If It’s Too Hot, Get Out of the Kitchen (or Houston)

Lavender Close-Up

A few weeks ago, Henry and I headed for cooler climes, visiting Mt. Rainier, Seattle, and San Juan Island. Wherever we travel, we look for gardens to enjoy, and San Juan Island did not disappoint. Since my own garden looks rough due to the drought, please allow me to share the pleasure of my visit to the Pelindaba Lavender Farm, where the lavender is in full, magnificent bloom. I came home with culinary lavender, a variety of lavender-infused products, and even a cookbook.

As we hiked and kayaked around the island, I understood how much my body had craved time in the outdoors–and time to do nothing. One day we sat on the west side of the island, hoping to see some Orcas. We sat for a long time, then left for lunch, then returned. We didn’t see Orcas that day–that would come the following day, when we weren’t particularly looking for them–but as I sat outside gazing at the water, doing nothing else, I could feel myself relax and let go. My flagging spirit felt nourished once more.

Endless Lavender

As we returned home, I wondered about the flagging spirit of my poor garden. The blistering summer has trashed most my plants, leaving me feeling helpless. The herbs are holding up well for the most part, but the rest of the plants have died or are struggling. Even my salvia, which is heat and drought tolerant, has lost most of its leaves.

Thankfully, my friends at Urban Harvest have come to the rescue, sending an e-mail suggesting that we plant buckwheat in the fallow places in the garden. Buckwheat nourishes the soil, so while we wait until the fall planting season to try again, we can feel as though we’re doing something good for our gardens.

Now that I am rested and rejuvenated, I am ready to help the garden recover as well. Together, we will feed and water our spirits and soil, knowing that soon enough the fall will come and planting will begin again.

Hope Springs Eternal

They say that if you don’t like the weather in Houston, wait ten minutes, and it will change. Months of drought and heat, though, were proving that adage wrong. Although my herbs are thriving, my vegetables had, for the most part, stopped producing, and even my native plants were looking pretty sad. I have three rain barrels hooked up now, with one more waiting patiently for us to find a spot for it, so I’ve had enough water to soak the ground, but every afternoon I would peek outside and watch my plants wilting in the heat.

Lately, the patterns have shifted a bit. With several overcast days and a few decent rains, the garden seems to want to come alive. I have some nice green peppers growing, even though we’ve had many days above the 95 degree threshold that they prefer to stay under. Melons are ripening, and I even picked a few (tiny) tomatoes.

Along with the shift in the weather, I’ve had a shift in my mood. For a while it felt like all I as doing was cutting dead leaves and stems from plants, and I had lost my joy for visiting the garden. With just a little rain and some overcast skies, the plant want to respond and produce, and I have hope back again.

Isn’t life like that? No matter what happens, no matter what bothers or upsets us, one day we notice a new tomato. It may not make everything all right, but it reminds us that “this too, shall pass.”

The Biggest Pest In The Garden: Overreaching Government

There’s big buzz in the blogosphere about Julie Bass of Oak Park, Michigan, who faces possible jail time for the horrible crime of (gasp) growing vegetables in her front yard. Apparently this offends the sensibilities of some of her neighbors. For those who haven’t yet heard the details, here’s a link to the news story:

Julie Bass News Story

Now, we have a lot of disagreement going on in our government these days, and the two political parties are sharply divided. There’s a lot of name-calling and accusations from both sides that those we disagree with are somehow un-American.

Here in Texas, we gardeners and small farmers, regardless of political persuasion, love our land and value the right to use it as we see fit. I have personally thought about using lettuces and cabbages in the front yard as a way to create attractive landscaping as well as a food source. My back yard, where all the action is, is visible to the street. Neighbors have wandered in, and one confessed that he likes to look at it from the sidewalk because he thinks it’s pretty. If anyone is complaining, I haven’t heard.

Recently Dr. Andrew Weil, one of my heroes, posted a link on Facebook to this news story. One of the comments stood out, blaming liberals and lefties for such a travesty of justice. I found this disturbing. After all, we “liberals and lefties” tend to stand for environmental issues, for making sure that low-income families get plenty to eat, and for keeping the darn government out of our personal lives.  I explained, as patiently as I could, that this is an issue that many of us on opposite sides of the aisle can agree on, and Julie Bass’s oppression is not a progressive value.

Of course, I’ve also written in this blog about my love of clotheslines, and there are plenty of homeowners’ associations dictating “no clotheslines allowed,” even in a fenced backyard. Groups have formed a “right to dry” rallying cry, which seems crazy, since I remember growing up with clotheslines in unfenced yards. Everyone did it, and no one complained.

What has happened to us as a society? Seems to me that Michigan, in particular, has far bigger problems than what Julie Bass grows in her front yard. We have high unemployment, hunger, and obesity (made worse because people don’t have access to inexpensive veggies). The socially acceptable grass sucks up huge amounts of water. Here in Texas, we’re in the midst of an extreme drought, and I think we all need to think about intelligent use and conservation of water.

I can only hope that the local government gets embarrassed enough by this national attention to drop these silly charges. I raise my green thumb to the sky: Power to the People! Right On!

Solar Power Without Solar Panels

Houston’s summer has already been brutal, and I’m already getting cabin fever. A couple of recent rains have taken some stress of the garden, though, and I have my first gorgeous cantaloupe ripening as I write this. Green peppers, which need weather below 95 degrees to thrive, are finally starting to fruit. I’m even seeing some new tomatoes, giving me hope that I’m not done with them for the summer.

Still, production is way down. I have a lot of gorgeous plants with little harvest to show for my efforts. Always one to make lemons out of lemonade, though, I am using the sun to my advantage.

I pulled out the solar oven this week and am doing all my cooking there. It’s possible to make your own solar oven, though I bought mine from www.sunoven.com. They’re located in the Chicago area, and I’ve had the oven for more than a year now. Recently I acquired some dark ceramic pots and pans, which work better for conducting heat in the oven.

By cooking outdoors, I’m keeping the house cooler on the inside, saving energy and wear and tear on the air conditioning. The only challenge is if we lose sun during the day, and I have to check on it from time to time and relocate it if necessary to get a better angle from the sun. Otherwise, it works a lot like a crock pot, cooking food slowly at slightly lower temperatures than what I use in an oven. I’ve even baked banana bread in it, and it comes out really moist and delicious.

As long as I’m outside using the sun, I might as well do some wash, too, and hang sheets and towels out on the line. I use drying racks and an umbrella-rack style clothesline, both of which can be tucked out of the view of any neighbors who might get upset.

As an aside, when we went to see the movie Winter’s Bone last year, the movie opened with the camera panning on clotheslines to give us a sense of an impoverished area of the country. I hope that some of us can change that image so that clotheslines become hip and cool again. Ever smell the clothes that come off of the clothesline? The first time I did, and they smelled like sunshine, I was hooked.

So, while Houston bakes and the garden sputters along, at least I am making use of what we have. We decided some time ago that we couldn’t justify the cost of solar panels, but when we take the load off the air conditioning and the dryer usage, we can significantly reduce our energy costs. And why not? Nature has given us an abundance of sun. Let’s use it.

"Oops! Busted!"

Our buddy the squirrel has been at it again. The cherry tomatoes make a perfect snack for a thirsty guy, just the right size to fit between two little paws. I’m not going to run him off. There are plenty of tomatoes to go around, and besides, who can resist this face?

Meantime, while I wait for rain that may actually arrive this week (please, weather gods, don’t toy with me), I am sinking ever more deeply into the rhythms of nature. I have written before about how the garden has given me a greater connection to the month and to the seasons, but now I am finding my way through an Ayurvedic day, learning the best times of day to eat, rest, work, and exercise.

Though health conscious before I started to garden, having green, growing vegetables stare me in the face every day reminds me of the importance of taking care of myself. So, I recently embarked on Dr. John Douillard’s The Colorado Cleanse, based on Ayurvedic principles. Though I have practiced yoga, Ayurveda’s sister, for decades, I have only flirted with Ayurveda. In this cleanse, which lasts for two weeks, I have a daily routine of diet, exercise, yoga, meditation, breathwork, and massage to stimulate the lymph. I also take particular herbs that support the cleanse.

A week into the cleanse, I’m feeling pretty good. It took a few days to get my blood sugar to adjust (I had to add whey protein powder to my meals), but my energy level has already improved. More interesting for the purpose of this blog, though, is how my body is naturally shifting to the ideal Ayurvedic day. That is, I am rising naturally before sunrise and getting to bed before 10:00 p.m. I do my exercise in the morning, something I’ve never liked to do before, but it feels good now. I feel alert and refreshed in the morning, and I’m not having the mid-afternoon sinking spell. Just another way that the garden (with some help from Dr. Douillard) is changing my life!

 

 

Hats Off to the Farmers

Heat. Summer hasn’t yet begun, and yet already I feel the cabin fever that normally doesn’t hit until August. I keep checking the weather forecast in hopes of seeing rain chances, but so far nothing but sun and 100-degree temperatures. On our weekly outing to the Farmers’ Market, the pavement sent clouds of steam our way even while we walked on the grass. I give a big shout-out and sweaty hug to those vendors who stand out there for hours to share their food with us.

In the garden, all is still. Blank spots exist where cool-weather plants once flourished, and I am reluctant to replace them during this drought. Even the cucumbers are slowing down, and up until now they have overwhelmed us with prolific production.

I was out of town for a few days to tend to my writing garden, as the Writers’ League of Texas Agents and Editors Conference offered opportunities to pitch my novel-in-progress, Change of Plans. When I returned, I realized that some of my larger tomatoes had disappeared. I suspected, correctly, that some critters needed a drink that the tomatoes could provide. Sure enough, yesterday afternoon a squirrel sat on the window ledge to our sunroom, a ripe cherry tomato clutched in his paws, munching away. Earlier in the afternoon, he or one of his friends had rejected two green tomatoes and left them out on the patio in full view, as if to say, can’t you do better than this?

Now that I am home, I have work to do. I have a pile of tree limbs to go into the chipper. My plants need more mulch–if it’s this hot now, what’s coming? I will do what I can to keep everyone happy. I had fallen behind on my regular routine in order to spend some intense time revising the novel, and I hope I can get my plant babies back on track.

Even the native plants are struggling and need more water than usual. Drought tolerant does not mean drought resistant, and no one is happy right now except for a crop of weeds that mock me.

I think of all of those who make their living from the land, and of my ancestors on my father’s side, mostly farmers, who worked hard but could not control Nature’s whims. I have always held farmers in high esteem, but now, I am in awe at their perseverance and resilience. As I toil with my little backyard garden, where everything is thirsty and dry no matter what I do, I honor their efforts.

On Hiatus

Art of the Garden is on hiatus for two weeks while I prepare my novel for an upcoming agent/editor conference. I’ll be back soon with more tales of wonder from the backyard!

Hot on the Trail: a Mystery Plant

The date: Friday, May 20, 2011. The place: my front yard. The problem: an unidentified plant in the flower bed.

“What is that?” asked a friend of mine, pointing at a green plant about two feet tall.

“Darned if I know,” I said.

“I think it might be a volunteer.”

Oops.

Cue the Law and Order SVU sound effects, and perhaps a siren in the distance. We may have an invader!

Here’s the problem. I planted a bunch of seeds last fall in a nice, orderly fashion, but nothing has come up exactly where I planted it. Wind and rain moved things around. In addition, before I started gardening a year and a half ago, I was lucky to be able to identify a rose. I just never learned the names of plants. Now, strange things are coming up in the front beds, and I don’t know what they are.

In my attempt to be a good detective, I’ve let several strangers grow and even bloom, making it easier for me to identify them. Over the weekend, after my friend asked his innocent question, I grabbed one of a gardener’s best tools for the job: Native Texas Plants: Landscaping Region by Region by Sally and Andy Wasowski. Thanks to their photos and plant descriptions, I now know that I have Brown-Eyed Susans and Indian Blanket flourishing in the front yard.

My mystery plant, however, is nowhere to be found in the Wasowski book.

Adding to the mystery, the beds contain plants that the seller of the house grew, but which a crew of landscapers had pulled out. I thought I was starting from scratch, but some of these little fellas are stubborn. Since I admire persistence, I am unwilling to pull a plant just because I may not have put it there. I figure that if something can survive my lack of skill and experience, it has earned a place in my garden.

This morning I decided to be brave and taken inventory of the front beds. Not only do I have three or four mystery plants to identify, but I have a vine-y plant crawling around that looks suspiciously like cucumber. I have NO idea how that got there! It looks sort of pretty, though, so I’ll leave it there, but not eat any fruit (too close to the house and possible chemical contamination).

Sometimes I wish I had a greater sense for pristine, orderly gardening, but how else would I get to put on my detective’s hat? Where would the fun be in having everything grow the way it was supposed to? Excuse me, I have to go crack the case. Never mind that my friend has suggested the plant’s name–that’s not dramatic enough for me. Cue the music. Detective hot on the trail of a suspect.

Taking In The Beauty

The salvia is in full bloom with dramatic, deep purple blooms. These are offset by the coneflower blossoms, a vivid pink, and the orange-yellow milkweed that is now producing seed. I don’t recall last year’s milkweed doing that, but perhaps the Monarch caterpillars did their munching. It was about this time last year that I ran to the nursery with a “milkweed emergency,” because they’d eaten every darn leaf. This year I am better prepared, having added several new plants throughout the backyard.

More Milkweed for Next Year!

There is less for me to do right now. I still find it difficult to adjust to the ebb and flow of work in the garden. There’s always something to do, don’t get me wrong. The wildflowers in the front yard are beautiful but uneven–one bed is filled with plants, while the matching bed on the other side struggles. Herbs are begging to be replanted, and I’m pulling up crops that are complete. Plus, given the dry spring we’ve had, everyone is thirsty these days.  I ponder future projects while the vegetables truck along on their own with little help from me. Mostly I wander the garden or look out my window and marvel at all the pretty blooms and the bees that zip happily around them. It is a time to take in the beauty.

In my previous life in the corporate world, I was used to a different kind of structure. Each day offered a certain sameness. I checked e-mails, responded to meeting requests, and worked on contracts. I kept reports on a weekly, monthly, and quarterly basis. I started each day at the same time and ended it at the same time, day in, day out, for years.

Coneflower and Salvia

The garden has required that I change my way of thinking, and sometimes I resist those changes more than others. Earlier in the spring, when I was installing new beds, planting, fertilizing, and mulching, I felt so busy I couldn’t breathe. When that work ended, I didn’t know what to do with myself. I would get up in the morning feeling like I had forgotten something.

The Bible says there is a time for every purpose under heaven. We are allowed to rest. We are allowed to ebb and flow with the seasons. I do fine when there’s work to do, less fine when it comes time for me to slow down and relax. I spend more time harvesting food these days than tending to the soil. That will change, and soon, but this act of receiving, of enjoying the literal fruits of my labors, still feels odd. It is time to take in the beauty. Can I take in a little more than I could yesterday? Can I stop and see, really see, all of God’s whimsy and creative flourish?

Brown-Eyed Susans in the front yard.

Drought and Flood

As I write this, the Mississippi River rages, swollen from heavy rains, its deluge headed south to New Orleans after cresting in Memphis. Tough decisions have been made along the way, as levees near Cairo, Illinois, were blown to protect the town, while flooding farmland and rendering it unusable for months.

Meanwhile, here in Texas, we can’t get a drop of rain. The lawn is parched, and while most of my native plants are growing happily–they are made for drought tolerance–even a few of them are starting to complain. Recent mulch helps them hold in moisture, but sooner or later, for God’s sakes, it has to rain. Farmers who normally let their cattle graze have to give them feed, because there’s nothing to graze on.

In the vegetable garden, my drip irrigation system keeps everything going, though without the rainwater that the plants love so much. If you looked in my back yard, with its beds heavy with produce, with plants entwining themselves to one another, you wouldn’t know that Houston is experiencing severe drought.

Since starting the garden less than a year and a half ago, we’ve had a number of weather adventures, including serious and harsh freezes in the winter, as well as the current dry spell. While I remind myself that “this too shall pass,” I’m also reminded of the great sage Rosanne Rosanna-Danna, who said, “it’s always something.” Summer arrived a few days ago, replacing pleasant, spring temperatures with that oppressive, step-into-the-oven feel.

I have farming in my DNA, which I suspect draws me, in part, to working with the land. By the time I was a small child my grandparents had left the farm, and I grew up in various small towns in the Midwest. Still, I grew up watching the corn grow and caring about whether there would be a good crop.

I remember in 1980, when I lived facing a cornfield, and watched a storm wreak havoc, blowing stalks over and damaging what could have been a great harvest. The lesson stayed with me: you can work hard and do everything right, but some things are out of your control, and just when you think you’ve got it made, life will shock you out of your smugness. We are smaller and more vulnerable than we want to admit.

In my modest little garden, the vegetables I grow do not determine my income for the year. Some plants grow well, while others do not, but no one will go hungry if the whole darn thing fails. While my water bill is higher than I would like, I at least have the ability to keep the plants from drying out. I do not presume to know or fully appreciate the current farmers’ dilemmas, but whenever I am outside working in the garden, I think of them and hope that soon, this too will pass.