Category Archives: gardening

Winter Trees

gardening, Photography,

You probably know Beatrix Potter from her children’s books that feature animals such as The Tales of Peter Rabbit. But, Potter had many other interests and talents including gardening. I was thoroughly entranced by Linda Lear‘s biography of Potter. While obviously having affection for this extraordinary woman, Lear wasn’t above describing her occasional rudeness or imperiousness. She also deftly connects the three periods of Potter’s life: her work in natural science, her work as a writer, and, finally, her work as a farmer and conservationist. Throughout it all, she found Potter found inspiration and personal peace in the country, amongst the animals and their keepers. Beatrix Potter: A Life in Nature is a wonderful tribute to this amazing woman.

I followed up with Beatrix Potter’s Gardening Life by Marta McDowell. The first half of the book provides biographical detail related to Potter’s purchase of Hill Top Farm and other properties in the Lake District along with her preservation work. The second half moves into the garden and the life of its caretaker as we move through the circle of seasons. I was reading the book in October when I had just finished covering my mop head hydrangeas in hopes of blooms next year and felt an instant connection to Potter, a kindred spirit who loved nothing better than gardening and reading and wasn’t concerned about a solitary life in the country.

Even in the winter, Potter found beauty and satisfaction in the natural world around her. She encourages a young protegee to take time to look at the trees in the winter when we are able to see their underlying structure, how the trunk and branches interact to shape the tree. She writes:

We can tell every tree in winter without reference to foliage by its mode of growth. So study them in some spare moments…they will repay–they are in the right place as beautiful as rocks. They have a nobility of growth which is usually entirely overlooked (p. 154).

Beatrix potter’s gardening life

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Since some of the trees in my front yard keep their leaves, it can, as Potter suggests, be easy to overlook those who spend the season with bare branches stretching skyward, casting shadows in the winter sunset.

Farm Life

gardening, Life, Nature, work
Corn
Our first planting of corn has been producing for almost a month! Eating fresh and freezing as much as possible.

In Barbara Kingsolver’s book, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life, about her family farm in southwest Virginia, she describes the extensive preparations they took to protect the garden from weeds and critters before going away for a week. I was away for two weeks at the height of the growing season with no time for preparation, and my gardens, both vegetable and flower, were busy both producing and returning to the wild when I returned. I was able to wrestle back some control from the weeds while also harvesting corn, green beans and tomatoes for consumption and preservation. My freezer is slowly filling up with bags of beans and plastic containers of corn and tomato sauce. It will be a delicious winter.

The Pear Orchard
The pear orchard with six trees and lots of delicious, eat-off-the tree pears.

I have also been canning pear jam with the bounty from our six pear trees, all of which have produced amazing fruit this year. I am using this great recipe from Practical Self Reliance; it makes a beautiful, chunky but spreadable jam. My only hack is that I use my pressure cooker to cook down the pears as it requires less tending than the stove top.

The world of “real” work is calling, and in between gardening and cooking, I got started on a couple projects for the fall semester. I was worried that, after feeling very retired for the first months of 2023 and especially while I was hanging out with my parents and then digging into my part-time farmer life, I wouldn’t have the energy or motivation to deal with timelines and deadlines and other people. Fortunately, my skills at prioritizing and focusing kicked back in but with a better sense of balance. I was able to integrate work without it overwhelming the rest of my life the way it might have in the past. Plus, it has been a great time to learn new tech skills: I am incorporating AI into both my edtech courses and have been having fun learning about and experimenting with ChatGPT. More on that later.

For now, I’ve got pears to prep and tomatoes to pick, and I might even take a bike ride on a Monday morning.

Pears
Pears hanging low on the branches

Writer’s Block

creativity, gardening, writing,
Gerard ter Borch, Woman Writing a Letter (1655)
The Mauritshuis Museum, The Hague

I have been writing a lot of words in the past week although they are mostly not ready for prime time. I discovered Jeff Warren‘s meditation designed to help with creative block and have been using it for the past few mornings. Warren’s approach is similar to Julia Cameron’s morning pages applied to whatever you create: just write or draw or sing or sculpt without thinking or judging. Warren even suggests that it should be terrible. Making bad art is something Austin Kleon has written about as well.

Warren uses a timer–I’ve been doing 20 minutes–and rather than writing long hand the way I have for decades of morning pages, I am using my Freewrite keyboard. I want to start producing publishable text and the morning pages don’t lend themselves to formal writing. For now, the goal is getting the habit in place.

I haven’t given up the long hand morning pages, however, and am experimenting with approaching them as letters to an old friend. Still mostly stream of consciousness but with a bit of organization and thoughtfulness.

Letter writing has been on my mind, perhaps as part of a general nostalgia I’ve been feeling as I continue my transition into semi-retirement. In the olden days, I loved nothing better than spending an afternoon writing long letters to friends and family, settled into a comfortable chair with favorite pens and paper, a beverage alongside, maybe some music playing. I had a few good correspondents over the years, including the friend I visited in Pennsylvania this summer, but time and life and technology eventually saw our letters dwindle to a few lines on birthday and holiday cards, and now have largely been replaced by email, text messages and social media messages.

I am going to make time this week to write a newsy letter to my old friend. I did send a short thank you note, one of those cards with a few scribbled lines, when I returned home, but life has happened since we sat beside her pool. I will tell her about all the tomato sauce I am making from my San Marzano tomatoes, the cool, rainy weather that seems to herald fall’s arrival, what I am reading and watching, plans for the fall. It will be, at least for a little while, as though we are together again.

Bits and Bobs

gardening, reading

What I am Eating:

Glass jars with lids of bok choy stems with pickling spices

While I am waiting for my tomatoes to get red, I am enjoying other fruits of the garden. The bok choy is past its prime due to the heat and bugs, but the stems make delicious quick pickles. I’ve added garlic and mediterranean spices to mine. My peppers–jalapeno and poblano–are coming on thickly, as they say, so last night’s supper included bacon-wrapped stuffed jalapenos. Spicy and delicious. As I wait for fresh tomatoes, I am using up the last of my tomato sauce from the freezer.

What I am Watching:

Season 6: Grantchester

This British murder mystery set in the 1950s deals with tough social issues including the homosexuality of one of the main characters, a local curate. The main characters are the young vicar and the veteran police chief who work together in what can be a prickly relationship some times. I had been watching the series on and off but am hooked on the Season 6 storyline and binging away. I am surprisingly up to date as Season 7 is just airing now.

What I am Reading:

I participated in a LibraryThing readathon this past weekend. The goal is to read as much as possible between 5 PM on Friday and midnight Sunday night then share the results on a forum. The readathons began as part of social distancing, and this is #122. I am sorry to say it is first one in which I have participated. A great excuse to settle into several good books.

I read Practical Magic and Rules of Magic by Alice Hoffman, both part of the Practical Magic series, the Owens family saga. I read Magic Lessons earlier in the month. That book was really the start of the series as it told the story of the matriarch of the Owens family, Marie, who journeys to America with her daughter and ends up in Salem at the height of the witch trials. These two books tell the story of her present-day descendants as they choose different ways to deal with their special powers. Ultimately, all the books deal with love in many forms, as her family struggles with Marie’s ancient curse. I loved the story, the descriptions and the characters, but the books also deal with deeper issues related to the place of women in society and how “witches,” often just skilled healers and good listeners, had to be cast out in order to keep the preferred social order. I am also excited to discover there is a fourth book!

While I worked in the garden, I listened to Chris Grabenstein’s mystery Free Fall, the 8th book in his John Ceepak series. I have listened to the whole series. The story is told by Officer Danny Boyle, Detective John Ceepak’s partner on the Sea Haven Police Department, a town on the Jersey shore. The narrator captures both men’s styles perfectly: Boyle has a freewheeling, often self-deprecating, ironic tone while Ceepak doesn’t often break out of his by-the-book, former military police monotone. Ceepak lives by the strict West Point code and expects others to do the same. The mysteries they pursue deal with tough subjects and we also get to them, their families and friends. Ceepak’s estranged and dangerous father plays an ongoing role. I am hoping another one is on the way. Read them in order as the stories build on each other.

What Are You Going to Write About?

gardening

I mentioned a few writing topics in the previous post. Basically, I am taking the advice of the social media folks: everything is content.

Since we are at the height of summer, gardening plays a big role in my life. I have always been the flower gardener in the family, but this year, I also planted a vegetable garden. It is dominated by tomatoes but also includes the standard stuff: peppers, eggplants, okra, cucumbers, and herbs like basil, oregano and parsley.

Gardening is, as they say, in my blood. My father always had a vegetable garden and the yard was filled with flowers, especially roses. Even now, at 87, he plants flowers outside, including those roses, and also tends about 100 orchids that live in the greenhouse he built in the basement of their retirement-community condominium. My maternal grandmother, named Daisy, lived in the city but kept chickens in the backyard along with her victory garden and a beautiful peach tree who limbs hung with the succulent fruit each year.

I have always found a way to garden. While I am fortunate to have almost unlimited space here on the farm, even when I lived in an apartment in Los Angeles, I grew houseplants along with pots of lettuce and peppers on the tiny balcony.

Gardening brings opportunities unavailable in other ways. Besides getting me out into nature, it forces me to really see the natural world, connecting with its rhythms and learning how plants fits into the environment. I have a better understanding of how my actions impact the ground beneath me so that, while summer is the major focus of my work, there are things I can do throughout the year to help the soil help me and my plants. Knowing the difference between soil and dirt is a good starting point and this article from the Napa Master Gardener provides a great introduction:

Remember: there is a difference between soil and dirt. Dirt is what you get on your clothes and hands while working in the soil. Soil is made up of elements that have been decomposing since the earth was created.

Finally, a word of encouragement to those of you who don’t think you can garden for whatever reason: no green thumb, no space, no time. I count any relationship with a living plant to be gardening, and there are houseplants that refuse to die despite your best efforts.

As for me, I’ll be outside with my hands in the soil! A few pictures of the current situation in the flower beds for your enjoyment:

Flowers in Early July 2022