CLOSER THAN YOU THINK...For weeks and weeks I've felt powerful longing to retreat to the mountains and soak in the soothing immensity of the forest. But most of the Provincial Parks have, wisely, remained closed. They recently opened and my favourite Park (of those I've thus far explored) had a line up of 700 to get inside. I believe that was a number expressed in vehicles. Yikes. Where to go to find the deeply needed solace of nature? The answer came after several friends noted they'd visited VanDusen Gardens with their young children (both in the same age category as our child) and had immense success. Ready for something different and armed with the imagination lent to us by Beatrix Potter, we set out to search for Jeremy Fisher's house, and maybe spot Nutkin the impertinent squirrel. And what we found was heavenly. A really deep sense of peace restored, and endless curiosity for our surroundings... have a look! Apple Seed and Sweet Potato Propagation I know what you're thinking... what happened to those apple seeds she put in the refrigerator? Glad you asked, my friend, glad you asked. Well, I opened the bag yesterday and it smelled very much like a fine, but certainly aged, French cheese. Hm, that's unexpected. Upon investigation, most of them have grown some lil' nubs, and four were mired in mold. Hence, the Frenchtastic smell. Oh la vache! Well, at least six out of ten didn't take a trip to Europe, and I planted them straight away in some fresh potting soil and watered generously. They sit basking in sun for as much of the day as they can. Thus far, there are three working their way up to the surface, like real seedlings do. Will I be able to say that I had the beginnings of an orchard on the tenth story of a building? I would certainly like to phrase it that way. But, in truth, eventually they will need to be in the Earth to really become trees. I know Louis XIV had his Orangerie with the trees potted in massive, moveable planters, but I don't live that Versailles life, as much as these apples were trying desperately to be francophiles. Their nascent time will be spent on the tenth floor, and I'll do my best to help them become the orchard I know is waiting inside their seed coats. As for the sweet potatoes, the results of those slips has been long awaited by my good friend Merry. As the last week became exceptionally busy, I failed to reply to her comment containing a question about those slips and apply my knowledge to her own little slips awaiting their turn to be planted. Sorry, Merry! Sorry, slips! Here is what I have seen mine do: I have one that has "matured", that is it has broader leaves, a very long, nicely curved root that just keeps getting longer and is certainly ready to be planted. The other still has it's leaves shut, but there appears to be a root on that one too. Here's what I'd do to plant them: pluck them off their potato hunk mom and put them into well spaced beds. These puppies need lots and lots of leg room. One itty bitty slip vine will turn into a Little Shop of Taters creature by the end of the season. Keep them happy with even watering, and if the leaves start to show any deficiencies (although yellowing at the end of the season in fall means they're ready to be dug up) feed with compost or your preferred organic soil food. I can't in good conscience say that you out to put something icky on your soil. I won't name names... And that's it. The sweetest thing about sweet potatoes is how easy, and entertaining, they are! They will astound you with their ability to cover large portions of ground, making more leaves than ever thought possible. When harvesting, which will be in a while yet, you can cut off the vines first to make room for digging. A good tip given to me by another gardener is to make sure you are careful with sharp tools while harvesting to ensure the skins of the potatoes aren't cut into. This is to prevent bacteria from entering the potato. Now, if you've going to cure them, this may be less of a problem. And of course we all cook our sweet potatoes before we cook them. But it was a wise tip, and I found that getting in there like a crazed dog digging wildly in the sand at the beach is a really good method of getting the taters out of the ground. You're in you're garden, you grew it, might as well have a good time. I have research to do yet on curing, and truthfully, my slips may never make it into the ground because I am running out of... wait... nope. OUT OF ROOM! My husband, my sweetheart and generous man, went to the flowershop, at my behest, and I asked for something for the table. I said chamomile or hydrangea would make a nice bouquet- simple, mono-floral arrangement, and I meant cut flowers. Well, he came home with a potted, green cusping into ballerina pink hydrangea and I was having a "squee" session for about 20 minutes. I named it "Felicity", because it is a wish fulfilled to have thus perennial, and it brought and will continue to bring so much happiness. Felicity will move in as soon as I can get some more soil. And that emptied out Nellie's Natural detergent bucket I just downsized into smaller containers a few weeks back is looking like the right home. The corporate orange bucket (bonus points if you can guess where it's from) will have the cukes. Almost time to plant those too. And with that I AM truly our of room. But, it's 100% occupied with green, pink, soon to be more pink and, when the corn and sunflowers come of age... golden yellows... It's going to be a dreamy summer on the tenth floor.... "Hackle" Recipe- for that Good Earth'esque flavour without realizing you forgot to buy it at the grocery store
3 bags peppermint tea one whole orange, sliced 3-5 cinnamon sticks maple syrup or honey to taste ( this really gets that sweetness that's part of the Good Earth flavour in there) Mix all in hot water, stir and let sit. Chill and enjoy. Good Earth was a tea that seemed to endlessly be in our refrigerator as iced tea in the summertime, and having discovered this recipe on a whim to do some tea mixology one afternoon, I am delighted to say it will be in our fridge all summer too.
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TINY STEPS... TINY MILESTONES... AND A TINY GARDENERTime seems to be moving slower, but then again, there are days when I wake up and it's suddenly four o'clock in the afternoon five minutes later. It varies. I look out on the garden and forget how small things were two months ago, which really feels more like four months ago. I was browsing through photos of the patio back in January and was astounded to recall when it was dusted with a powdery coat of new snow, or when the raised beds were under constant insulation under row cover fabric. The days of waiting for spring were filled with practicing planting with our daughter using her kinetic sand and some silk flower foliage from the dollar store, intermingled with making marmalade and combatting illness in the deep winter. Searching for crocuses, bundling up and braving the rain, petting dogs and going to the farmers market (for which we are so thankful! A year round market is hard to find). And, of course, the garden in sleepy infancy, with very frequent visits from the overwintering hummingbirds, ravenous in the cold, but still feisty and clever despite their challenge to stay aloft in the winter.
This all feels ancient, replaced with many days since also spent indoors, with the ever adjusting schedule and trying to make the days run as smoothly as possible. But it's my hope that I'll look back with the same nostalgia and gratitude on these days, which have seemed harder to comprehend, and feel that lifting joy in them, in the same way that I can look back on the deep winter days and smile, even though at the time there was a fairly excruciating feeling to many of them, particularly when we were all sick at once, the parents more ill than the child. Now we're approaching summer, a fact which makes me feel somewhat flabbergasted. It's all too tempting to ask how I might have spent the last two months differently. Some of it would be answered practically, for instance if preschool were still in session two days a week would be occupied by that routine. Weekly respite and spiritual connection found at church. Weekly library visits. I miss those. But all this time at home, without any choice but to be here and really truly fully BE here... I see how it's making new things spring up. All that prep to get our three year old interested and prepared to help in the garden have seen success. Some of our garden plants haven't made it, or done what we hoped (no snow peas... no blossoms, no peas. Apparently they have too much nitrogen when that happens... a lesson in mismatched companion planting). But we harvested that gai lan and enjoyed it at dinner yesterday, and that is simply an irreplaceable feeling. So we won't have peas. We can;t get everything we want AND there will be a chance to plant again when the weather cools down. And now, a recipe for those with a childlike heart: FAIRY SOUP: ingredients: flower petals- I recommend peonies, roses, daisies, buttercups, dandelions, lilies, hydrangea... anything colourful water a large bowl optional: dirt (if you want the "borscht" version of fairy soup add some literal earthiness moss pebbles pine needles pine cones It's not rocket science- this is a sensory play activity and it's meant to be messy and wild. I let our daughter mix up the flowers and spoon them into little containers to feed all the fairies. It is a lasting and fun water play activity. Be aware- the petals and other contents will begin to mold if left in a closed container. Have fun. Get messy. Feed some hungry fairies. And just enjoy watching either your child, or perhaps yourself, get lost in the process of mixing these beautiful elements.... One of the best things about the garden has been involving my child. Yes, it's messy and sometimes plants are roughed up. But cherishing something you work at together with your child is worth the occasional face palm. There has been lots of independence and self direction fostered from something as simple as watering and showing how to plant seeds. I'm shaky and need breakfast. This is one of the things about home isolation that has been weird- finding the daily routine and rhythm when time seems to stretch out. It's raining and looks like late Spring but the temperature is a little deceiving. I covered the corn planted yesterday in a large plastic cover, waiting for those warmer temperatures to kick in later this week. We are waiting on a lot. All of us. Once again to my left my little one sits on my husbands lap. Their easy conversation and adorable dynamic makes me smile. They're looking at toys in a catalogue online and she's making a birthday wish list. Our daughter turns four in a little over a month, a fact I also find to be nearly impossible. I'm taking in this day, like all of them, with mental and actual phone snapshots. Perhaps in a few months I'll share these contained moments as cherished time too. I think I will. My perspective continues to be honed and refined to take notice of the things that matter to my heart. #NOTMYSALADGardening never really stops being an experiment, and I am learning that we must not limit our imaginations as to how gardens can surprise us. With roughly a quarter of my garden in a greenhouse like setting, there are plenty of learning experiences happening there too... like the sudden and irreversible appearance of mushrooms in my pot of loose leaf lettuce. From a brief search, they appear to be "mowers mushrooms", one of the most common usually appearing on lawns. I suspect the spores lived in the compost and my generous watering of the lettuce caused them to awaken. The end of the story is predictable: I tossed the salad. Into the compost. Farewell.
It didn't really feel safe to eat it after finding the mushrooms and there was no way to remove the mushrooms completely. The spores are in the soil. This type of mushroom isn't dangerously toxic, but it can cause gastric upset and, supposedly, some mild hallucinations. Frankly, I'm not adventurous enough. It's also just not recommended. Call me a square. I spent the time transplanting some of the smaller broccoli to their own more spacious spots not that the mustard greens are harvested. The Gai Lan is getting close- just waiting of the appearance of their little florets and then it will be time. The stalks are looking thicker and the leaves are big and broad. I have set aside two broccoli to give away, and the rest are enjoying their own spaces and water. Recently gathered broccoli tip: they do not like to share water, and plants too close together will compete for it. This will likely result in weak plants all around because no on is getting what they need. Broccoli social distancing and self care metaphor combo- surprise no. 2 from the garden this week. Surprise no. 3 I went looking for- I carefully, gently peered into the innermost leaves of the three nearly matured broccoli plants to find their teeny tiny, lime green florets beginning to form at the very centre in a tight bundle. This broccoli was planted in March, so it will likely be ready to harvest in late July to August. The second batch of plants is several weeks behind the first, so late August. They haven't hit that huge growth spurt I saw in the first three, but broccoli, I have learned, will grow in immense spurts seemingly overnight, even though you're looking at them every day to see how they progress.. Finally, that cabbage, the Napa Cabbage that "overly matured", is no more. The little crinkly leaves in the centre browned at the edges and curled more tightly. Next year. I'll be a cabbage patch kid next year, perhaps. I am understanding how much space each of these plants really need to grow *well*. In a 2 by 2 metre (6 by 6 ft for my Yankee readers) space, ten stories up, it's limited. I found myself gazing longingly and lovingly at the community garden plots around our neighbourhood on an evening walk the other night. There was a flash of envy too. There were plants spilling into the spaces between the raised beds from years of seeds finding their way into the nearby soil. It's also like looking at the collective hope of so many people side by side, growing many of the same things. No garden is perfect. I like that about them. Things don't grow the way we want them too all the time. I like that less, but I accept it. This time of isolation from the activities and people we're accustomed to has allowed the focus on observation. I hone in on my plants, and moreso on my family and inner life. Shops and hair salons are opening up today, but I don't feel immediate temptation to go out and devour these things we've been barred from for nearly ten weeks. There was a flashing pang of guilt this weekend in the wake of realizing that this quarantine has created a deeper sense of serenity. Guilt because this is not the case for most, as the news would have us understand. Even in this serenity, I would not hasten to say that it's like some pearly veneer smothered over the whole of our life as a family, covering and erasing any of the discomforts. Tantrums first thing in the morning before your eyes have opened completely and not a drop of coffee made is brutal, deepened by the understanding that no other caregivers can relieve your efforts. Even now my daughter, spinning in her late three year old emotions as she creeps towards her fourth birthday in July, places plate after plate of pretend food cooked in her playkitcshen on my desk in an effort to draw me into playtime with her. She shuffles through the drawers just to the left of my desk. I briefly assist her in retrieving stickers from the secretary desk across the room. Methodically, she places them on an ikea lamp and turns the light on and off to test the placing with a backlit glow. This slowed down life is a bundle of things: annoying, fascinating, painful, tiresome, entertaining, exhausting... She presents the lamp to me, jumps around excitedly with little pants as I deliver my praise the newly renovated lamp. As I write these things, there are many places I wish I could be. But as I write this, I wouldn't want to be anywhere else. OR IN MY CASE, CABBAGESI've made the commitment to myself to be honest in this blog about the things I have success with in the garden... and the stuff that just fails. My garden has a few of those.
I planted Napa Cabbage this spring because it's delicious and I love making gluten free dumplings and stuffing them with lots of this tasty crunchy green. Why not try it? So, two months ago we planted one. Just one. An experiment. So many things that are the first time plantings for me often involve initial research, getting them started, but then so much of the rest of the growing time is spent just watching, observing what happens and finding out, sometimes the hard way, if it worked.. My little cabbage just had a laugh at me. Do you recall when I posted my photos and how much progress the cabbage was making? Well that was actually "over maturing" due to excessive nutrients and watering, most likely. Here's the quote from West Coast Seeds website about Napa Cabbage that made me laugh and face palm. "Heads will split when they’re allowed to overly mature. Rapid growth due to excess watering and fertility will also cause splitting of the head...." Just like mine did. Whoops. West Coast Seeds also has this ranked as a "Moderately Difficult" plant to grow. Well, if you never challenge yourself you never know right? Truthfully, I plan to try again in the Fall. I love a challenge. I don't quite feel ready to give up on the little guy yet. I took off the outer leaves (and cautiously nibbled one... oh, nope...) The weekend was very warm, like a small taste of summer, but we have returned to the soft but steady storms of spring (which really love to knock my broccoli plants over, thankfully harming none so far). Working with nature, particularly wind, at ten stories up is a lesson in progress. Chopsticks tucked deeply into the soil and good ole' garden twine is keeping those growing greenies upright and steadfast. But I check on them, like little infants, nonetheless. There were successes this week too. I was able to harvest and devour the tahtsoi and bok choy before it bolted, or in other terms, flowered and went to seed. We had a burst of sun and warmth here on the BC coast, so those cold weather crops got maybe a little too much heat. In any case, they were delicious. The bok choy was "ultra baby" bok choy, meaning it didn't really fully mature. The same with the mustard greens (tatsoi). Very small and underdeveloped. All of it still tasted phenomenal. There really is no other pleasure, though simple and understated, like harvesting, preparing and eating food you've grown. I will be able to plant more of these types of veggies in August and then let them mature into the cool season. And oh I am so excited for that cool season. I ordered the seeds I will plant for the fall this week. More experiments with things I've never grown: kale, fennel and turnips are all first time crops for me. There's also a very cold hardy broccoli I'll be trying called "red spear"- it looks more like broccolini and it is indeed a purplish red. After this week I found myself wishing (more like longing) for at least a half acre of land for just spread this tuff out in long stretching rows so I could just fill my kitchen and the kitchens of others with produce. The more I grow food in my garden, the more fulfilled I feel. The purposefulness of it is a physical feeling in my core when I reflect on it. A kind of goodness that is nearly fully tangible. These things, mysterious as they are, to me are true glimpses of Heaven. The fullness of the Garden of Eden before the fall, but scaled down to a tender human level, just a little out of full reach. Even so, these moments of transcendence make this feel like a calling. What this may become, who is to say. I have my dreams. Perhaps I will share them here as time goes on. The future remains fuzzy even as Covid-19 reopening measures roll out slowly. We still look into an unfamiliar and uncertain kind of summer. But at last, it feels like there is enough time and sense of peace, at least in the evenings when it's once again silent in our home, to dream and look out at the horizon without fear. MY GARDENIt is May. Having begun gardening in February with seedlings indoors, prepping of the soil and the long early Spring ahead, arriving here in the first week of May feels like completing the first leg of a marathon. Arriving here in late Spring is where it really starts to get good. I have seen the plants in my garden thrive instantly with the touch of the lengthened sunlight, the warmth in the air. I confess that looking at empty planters, stalled seedlings, failed plantings and slow growers can be the most challenging parts of gardening. But I remember that I do have some benefits I take for granted. The limitations of the apartment balcony garden have one clear benefit- pests just don't get up here. Having gone head to antennae with snails in my last in ground garden (and losing), it's good to remember to count my blessings. Nothing so voracious has embedded itself amongst my plants. My hope for the future is to once again have an in ground garden, and so I will contend with pests once again at that time it may come to fruition. The anticipation I feel in watching these plants emerge and arrive at maturity closely mirrors my interior reflections during the lockdown. I am anticipating so much, and also stumbling blind into the future not knowing what will greet us. Am I arriving at a more complete maturity? This is the hope, but I find I'm falling short of my hopes and expectations for myself. Like the rest of the world around me, we are collectively finding the truth that we lack control. And thus the challenge begins- how to accept this, how to live with it and still fulfill our purposes and seek to move forward. Stranded in this place of unknowing I don't have answers beyond those that may perhaps feel cliché, but for me hold the strength of truth. Faith, by its definition, is belief and hope in the unseen. In some ways I feel my heart was given some preparation for this time we're in now. At the time when I felt myself passionately drawn to preparation of the garden in January, in my mind it reflected the desire to continue on with a hobby that was quickly becoming a passion. However, I can now see the metaphor for this current time laid out in the empty beds, planted with seeds that came slowly, surrounded by grey, wind and unpleasantness for months. The future invisible to the eye but waiting for its timing beneath the soil, the process not completely free of failures and misgivings. And even now, the fulfillment and potential not yet fully realized. When this all began, I spent time thinking about the things that would matter in a year from now, as the only real short term goal, however abstract, I could really visualize. In my heart of hearts the fullest measure of Hope lies in the far future, at the end of my life, as reflected in my personal faith. But a year from now feels like the attainable step I can take now, actionable and driven by determination. After seven weeks in lockdown, that goal is still somewhat abstract. But you can be sure there's gardening in it, and it will involve more planting, of the soul and soil sort, and yes, likely more waiting. But what this lockdown is teaching me is that endurance can be cultivated, continuous and even if there is no clear end in sight, strength is renewed along the way. I hope you find yourself firmly planted today, taking steps, however small. Hope is near. TAKE A TOUR...Here is a look at the whole space where I grow my garden. Not all plants are pictured, but the two connected spaces where things are grown is fully shown. Enjoy, have a look around and let me know if you have questions about anything I've been growing!
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NinaNoot- Christina (Nina) Wonglong time illustrator of whimsical things and a woman with a green thumb. Compassion and a desire to do something helpful compels me to write and share about gardening in hopes it may bring healing and delight to the souls of others as it has to mine. Check in every week on Tuesday for the unfolding story of my own garden alongside small growing project ideas, my successes and failures, and a sincere dose of hope in this moment of covid-19. Archives
August 2020
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