Tag: garden

Vacation’s Over

I like my job at the bookstore. People envy my position and it is enviable. But 13 days of vacation have been heaven and I wish I could continue to live like this. Time away in the Catskills doing whatever the hell I wanted (writing for 8 hours a day) was of course, delicious, but so were my days at home. Usually I started with some time with the garden, watering, pulling weeds, picking lettuce and the odd red cherry tomato. Many cups of tea were made between writing or reading on the front porch.  Chores were a pleasure – lots of time to hang the laundry (yes, I do that). Everything – leisurely.  

Being home when Molly comes home from camp, being there to feed and water her, even to drive her where she wanted to go, was sweet. Even she said so. And Tetley of course, loves having me around 24/7 — and what handsome company for me, don’t you think?  Other than going to the store to buy provisions, I barely ventured away from this almost quarter-acre corner.  Happy to putter, read, write, cook, garden, write and read some more between the front porch, the back deck, the table by the window, the couch and these past sweltering days, the air conditioned bedroom. Maybe a pause to wash the kitchen floor or at least some dishes.  The other day we kayaked, going just as far as a sandbar about half a mile from shore. We jumped out of the boat and floated in the gentle waves of the incoming tide, listening to the sea grass, as a tern swept back and forth and back again, finally dive-bombing the water with a little splash.

Farewell vacation.

The Patient

Perhaps it was the thunderstorm earlier this week that delivered the scorching temperature, now wilting us on the East Coast. Lightning strikes hit so close, a friend ended up in the hospital – and what are the odds? (he’s fine now) The morning after, inspecting the raised bed vegetable garden, I found my glorious heirloom tomato plant almost snapped in two. But wait —  I said, almost. 

I ran inside and rifled through drawers, boxes and bins for tape.  Carefully, I lifted the leafy stalks, heavy with little tomatoes and flowers. Holding the pieces together with one hand, I wrapped the black tape electrical tape around both stalk and stake with the other. Then I watered it.  24 hours later, there was still no wilt and the little yellow flowers were still intact.

I mean, what do they graft plants with? It’s got to be some kind of tape, right? But I wasn’t crazy about the electrical tape and presumed my favorite herb and garden center would have tape. Plant band-aids?   I told my tale to the two women at Gilberties, and they nodded sympathetically, obviously expecting I’d lost the tomato plant. But no! I exclaimed, it seems to be doing just fine.

They did not have any special tape but one of them suggested getting surgical tape – the kind that breathes. So I did – and with chopsticks, built a split. See? I fed it and have been watering it extra. Okay, I talk to it too. Whatever, it all seems to have worked.

This is my favorite plant now — and of course, rich in metaphors for me. It may yet die, but if it makes it, these tomatoes will be the most delicious of all.

Another Day – Catskills Retreat

I know there is a full moon tonight but I search the horizon from my bedroom window to no avail.  There are more trees than sky around here. Full moon, full day of writing. This evening, I took a break to make dinner.  A pleasure to concoct surrounded by these friends, I improvised a meal of whole wheat pasta with a medley of vegetables — onions, an abundance of smashed garlic, mushrooms, grated carrot, zucchini, summer squash with olive oil, topped with a poached egg, fresh basil and parmesan. It is not as gorgeous to look at as to taste, but here it is.Smooshed up, the poached egg blends together scrumptiously with the vegetables and pasta.

I wrote outside under an apple tree this morning. A few feet away but out of sight, Laura had set up her pastels in the flower garden of hollyhocks and bee balm. On the porch, Diane was also drawing. Later, someone played the piano.

There is a dreamlike quality to these days — immersed in our art, our dreams, our books, the river. We ask each other what day it is and exclaim at how quickly time is passing. We speak with longing and love about our loved ones at home but are absorbed in these precious moments to just – be. We read each other well, knowing when to engage or leave each other alone. We recognize in each other, the thrall of inspiration.

By evening, we are ready to connect, so gather around the kitchen. Someone slices, simmers and serves delicious dinner. Somehow, easily – the dinners get made, the dishes washed, the lights go out, the day ends. We disappear to our rooms for sleep to the constant river sounds, anticipating another day to do — whatever we want.

Gardenias At Last!

 

I wish I could share the scent of these waxy, fine blossoms — heavenly! This little Gardenia plant has lived with me for about five years and this is the first time it has blossomed.  My chair pulled up beside the pot, I lean down every few minutes to inhale the perfume from now, multiple blossoms. See —

My favorite flowers are fragrant. I force Hyacinth and Paper Whites when the snow still covers the ground — breathing their heady scent as I come in from the cold reassures me that spring is not so far away. Lilacs evoke something old-fashioned and dreamy from childhood weekends spent in the country. Gardenias — they transport me to the south of Italy. There was a bush heavy with blooms in a planter on the veranda where I read and napped, waiting for Molly’s imminent birth. Exotic and rich, to me these exquisite blooms smell like love.

No Place Like Home

Here I am, getting all women’s magazine-y, between yesterday’s travelogue and today, I cannot resist posting these photos of our corner of summer bliss. But how better to illustrate why I am happy enough to be an armchair traveler these days. After a few hours of kayaking around the beautiful Norwalk Islands – only minutes from this magical spot under our grape arbor.  

For dinner I grated summer squash and a let it simmer in the skillet in a bath of olive oil and a massive clove of garlic.  This I mixed with the garlic scape pesto I’d made earlier in the week and a few cherry tomatoes thrown in for color to coat the pasta.  Between bites, we wondered what to do with all these grapes.  Any ideas? 

Making Peace

Yesterday ventured into the garden recently ransacked by the groundhog.  For hours, I tore at the plant-to-plant weeds filling the space between surviving tomatoes, peppers and a little bit of basil. I tore at the earth with claw rakes and knelt to yank out the crabgrass, shaking off damp soil that clung to the roots before tossing them in a pile.  I had been ready to abandon this space but yesterday, my nails filled with dirt, rediscovering little peppers ready to pick and some vining plant that escaped Chuck’s teeth, (cucumber? melon? pumpkin?) I am back in the fray.

For one, there is a way I am – a state of being I get into when I garden that these days is the closest I come to meditating. The focus, concentration, complete engagement I feel, is a beautiful thing. It would be nice if there was lettuce left, but there will be tomatoes and some really hot peppers and the bonus of a certain peace of mind and sometimes inspiration to boot.  Harvest is not just about the vegetables.

 

Facing the Enemy

 

It’s 9:30 on Sunday morning — already too late to beat the grocery store mobs. Instead, I step out into the garden to see what’s ready to harvest. There is already enough lettuce in the garden for my salads.

Gorgeous snow pea pods seem to have emerged overnight and I better get the rest of the leeks before they blossom. There is a rustle behind, I turn and see, my garden nemesis:

the groundhog.

We are merely feet away from each other. I am sure it is the same old guy who has been helping himself to what I plant, for years. I take a step towards him and he bares his big old teeth. I retreat out of the garden, closing the gate behind me. But fatso can’t get out. Tetley is inside and I think about running to the house to release him — but they are the same size and I would worry about woodchuck geezer hurting my little Cairn. And I imagine their battle would destroy the garden anyway.

Chuck tries a few lame leaps up the wall but can’t make it. Next he burrows into the opposite corner to try and exit through the fence into the peonies. I step back into the garden, my heart pounding, to try and get a better photo and he steps in my direction as if to charge. I retreat. I think about running into the house to get Rob but know he will escape while I am gone — besides, I am not sure of what I want to do with this guy. I have wanted him gone for years — now is my chance.  He is too smart for have-a-heart trap.  The sledgehammer we used to pound in tomato stakes is behind me. I could never do it — but maybe Rob could. But no – I don’t want the carnage. The picture of violence would always be here in this little corner. Instead, I watch him – we eye each other – my look saying, ‘I know it’s you, buddy, so don’t come around here anymore’. (Ha. see below)

He makes another leap for the wall and this time, manages to drag himself through the tangle of raspberries canes.  I open the gate and step inside to assess the damage — cilantro plant knocked over and a few beheaded sunflowers. How many years I have cursed this guy for decimating flowers, just-planted or just-ripe vegetables? And yet face-to-furry-face and I didn’t feel like bashing him. It’s just plants, after all — if he was eating my kid, (or my dog) I’d kill him. I know I could and would. In my mind, this is the same creature that has scampered away just in time for years. And today, older, slower, fatter, and trapped, how could I not feel sorry for him?

P.S. A few hours later, I return to do some weeding and he races past me again — and now the lettuce so nicely captured in the photos above, is gone, as is the marigold and more sunflowers have been stripped to stalks and I feel a fool — but mostly for not shutting the garden gate.

Garden Update

Yesterday, we filled and planted two raised beds — heirloom tomatoes and peppers, dill, parsley, marigold plants and chard, spinach, lettuce and arugula seeds and cucumber seeds tucked into a corner.  The main garden is already planted and even tasted: leeks, spring onions and lettuce. And in another week, our first share of CSA farm vegetables will arrive.

This year, I think I might have overdone it.

On a cold, dark night, one of the many of this long, bitter winter, I decided to pre-order plants for the garden. As the days warmed up and no box appeared, I began to think I might not have actually placed the order. It is like me to fill a cyber basket and then balk at the shipping charge, abandoning my spree. This notion solidified in my mind when a search through my emails failed to turn up a confirmation.  So a few weekends ago, I went shopping for plants — Paul Robeson tomatoes (will they sing?) Thai dragon chiles (will they burn?).  Last week, a box arrived — yes, with more plants.  So if you need tomatoes, peppers, (as long as the critters are not too greedy) I’ll have them.

Looks like there is other bounty in store as well — tiny bunches of grapes already blanket our arbor and the strawberries are beginning to ripen. Still early, but it sure feels like summer has arrived.

Faking It

Even after 10 years of gardening on my not-quite quarter of an acre, I sometimes have no idea what I’m doing. Case in point: only two of the Dahlias I planted in pots a few weeks ago are emerging. I pushed aside soil in the other planters until I found the root still a woody end, dry and ragged as a calcified cigar. When I potted these tubers a few weeks ago I turned them over and over, poking the ends, unsure which end was where the plant would grow out of when I buried them. For all I know, the poor things could be smothering under there. (Rob suggested I should have planted them sideways.) Times like these, I feel like an incompetent gardener.

This feeling of being a dilettante extends to other things I love – like cooking. I believe that if you can read, you can cook — it’s just directions, right? I credit great cookbooks and food blogs for deliciousness conjured up in the kitchen.  While I know I make kick-ass sandwiches – (stuffed with roasted peppers, jalapenos, herby-greens) without recipes but otherwise, rarely create something new from scratch. So really, any scrumptious meal I may make is only Tricia’s as designed by (insert recipe author here).

Although in my single years when it was easier to live on a dime, I fancied myself an artist and worked a paying job as little as possible in order to ‘do my art’, I always felt a bit of a fraud, even when galleries showed my work and people bought it. Now, I feel the same way about writing, wondering if I have the right tools or talent.

I marvel at the confidence I see in others. Where did they get theirs, why didn’t I get a dose of it when it was being doled out? But then I think about the Dahlias and the possibility that the invisible ones may just not be ready to bloom yet – and might end up the most spectacular of all.

 

Smelling Spring

I have been inhaling my way through spring, almost drunk on the fragrant shrubs in my garden. Last year’s extreme pruning left me with fewer Lilacs this year but I am reassured by wiser gardeners than me that next year will be better. Tiny Carol Mackie Daphne, on the other hand, is exploding in exotically scented little blooms. The Daphne’s fragrance is more delicate than the larger, almost vulgar smelling Virburnum shrub with it’s heavy white heads of flowers.  I made the mistake of planting these beauties all in the same corner at back of the house where we like to sit in the summer, imagining a scented garden. But it’s still too cool back there at this time of year and we rarely sit, as I’d imagined, inhaling the perfumes while soaking in the sun.  Instead, I regularly venture out to this spot to get my scent-fix and lob off branches of blooms to fill the house. But  after only a day or so, both blossoms and perfume fade. It’s not the same.

What is it about scent that is so evocative? I think it’s the ephemeral, passing quality – like time. We cannot keep it – not for long. There, the poignancy of spring.

 

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