Tag: gardening

Harvest

I’m teaching a novel structure class. Freytag’s pyramid, which he diagrammed in 1863, describes a 5 act drama.

1. Exposition–or rather, an introduction
2. Rising action–building suspense
3. Climax–the big showdown
4. Falling action–tying up loose ends after climax
5. Denouement/Resolution–the end, whether problems are resolved or not resolved

Late Winter and early Spring is the time for a garden’s exposition. Planning. Buying seeds. Germinating them indoors or in the greenhouse. It is an exciting time full of possibilities. Every year, I also work on a few experimental plantings–like gourds in Berkeley and cucamelons that are new on the seed scene. And many different kinds of peppers in hopes of making hot sauce. I also planted blue sesame plants for the first time. Some other items I planted for the first time: meadow arnica, schisandra, myogi ginger, cherimoya, wasabi, warren pear, coolidge pineapple guava, burdock, rocoto, blacktail watermelon, and a banana.

Then they’re transplanted into the ground sometime in Spring or early Summer, and the rising action begins. New variables like the weather and sunlight and fertilizer and soil quality and insects and pests and diseases come into the picture. The weather warms. But fog might roll in. Things get more complex. The plants spread their roots, begin budding and growing, and produce fruit and vegetables for harvest. Progress is measurable and visible. Sometimes, there are surprises. Like raccoons that party like gangsters in the garden each night, digging up mulch to search for grubs. Or really, just dig up plants for no good reason other than the fun of it. And of course, the clematis vine that never ever ever flowers. And powdery mildew. Always powdery mildew over here.

There are welcome surprises, too. Like one pluerry fruit the first year of a pluerry tree’s planting. Lemon guava fruiting for the first time since I planted it last year. More passion flowers than I can count. Infinite sweet pea flowers. Tomatoes and after tomatoes.

Everything reaches a tipping point. Reaches a crescendo. Reaches climax.

At a garden’s climax, the tomatoes and squash and cucumbers and eggplants and beans and peppers and corn–nearly everything is ready to harvest, almost at once. It is thrilling. This is the point I’ve been waiting for all year.

But also–the problems that existed earlier in the season in smaller quantity become even more evident now; I am battling powdery mildew that threatens to kill my squash vines on the squash arch. It’s coming at me with a vengeance now, because I let the first whispers of powdery mildew go overlooked earlier.

The myogi ginger fell over and died a couple weeks ago. The schisandra is yellowing–and I’m not sure that’s normal (I have to look up whether or not it’s deciduousthank goodness this is normal–they’re deciduous). The blacktail watermelon, which fruited with great hope earlier–has stalled. The watermelon fruit is about four inches in diameter. Yes. FOUR. The cool foggy Berkeley weather has triumphed there. The meadow arnica is tiny but growing. My blue sesame plants never flourished. The raccoons keep coming. Even as the garden is at its peak, it is at its most vulnerable.

Things are literally falling over–dahlias heavy with bloom. Tomato plants busting out of their Florida weave.

And they will fall over–what will follow is falling action. The tying up of loose ends after harvest. Cutting plants down. Building compost. Cooking the harvested vegetables.

I’ll sow cover crops. Sow some winter garden crops like carrots and kale and lettuce. But mostly, I will let the soil rest and rejuvenate. There is resolution–what pests haunted the garden before will no longer be relevant. If one spot was particularly powdery-mildew-susceptible, I’ll plan on planting something different there next year.

But mostly, I will be better off than I was the year prior, because of this garden. Even if a bit tired.

In tragedy, the protagonist is worse off. In comedy, the protagonist is better off at the end than at the beginning.

Here’s to comedies. And gardens. And urban farms.

The Generosity of Gardeners

I love honor system farm stands.

An honor stand is an unmanned fruit and vegetable stand laden with fresh local produce, often from a nearby farm. There is a scale, a pen, and an empty notebook in which you write down what you take and the total you owe. And there is a lockbox (often bolted to the stand) into which you put your cash.

An honor stand can be located in a commercial district within a small park, like Table Top Farm’s stand in Point Reyes. Or it can reside by the side of a highway like Little Wing Farm’s stand as you see here. It looks like a beautiful diorama.

They are a temple to those who love produce and fresh ingredients 24 hours, 7 days a week–and it is also a temple to the generosity and integrity of those who love produce and farm ingredients. I’m not sure this could be done with other products. Copper piping? I am guessing stolen and sold. Nails? I am guessing stolen and possibly thrown on the road. Cars? no way. Televisions? Double no way. But there is something about plants.

This past weekend, we happened to be in West Marin to visit a new friend and his wife. On the way home, we pulled off the road to visit the Honor Stand. We sent up a huge dust cloud, and as we stayed inside the car waiting for it to settle down, our anticipation grew as we eyed the dollhouse of a farm stand from the car windows.

We bounded toward the stand. My daughter picked out a dahlia bouquet garnished with perilla leaves, as well as squash and basil. We wrote down our totals. And I put the appropriate amount of cash into the cash box. It was–delightful.

We whispered while choosing our goods as if in a library, another exercise in honor.

The minty-basil smell of the perilla accompanied us all the way home from our drive to West Marin.

It was a day of generosity–punctuated by that honor stand.

We had gone to visit a new friend in Inverness. Our new friends have a marvelous garden. P and I were enthralled. We got to meet their tiny ducks (did you know there is such a thing as tiny ducks)? We also met their miniature parrot (I just realized there is a theme here of undersized birds) who does amazing tricks. Charlie the Parrotlet is even on instagram if you want to see what we saw.

Our friends opened us with open arms and warmth. They’d left berries on the raspberries for days so P could thrill in picking them and eating them off the branches. P also picked pea pods, shelled them, and fed them to one of the ducks–a duck who is particularly fond of peas. We visited a 400+ year old buckeye tree.

We brought fresh eggs from our chickens as a hostess gift. But–oh my goodness, we went home with our arms full of various garden products. We didn’t expect that. And of course, we were unable to refuse.

It’s a general pattern that when we visit our friends’ gardens, we bring something home, whether it is cuttings to grow or seeds or fruit or a quart of goat milk or a pint of honey. We never expect to bring things home–it just happens. And we try to bring something to them, as well–we have eggs and honey and cuttings and fruit to share as well. It is an amazing exchange of generosity and foresight.

Recently, as we struggled under the weight of succulent cuttings from a gardening neighbor, her husband noted, “I haven’t observed such generosity in other hobbies. I’m an art collector, and we share nothing.”

Plants cannot survive solo. They have to pollinate and reproduce. And there’s no loss (only gain) in ensuring others have plants you love. It’s true–there is generosity among gardeners.

This post incidentally, is also about making friends. About the generosity of extending friendship. I haven’t made very many new friends as of late. I have been consistently disappointed and hurt by the world and it makes me cozy up in my house. This past week has given me hope. I met these new friends at their home, their garden, and they were so sweet and big hearted and humorous and kind to us. If I were a different kind of person, I would have wept.

In the same week–I met another person, someone I’d met via the internet. He was friendly and gregarious and (again this word) generous–so much so that it made my cynical heart suspicious and whisper, “Are you for real?” But you know–there is no reward without risk. And I met him in real life. (My hobbit soul felt very adventurous this past week) .  Over the course of dinner with him and his friends, it became clear that he is truly that nice person.

And I felt ashamed for feeling so wary–I thought about how I have closed ranks in recent years. And I wondered if that was truly the best thing to do.

But mostly, I was happy to find good people. That there are more out there.

(Edison Collier fountain pen with a stub nib. Ink is Pilot Iroshizuku’s ku-jaku).

Korean Natural Farming: LAB

Or should I call it “–Natural Farming?” Because I’m of Korean descent. Get it? Get it?

I had no idea there was such a thing until last year, when I met badass Kristyn Leach of Namu Farm–where she practices Korean Natural Farming (and grows Korean plants and I basically want to follow her around for a week). But back to the subject: I checked the notion of Korean Natural Farming in my head and put it in the dark recesses of my obsessive and twisty brain.

Recently, my friends A and J brought up Korean Natural Farming again. When I brought up the fact that I was trying out cricket poop/frass as a fertilizer, and how it was horribly stinky, J suggested LAB.

LAB?

Yes, he said. Lactic. Acid. Bacteria. Korean Natural Farming. Spray it on. One of the things it does is get rid of smells.

Huh, I thought. I’ll give that a shot. And I read up.

Korean Natural Farming (or KNF for short) is about strengthening every biological component of plant growth without using chemicals or outside fertilizers by using indigenous microorganisms (IMO) like bacteria and fungi. You avoid fertilizers and manure and instead, focus on what’s going on in the soil in your environment and encourage naturally existing processes within the ecosystem.

Its principles tie in well with permaculture and no-till farming, which are two practices I’m embracing these days. Go with what’s there, go with the flow of the land, the basic idea being that you want to cultivate based on the ecosystem and all the little critters within, making sure things are in balance and largely undisturbed (yay sheet mulching/lasagna gardening!).

It sounds hippy-dippy, yes. And I don’t subscribe to every hippy dippy thing out there. But some things work and do make sense–like acupuncture. Other things–like planting during a waxing and waning moon–well, I’m still not sold on that.

Plus KNF has…POTIONS aka amendments aka fermented items. There’s Fish Amino Acid, and Fermented Plant Juice and Oriental Herbal Nutrients…but I started out with Lactic Acid Bacteria (LAB for short). Because stinky cricket frass.

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