you get two blog posts for the price of one!
Poem:
A few weeks ago my mother found this little ditty typed on a scrap of fragile, yellowed paper in a box of family memorabilia. Her best guess is that my grandmother copied it from a newspaper some time during the 1930s. Unfortunately she didn’t credit the poet but he was no doubt in the Civilian Conservation Corp. I thought you might appreciate this poem - might even identify with it as we all hunker down to weather the recession.

A PSALM FROM THE SPRUCES
Roosevelt’s my shepherd, I shall not want,
He maketh me to lie down on a straw mattress,
He leadeth me inside a mess hall,
He restoreth my job.
He leadeth me in the paths
Of Reforestation for his country’s sake.

Yea, tho I walk thru the valley of the shadows
Of poison oak and ivy,
I will fear no evil, for he is with me.
He preparest a saw and ax before me
In the presence of my commanding officer.
He anointest my mind with discipline.

My shoes runneth over from marching.
Surely Beans and Employment will follow me
All the days of Roosevelt’s administration
And I shall dwell in a tent forever.

Folks just naturally want to fix things, make things better, so they gather together in like-minded groups and cheer their aspirations forward. Saturday I did my share of cheering at the 11th District Democratic Caucus. I was there as a Clinton delegate from my neighborhood precinct - though truth be told I don’t actually care one way or another which of the Democratic candidates finally prevails - they are both excellent leaders. The 11th went for Obama by maybe as much as 2 to 1 and I’m okay with that. Like the rest of those gathered in the Machinists Union Hall auditorium I was swept into the excitement of it all. Few things are more thrilling than banding together with neighbors to make history, to try to repair what’s gone wrong with our country. The hall was alive with enthusiasm and hope - almost 2000 people cheering, waving signs.

Yet, I remembered another caucus, this one back in ‘72, when I wore a blue tin button showing the name McGovern below a small white dove. Shirley Chisholm, a brilliant African American woman, was also running for President (McGovern button not withstanding, I voted for Shirley that year.). We Democrats were determined to change the world. We would never permit another Watergate, another Nixon. We would succeed where previous administrations had failed us - we would get out of that misbegotten war in Vietnam - there would be peace at last and never again would this country be stupid enough to squander precious lives and resources on a purposeless conflict. Never again would we allow crooks, con men and terrorists to occupy the White House. We were full of idealism that year. We envisioned a brave new, civilized, compassionate world.

We lost miserably! Lost more than just that election, enduring another few years of Nixon and war. And here we are again. I hope that history does not repeat itself at this juncture, hope that we as a people are now ready to move ahead into sanity and peace, hope that we will settle for nothing less. And I hope that I have not become too cynical from past disappointments that I can’t once more be caught up in the excitement of a brave and noble enterprise. Hope pretty much says it all.

Identity Crisis/Clinging Vines

A PLANT LADY'S LIFE IN GEEKATOPIA

First Week of April, 2008

Poem:
FISH MARKET
Deep under plank floors
streams empty into the bay,
drain the depths of Pike
where vendors tally naught,
naught - iced Silver, King, Coho -
catches rare and slick with sorrow.
Black as guts, the gulls veer out to sea,
their cries a litany of want.
Wind eddies through cold walls
of First, scours old stone
alleyways - spit, paper, rotting
empty hours, empty bottles
bobbing down the worn brick
gutters with the ghosts of winos.
From this fouled source
there will be, can be no bright pearl
breaking open, its shining life
swimming free.




Ooo, that’s rather a downer of a poem this week! Must be all the stress now that the company I work for is “rebranding” itself - it has a new name, new logo, stationary, vehicle decals, business cards, uniforms. I put on my new company polo shirt monday morning - a shocking chartreuse and frankly not a color I would ever intentionally wear. “Rebranded” - what a term! I wondered aloud if I would be required to get a tattoo.

Rebranding is the latest trend in marketing businesses - sprucing them up to compete in the 21st century market place, as it were. I see it all over Geekatopia. It used to be that a business’s name changed only when it was bought out by another company - Fred’s Grommet Boutique becomes Big Al’s Grommet Boutique. Gone are the days when things were that simple. Now there are rebranding specialists cranking out made-up names that sound like Japanese car models or something to which you to apply a fungicide. But hey, what do I know?? So, get in and test drive the 2008 Ambius today!

Can you tell that I’m having a slight identity crisis? Who am I now?? Wait, I’ll check the lettering on my acid green polo shirt! Of course I know I will adapt to the new company identity - in time - probably. Speaking as a person who has changed her own name a couple of times, I am well aware of the convoluted mechanics of redefining oneself - you never know how many things are tagged with your name until you change it! (I still get junk mail showing a middle name I abandoned forty years ago.) So I know there will be times when my memory hiccups, leaving me at a loss as to who I work for. Please be patient with me, folks - I’ll fall back into step soon.

We got a dandy staff party out of all this rebranding, though. Check out photo of gathered plant people stuffing their faces with pretzel buns and veggie quiche. (Try to say that without making a big mess.) And drop by our brand new Ambius web site - actually pretty nifty and informative.

OFFICE PLANTS: Clinging Vines
All kinds of ivy plants and trailing philodendron vines adorn our offices, their bright green heart shaped leaves lending perky grace to file cabinets and credenzas. A few things to know about the vines in your life:
1. They are vigorous growers, requiring fertilizer almost every time you water them - year ‘round if they are in good light. Underfeed these guys and they get spindly and pale.
2. Also, do not let them trail too long! This is a common mistake. It is kind of fun to see how long your pothos (Scindapsus) can grow but as these plants elongate they thin out older leaves, leaving the center of the plant bare with ugly “jump rope” stems hanging out of the pot. To keep them full and lush cut back the vines when they are a few feet long. (And do not let them creep over your furniture or climb the wall - the vines exude an acid that helps them climb but eats into varnish and paint.)