I've certainly gotten behind on the gardening updates again, but this year I did have some pretty fun first time successes in the garden. One was "the watermelon" (yes, I use "the" since only one survived due to the sporadic watering during an usually dry summer--an ongoing issue that I will attempt to ameliorate next year!) and also the Ronde de Nice French zucchinis that my friend Linda claimed were the best tasting zukes she's eaten. (We had resurrected a garden plot that hadn't been planted in for over a year so the soil was quite fertile, making for some happy squashes, cucumbers, and deer since it wasn't fenced in. However, given the abundance of production, we were ok with sharing a little this year.) Not pictured: the many traditional zucchinis that tried to take over the world, whose appearances were preceded by exclamations of "Oh, shoot! We missed another one!" and "Quick! Pick it before it grows any bigger!"
An a-ha! moment came when I realized that the gorgeous poppies growing in the cutting garden were where the poppyseeds that I loved in my muffins and pastries came from. These beauties did not do well as cut flowers but their pods--either still green or dried--were a favorite for bouquets, and the structure within was just amazing. I spent some time laboriously harvesting the poppyseed and now I've got a little jar stored to make some muffins or cake with sometime soon.
Also new this year was braiding, garlic that is. We planted two varieties this year as in years past, a soft neck version as well as a hard neck. Last year during harvest time, we just threw them willy nilly into some crates, dried them, and I gave away some of the nicest ones, leaving us with some pretty scrawny guys to plant for this year. Well, live and learn. This time around, we separated and set aside the biggest ones first for seed for the coming year, and then I practiced braiding all the soft neck garlic into these big fishtails, which was quite fun.
Some new flowers came up in the cutting garden this year as well. First was the echinacea that I had planted from seed the year before. Out of the half dozen or so that I planted, only two actually matured to full plants and only one made it to this year, putting out some gorgeous pink blooms that make me think I might want to try planting from seed again. I also planted some Bells of Ireland this year and though they came in sort of short, the colors and shape were still lovely and they should come back stronger and taller next year. I was also happy to see that the scabiosa, which came from pods that I foraged in California, were establishing itself. I'm pretty sure I weeded out a bunch of their starts in the spring when I was trying to get ahead of the weeds, not recognizing them as flowers that I wanted, but they are tough little guys and still several managed to survive.
Last year I had pretty good luck with larkspur and sweet peas but this year, perhaps due to the dry weather, almost none of them came up. However, the rudbeckia and coreopsis went gangbusters and the zinnias, sunflowers, and marigolds were also pretty happy as well as all the usual suspects from the Grandmother's Cutting Garden mix I planted three years ago--bachelor's buttons, love-in-a-mist, cosmos, Sweet William.
As late summer hit, it was finally tomato season. This year I had started my tomatoes from seed around mid-April, trying some varieties that I'd never planted before: Japanese slicing Mandarin Cross, Red Oxhart, Cherokee Purple, and Black. Of course neither my father nor I could resist getting at least a few more varieties each at the store. I also got several volunteers of Sungolds and Sweet Millions from the plants I had planted the year before. I'd say overall, the tomatoes fared okay but we didn't stake them well and I think the plot where I planted many of them was just tired and in need of a refresh in the soil. Nonetheless, we managed to harvest quite a few still throughout the summer and come fall, tons of green tomatoes which I eventually made into a pretty decent salsa.
Like anything else, gardening seems to be about adjusting and following principles rather than rules. On websites that give advice about growing tomatoes, it always seem to be about treating them very particularly but I find that most tomatoes seem pretty hearty. In fact, the Roma tomato seeds that I put into my worm bin seem to always start germinating as soon as they get sun. And even though I've finally trained my father to not start plunking tomatoes into the ground before the soil temperature starts getting above 50 degrees, most do survive without too much damage just as tomatoes planted somewhat later than usual also seem to do just fine in the end. We try things out, see what works or doesn't, adjust and hope that the weather cooperates, and enjoy the fruit of our labor.
In closing then, a poem about learning, from books, from experience, and the realization that so much remains a mystery that defies categorization.
Learning the Trees by Howard Nemerov
Before you can learn the trees, you have to learn
The language of the trees. That’s done indoors,
Out of a book, which now you think of it
Is one of the transformations of a tree.
The words themselves are a delight to learn,
You might be in a foreign land of terms
Like samara, capsule, drupe, legume and pome,
Where bark is papery, plated, warty or smooth.
But best of all are the words that shape the leaves—
Orbicular, cordate, cleft and reniform—
And their venation—palmate and parallel—
And tips—acute, truncate, auriculate.
Sufficiently provided, you may now
Go forth to the forests and the shady streets
To see how the chaos of experience
Answers to catalogue and category.
Confusedly. The leaves of a single tree
May differ among themselves more than they do
From other species, so you have to find,
All blandly says the book, “an average leaf.”
Example, the catalpa in the book
Sprays out its leaves in whorls of three
Around the stem; the one in front of you
But rarely does, or somewhat, or almost;
Maybe it’s not catalpa? Dreadful doubt.
It may be weeks before you see an elm
Fanlike in form, a spruce that pyramids,
A sweetgum spiring up in steeple shape.
Still, pedetemtim as Lucretius says,
Little by little, you do start to learn;
And learn as well, maybe, what language does
And how it does it, cutting across the world
Not always at the joints, competing with
Experience while cooperating with
Experience, and keeping an obstinate
Intransigence, uncanny, of its own.
Think finally about the secret will
Pretending obedience to Nature, but
Invidiously distinguishing everywhere,
Dividing up the world to conquer it,
And think also how funny knowledge is:
You may succeed in learning many trees
And calling off their names as you go by,
But their comprehensive silence stays the same.
