GroHappy

When 1 is better than 13

One of the more gratifying aspects of volunteer work is the response you receive from your clients. I was especially looking forward to a recent horticultural session at Ann’s Place as we had nearly filled up the class with 13 pre-registrants. This class focused on creating sachets and mulling spice packets. So I got to the facility early to ensure everything was in place. Chairs for everyone plus a few possible drop ins, everything laid out on the table for sachet making, pens to decorate the sachets, a coffee urn cleaned out to make mulled cider, an ironing board and iron to seal the tea bags that would be used for the mulling spices, etc.

With 20 minutes to spare everything was ready for the crowd.

And with 10 minutes to spare everything was ready for the crowd.

And with no minutes to spare my first client shows up. And that was it.

After we made some small talk, she looked rather embarrassed saying, “I was really looking forward to this. Perhaps I should call my husband.” I told her no that we would have a session between the two of us. She didn’t want to put me to any trouble, but I said that since we were both here we should just go on. She turned up a little smile and we started.

While my last session focused on Tussie-Mussies and the language of flowers, this one dealt with more of the smells and tastes that can be derived through the mixing of herbs and flowers. “What is your favorite smell?” I asked.

She replied, “Lavender. It reminds me when I was young,” I added that my mother’s favorite was lilac because her mother had lilac bushes in her yard as a child. She smiled and agreed that it was a wonderful smell. I told her that one of my favorite smells was that of pickles (which are predominated with dill, bay leaves and vinegar as the dominant  flavorings) as it reminded me of when I used to eat lunch outside with my father during the summer.

“So one of the things we need to consider when making a sachet is how and where it will be used. For example, if you wanted to create a sachet that would be used in the kitchen or bathroom, it would probably have very different scents than one for a drawer where you kept your fine scarfs.” My client looked at me and said she had never thought of it that way and started taking notes.

“One of the things you need to consider is how to combine different scents.” I had collected 12 different botanicals and 7 different oils that could be used in a sachet. “But you have to be careful how you combine them, because certain things sit better together.”

“There are four category of scents: sweet, sour, vegetable, and animal.” I then described each one and told her that she needed to choose what she wanted to be her fundamental scent and then surround it with related scents.

“Well I think I will pick nutmeg,” she said after sniffing many of the different spices and herbs available. To unlock more of the nutmeg's scent, she started to grind it with a pestle. “Oh my,” she said after a few grinds released the essence of the nutmeg. She then looked over other scents. She took a bit of cinnamon, some chamomile and another spice or two.

As she mixed them she was amazed at the complexity and complementary nature of the smells as they combined in her bowl. And with each turn of the spoon and new scent came a different story and memory of her past. As the scents were being liberated, old and pleasant memories were being unlocked. But now we needed to come to a decision of what type of essential oil to add to the mix. “How about peppermint?,” I suggested. “It is very complementary to what you have put together and it will bind well with the oak moss we need to use as a fixative. We will  place it in a separate bowl so you can smell it as well as your mixture together.”

She agreed. After mixing the oak moss and pepermint, she held her emulsion along with her mix up to her nose. “This is incredible. It’s nothing like I thought it would be. Thank you.” I smiled telling her that I didn’t want to give canned recipes to clients but rather let them explore and discover how smells could be blended.

As we finished making the kitchen sachet we then moved on to mulling spices, which are different parts of cinnamon, clove, allspice, orange rind and lemon rind. We sipped some mulled cider I had made up and I asked her to reflect on the flavors she sensed and to consider which ones she enjoyed more than others.I showed her the mix and then I gave her four tea bags to be filled with spices and suggested that she experiment with different proportions to decide what type of mix she would ultimately enjoy more than others.

More stories and memories emerged while she blended the different spices. We were chatting about her experiences as well as mine. Before you knew it, it was time to clean up and she was looking forward to experience her mixings later in the week. As I was picking up I realized that I didn’t miss the dozen potential clients who didn’t show up.  And in fact more than a little part of me was happy they did not.

Cutting flowers, exposing memories

Part of the practice of horticultural therapy is to help clients work through or at least realize their challenges. Before you can begin to do that, particularly for emotional or social issues, you must first gain the trust of your client. In working with the children at Green Chimneys I have found that one of the easiest ways to do that is to tap the skills from my former profession as a consultant and be a good listener. And one way to do that is by striking up conversations during quiet, intimate tasks.

That happened last week as the chives had bloomed and the flowers needed to be cut to preserve the bulb. As one of my charges said the day was, “cloudless but windy but very comfortable.” So we had ideal conditions to just kneel down and snip the heads off the flowers. It didn’t matter how much of the chive flowers we cut but to make it more challenging and precise I had all the students snip them toward the top of the stem where the flower sat. This would force them to concentrate and consider the job rather than just flail away indiscriminately.

While many of the puff-ball-like flower heads were starting to go to seed, others were still fresh and attracting bees. But after I told my charges that they need not worry about the bees they ignored them and went along their business. After a short time, the onion-like smell of the stalks and flowers coated our hands so our aroma had changed for the day. It was pungent though pleasant and (to me at least) soothing.

One student Bob started speaking about his summer and the trips he would be going on with his mother and step-father. He then started to speak about his grandfather. “I don’t ever want to meet my grandfather. He’s a bad man.” He then started to talk about how his grandfather (as well as his father) was an alcoholic and would beat his father.  “My mom doesn’t drink.”

While Bob was talking about his family he spoke in a calm and matter-of-fact tone. He clipped the flowers carefully, dropping them into a tote and continued to tell me his story. “They could have stopped drinking if they wanted to. It’s all their fault. They are bad.”

“Bob, alcoholism is a disease that never leaves you, even if you stop drinking. Yes, perhaps they could stop drinking but it is not easy and a constant battle. I’m sorry that their actions hurt you.”

“It doesn’t matter anymore,” said Bob. “They are not part of me or my Mom’s life.” Bob didn’t seem to want to talk any more so we silently finished removing the flowers from the clump of chives we were in front. Bob did such a good job I let him harvest the first of the strawberries as a treat as well as a few gooseberries. “This was a good day,” he said as I took him back to class.

Judy, my next student, had a different reaction around the chives. She was working along side other students in a group that I was managing and became very possessive about cutting a certain number of flowers. “These are mine!,” she said. So I gave her a wide berth and let her cut the flowers. She did a good job sometimes lingering and looking at the individual blooms while delicately holding them in her hand.

I later took her aside and asked why she had become so possessive. “I don’t know. I guess I just wanted to have my own space and do it on my own.”

One of the my last students, Josh, was making quick work of the job. He cut the heads closely and quickly. He discovered that flowers that had mostly gone to seed were easy to pull off the stalks. “Is it ok if I pull them rather than cut them?”

I replied yes but he had to make sure that the flower was past. I demonstrated to him the difficulty in trying to pull off a live flower verses the relative ease in removing a seed pod. He nodded and then said, “These smell like stink bugs.”  I didn’t know the type of bug he was referring to so I asked him to describe one to me. He then started to look bothered and said that he didn’t want to. I asked why.

“They live in the country where I was born. It’s not a nice place. I don’t want to remember anything about it.”

“Would you like to talk about this?”

“No because if I do I won’t be able to stop and I want to forget about ever coming from there.”

Josh was now agitated. I needed to change the topic. “Josh, how would you like some strawberries?” His face immediately brightened. “Is there any asparagus left?”

“Yes I think so and there may be some gooseberries for you also.”

His face brightened with a big smile so we picked up our pruners, knee pads and tote of chive flowers and walked toward the shed to put them away. “Do you think I could have two strawberries, Mr. Keller?”

“Sure, Josh,” I replied. “If you can find two ripe ones.” He ran off toward the strawberry patch in front of me, forgetting the chives and thinking about the strawberries that he hoped to find.

Starting from scratch

There was nothing but barberry as far as the eye could see. Dead trees, thick vines, large boulders were scattered around an inhospitable landscape. This is what I have to work with to create a therapeutic space.

It should be fun.

(I have to admit I’m a bit behind on my writing. Unlike the photo below, the ground is now covered with a over a foot of snow with the promise of another foot on its way.)

In a prior life I often looked at such circumstances as problems to be dealt with; now I see them as opportunities to exploit.

 

 

With the start of a new year comes a great opportunity to practice horticultural therapy with a new group of clients at Ann’s Place, a cancer support group in Danbury, CT, that will be opening its permanent headquarters sometime in the Spring. I have been talking with Wilda Hayes, the executive director, on and off for the past year but it wasn’t until this past summer where we got started in earnest. Wilda is a kindred spirit who understands the healing powers that working with plants can afford. One of the challenges, however, was finding an exterior space to work with clients. She didn’t see much hope.

“What about the property in the back?” I asked.

Wilda somewhat dismissed it while adding that there wasn’t much we could do as the landscaping/mitigation plan had already been approved by the town. Being naive about such things I asked her if we could arrange a visit with Dan Baroody, the official who dealt with mitigation issues for Danbury. I would propose to him a vastly different and expanded mitigation plan. And it worked. He liked the idea. Now I just had to design it.

The prior mitigation plan removed around 1,500 square feet of barberry and had 60 plants (five different cultivars) tightly planted. My revised plan removed over 7,500 square feet of barberry and has nearly 140 plants (26 different cultivars) planted in both tight and spaced out configurations. In removing all the barberry, we discovered abandoned stone walls, one of which I rebuilt, and very interesting spaces that we could use for therapy. 

We spent much of October and November removing all of the invasive species as well as dead trees. After a rough grading and the construction of nearly 300 feet of nature trails, we started to plant.

I was torn between all the different trees and shrubs to consider. On the one hand I wanted to have a wide array of native species. On the other I didn’t want to serve up too much deer salad. So I stayed (mostly) with cultivars and species that are theoretically distasteful to deer. They include black chokeberry, red osier dogwood, winterberry, spiraea and American cranberry. I broke this rule in selecting some mountain laurel as well as low- and high-bush blueberries though I am hoping that their position will minimize predation. After two days of digging and planting we were mostly done.

In the Spring, we will seed the area directly in front of Ann’s Place with a no-mow native fescue grass seed and the remaining areas adjacent to the wetlands with a New England conservation/wildlife seed mix that contains many native grasses and flowers that used to be all too common in this area.

Another area was planted with daffodil bulbs: about 3500. Because the ground was so full of ledge rock, I roughed up the soil a bit, put the bulb down on its stem and then put 6 inches of topsoil over them all. If the bulbs hit any rocks with their roots, they will just push themselves up a bit through the loosened top soil over time. At least that’s the theory. This will become the basis of a memorial garden that we are building.

We have lots of plans for other spaces, but we ran out of time in early December when an early hard frost made the ground like concrete stopping any further work. We will continue in the spring.

The idea of virgin territory is just that, an idea. So much of the Northeast has been altered and invaded since settled over 300 years ago that whenever a new space is examined it must be done through the lens of transformation and mitigation. I’m hoping that the spaces the we are creating at Ann’s Place not only restore native plants to an old home but also happiness for a troubled client base.

I’ll keep you posted.

The sweet smell of decay

 

The advent of autumn has always been bittersweet as the seasonal burst of a multifaceted patina of foliage is counterbalanced by the sad brown and gray death of its aftermath. I was in between these worlds this weekend as the first of a weekly raking regime started. I’ve always enjoyed raking as it is a good way to get some exercise as well as reflect on the gardens of my past and the ones I could build in the future.

The current task was both easier and harder than in prior years. Easier as the number of leaves were fewer due to the many trees I had removed last year in advance of a new septic system. Harder in that my successful experimentation with a low-grow, no-mow lawn gave me a thick bed of fescue and clover that coveted every leaf that sat upon it as if they did not want that blanket to be removed. The last sheet was the hardest to separate from their grasps.

This vigor stirred up not only sweat from me but the smells of the season. Fresh soil that became exposed had a simple, fresh aroma. Dead grass that was liberated from the mass by the tines of the rake was sweet and sour like a favorite Chinese take-out dish. The leaves had little fragrance yet as their liberation was fresh and decomposition in the early stages. But in few weeks they will have a distinctively pungent sour smell.

These are all expected and welcome aromas like that of an old friend you come to visit every year. But there was a new fragrance added to the mix that was completely unexpected. 

As I mentioned in my last post, a large leader from a sugar maple snapped barely missing my house. My arborist came by quickly cutting up the larger limbs and trunk of the tree into stove-sized sections while grinding up the rest. I not only kept large logs but also the resulting chips, that were violently regurgitated from a chute after being fed into an interlocking set of toothy rollers that tore though six-inch logs and branches without a thought. I was left with a cord and a half of wood, four yards or so of chips and a stump with 103 rings of age.

The pile of chips is a wonderful byproduct of the tree’s demise as I was about to go out and purchase loads of them to replenish beds and pathways around my gardens. As I put the first shovel into the pile, a tiny wisp of smoke emerged. Then with the next poke a much larger one and the smell of apple cider. The pile, as you dug deeper, was increasingly warm to the touch and with each layer disturbed smelled as would a tub of freshly crushed apples.

This isn’t the first time I associated food with a sugar maple on my property. About 5 years ago, we had some limbs from two sugar maples removed after a winter storm had damaged it and other trees. Toward the end of winter we noticed all the cuts off the maples were bleeding sap and figured out we had inadvertently tapped the trees. Never one to miss an opportunity we started to collect the sap and tried to boil it down on our wood stove dreaming of buckets of delicious maple syrup that would complement our traditional Sunday morning pancakes.

Every day for weeks we would collect a quart or two of sap and put it on the stove to boil down not realizing at the time that for every gallon of thick, dark maple syrup it takes up to 40 gallons of thin, transparent sap to produce it; at the end we got a little less than a half a pint. But it didn’t matter as the process made the house smell sweet, very much like the pile of chips next to my fence.

So with each shovel came a spurt of sweetness. When I emptied a wheelbarrow’s worth of chips came another. For a while I forgot about the leaves and other parts of the fall preferring to focus on this unexpected harvest and experience it for the rest of the day.

Capitol arboretums and botanic gardens

While most of the tourists in Washington D.C. go to places like the Air & Space or Holocaust Museums, we spent much of our spare time last weekend at the National Arboretum and Botanic Garden. As the weather was hot and thick with humidity, the opportunity to spend some reflective time walking among tropical trees, Asian gardens and rare plants was a welcome diversion.

We first visited the National Arboretum whose plantings were more temperate in nature. In walking through the grounds I realized how many of the plants we have in our garden that are not native to the Americas but rather to Asia. Hostas, rhododendrons, azaleas, rhubarb, Japanese maples, white birch and others are far more common in my yard than my native plantings such as witch hazel, American holly, mountain laurel and day lilies.

As an Arboretum it seemed less developed than others I had been to. Perhaps that is due to the research charter of the facility. There were a variety of different planting areas and exhibits such as bonsai and the Grove of State Trees. But much of it seemed left to nature’s whim as if the intense planning and control of a Federal Government had no place here. Ironically a plaza with the columns of the old Capitol building was surrounding by fields of clover and high grass appearing as would a skinny Stonehenge without apparent purpose or focus.

This like other museums we visited had an energy conservation theme as it showed how different plants could be used to generate power. The castor bean has great promise though the Arboretum didn’t at all inform the reader of its deadly properties, In fact many of the Arboretum’s plants identified by Amy Stewart’s excellent book, “Wicked Plants,” as potentially lethal are not looked in that light in the least.

The Botanic (rather than the botanical) garden was much more organized in keeping with its adjacent location to the U.S. Capitol Building. But like the U.S. Government, a labyrinth of paths and rooms led to a wide variety of unrelated ecosystems and vegetation and confusion.  Unlike government entities, however, getting lost and disoriented was half the fun as we traversed from a tropical jungle to a dry desert to a temperate children’s garden.

As we entered the garden we were greeted by a fruiting cacao tree, which had been pollinated by garden workers rather than by the more natural method of tiny flies native to the Andes and Central America. My wife Juana (pictured above with my brother Craig) looked at the pods of pre-chocolate in a greedy way wishing she could grab one and release its gooey innards. She was similarly tempted when she saw a flowering banana tree as well as papaya. All of her tropical buttons were triggered reminding me of stories of her youth when she and her sisters would take the flower of a banana tree and use it for play. I had no such youthful memories on Long Island, where the most exotic plant to me was a skunk cabbage.

The garden also had a variety of carnivorous plants very much like the ones I propagate. They are all considered endangered because of the loss of wetlands areas and I wish I had a bog where I could begin to repopulate these hungry and (to some) malevolent plants. The garden had a particularly magnificent specimen  of a Nepenthes ventricosa pitcher plant that I wanted to take home. Alas I kept my hands in my pockets and slinked on by.

One of the problems I always have in these types of gardens is the struggle to follow the rules: don’t touch, don’t take. Like a greedy slug or groundhog I want to devour and take samples so I can grow copies of these wonderful plants in my garden. My wife often needs to slap my hand or tug at me when the temptation is too strong.

One exhibit where this was not a problem was the Plants in Culture exhibit where we were all encouraged to smell the spices and flowers. In fact, many of the flowers being exhibited were rendered in stainless steel and aluminum rather than composed of chlorophyll and leafy or woody material. Poppies, sunflowers, bird’s of paradise and other flowers were built to last through many seasons and the potential abuse of visitors.

Upon walking out to the Mall from the Botanic Garden, it occurred to me how sterile our Nation’s main plaza is. Trees and grass. The American standard. It is a pity that the Mall could not better reflect the diversity that we saw last weekend. Perhaps when the Mall is finally restored such a vision will be realized. I doubt it.

Changes in attitude and spider homes

I was looking forward to picking up Cheryl a few days ago to work in the Children’s Garden at Green Chimneys. There was much to do as the broccoli had started to bolt and the spinach was perfect for harvest. When I picked her up, however, something wasn’t right. Cheryl was looking at one of the classroom computers intently and when told that it was time for her job replied, “I don’t want to go! I hate being in the garden.” Oh boy.

Upon walking with Cheryl to the garden I asked her how her week had gone and how she feels. “It has been horrible and things suck,” was the reply she made as she choked back a few tears. “Is there anything you want to do in the garden?,” I asked.

“No,” she said.

“Would you like to sit down and talk or walk?”

“No.”

A similar problem occurred with Cheryl a month ago and I decided to take her back to class rather than risk her having a breakdown in the garden. Unfortunately that decision may not have been the best as her return turned into a power struggle, which just made her more upset and agitated. I decided to take a different tack.

“Today Cheryl we will be harvesting spinach and broccoli. Would you like to see the peas we planted last month before we begin?”

“No.”

So we walked to the barn to get kneeling pads and pruning shears. With few words exchanged we sat down in front of the broccoli bed and I showed her how to harvest it using pruners. Cheryl nodded in understanding and worked quietly with a far away look on her face as she cut the heads and placed them in a bin. I didn’t try any conversation as I worked next to her weeding an adjacent patch. She remained emotionless as she worked though it appears that she was beginning to relax. Within five minutes her attitude started to change visibly. Her facial expressions softened and she noticed a butterfly that floated nearby.

In another five minutes she became more animated and content; by the end of the harvest, she was smiling and working intently. “I’m done,” she said with pride in her voice.

“No you aren’t,” I replied. “You missed one.”

In the middle of the broccoli patch was a tiny, uncut floret. I snipped it with my shears and gave it to her. "This is your reward. Try it.”

As she bit into it her eyes went wide and she said,” That’s awesome! It’s so delicious!” Cheryl had never had fresh broccoli before.

I smiled and asked her to pick up our harvest so we could weigh it in. As we walked toward where the scale was hanging I reflected upon how just being in the garden had changed Cheryl’s view. She went from a near meltdown to being extremely happy.

As we weighed the broccoli I grabbed a group of heads and stuck them in her face. The fresh smell of the cut heads was powerful and slightly sweet. Cheryl loved the smell and was amazed. “I never smelled anything like that,” she said.

“So what does it smell like?” I asked.

She thought about it for a while and replied that she didn’t know.

“It smells like broccoli, you silly goose,” I said. She laughed and smiled.

She had better attention and focus as we cut the spinach. She ate a leaf and was also amazed by the freshness and the taste. But mostly she was shocked by their size.” These are humungous,” she said. We then had a contest as to whom could find the most humungous spinach leaf. She won but not before she accidently ripped a large leaf. Cheryl wanted to try to fix it using scotch tape but I told her that most people would not like it as part of their dinner. “They could always take it off. It would look pretty.”

As we were finishing I noticed that there was a lone head of romaine lettuce that hadn’t been cut from the last time we were in the garden due to the fact that a large brown spider had taken up residence inside. “Do you think the spider is still there,” asked Cheryl remembering why we had left it. I pulled up a bunch of leaves and couldn’t see anything so we clipped it and added it to our pile. For the morning, we had harvested nearly 10 pounds of food.

As it turned out I had not been that good an inspector and as I was carrying the tote filled with produce, I noticed that our brown spider was climbing out of the cut lettuce carrying a large fluffy white ball. “What’s that?” asked Cheryl.

“That is the spider’s egg nest. She is getting ready to have babies.”

Because the spider was a mother, Cheryl was not as fast to ask me to kill it as is often the case when we come across spiders. So I placed the spider on a fence post and continued on our way.

“Cheryl, have you ever read the story ‘Charlotte’s Web’?”

“Yes it is one of my favorites.”

“Mine too,” I replied as we spent the remainder of our time talking about spiders, rats, barns and humongous spinach leaves. 

Harvest and sniff

Herbs are not usually ready for harvest in the early spring but a few weeks ago, one of my students and I needed to do a bit of cleaning in the garden and found ourselves in the middle of a smell-a-thon. It was early in the morning with the sun beginning to rise in the garden and melt the light frost, which hung off the plants and Agribon tube tunnels. It was brisk and windless. Selma and I needed to ready a bed for planting that had a patch of wintered-over coriander. Last November we had built a hoop house around the patch as it had self-seeded and looked too good to just let die. Amazingly even after the snow-laded winter, it bounced back in March and was ready for harvest a few weeks ago.

We opened the small hoop next to our Food Pantry row and a giant waft of coriander greeted us. Though chilly outside, within the blanket of the Agribon the coriander was warm and moist.

“How is this possible,” said Selma. “It was just winter a few weeks ago.”

One of the things that has pleased me about our garden at Green Chimneys is how we have been able to turn common wisdom on its head by extending the seasons and times we have been able to work in the garden. From harvesting lettuce in December, to carrots in January, to turnip greens in March, we have been able to show how the earth (and garden) is continuously alive.

With our pruners we cut the bottom of the herb and placed it into a bucket. Selma kept huddled on one side of the hoop as the heat rising from the soil kept her warm. She initially wanted to put on gloves but I told her that it would be more fun to use her bare hands as she would better be able to smell the herbs. She didn’t understand until I told her to smell her hands after a few cuttings. She did and a big smile erupted on her face. I told her that we would be giving the coriander to the kitchen, which would use it for future meals. Our progress was somewhat slow as she kept putting her hands to her nose to take in the fragrance. We were able to harvest a pound of the herb.

After finishing that task, we went to the herb row where we have our perennials including thyme, sage, oregano, mint and lavender. The sun had yet to fully warm this area and a blanket of frost still covered many of the herbs. We needed to trim the thyme, which had escaped its bed and was beginning to enter the walking path.

I told Selma to cut a line with her pruners straight across the bed so that the thyme would appear as a fuzzy line on top of the bed’s rail. The thyme had gotten thick and woody so it was hard for her to get a straight line and she became frustrated quickly. I told her to relax, not worry and to smell some of the different herbs that were in the garden; I gave her some of the thyme she was trying to cut as well as lavender and mint.

“What do they remind you of?” I asked. She could not recall exactly. “This [the lavender] reminds me of home,” she said. “Perhaps your mother or grandmother used to have a perfume that they would wear,” I suggested. “Or maybe a soap that you use or they had at home.” She perked up. “Yes that is it. Could I smell it a bit more?”

I agreed and then we got back to work to cut back the thyme. When her hands became tired, she went back to the lavender for a sniff and remembrance of things past. With this bit of help, Selma was able to work steadily and well. As a reward I gave her a little sprig of lavender to keep. After we finished, we took our buckets of thyme and coriander to the kitchen to be used in a future meal for the school. Selma kept the lavender near her nose for most of the walk.

New children, old pleasures

I have always thought it is better to be lucky than good and that has certainly been the case since our return to the North as we were met by the warmest mid-March weather that I can remember in a long time. By early last week, the cold was but a memory with only a few rapidly decaying piles of dirty icy snow remaining in the back of parking lots. At home, everything had melted and we were starting to clean up the garden.

More importantly it was time to return to Green Chimneys to pick up where I left off with my kids. Like my yard, the Children’s Garden had thawed and beginning to push out growth. This year we had build many more hoop houses than in years past resulting in an early jump for planting. Last year at this time the ground was frozen and not ready to be worked; this year because of the protective nature  of the hoop houses, many of the rows were ready for sowing.

While I was gone, Tracy and Allie had harvested all the carrots from one of the raised beds. The turnip greens I had planted in the fall were recovering in another row and will be ready for harvest in the next month. A row of spinach that we had planted as a lark last September wintered over nicely with tiny rosettes 4-inches in diameter. It was exceptionally sweet.

On my first day back I was greeted with 70 degree weather as well as a new group of students. All of the children were excited to be back in the garden. I tasked my first charge, Linda, to clean up our herb garden and dress it up with Sweet Peat. I gave Linda a pair of garden pruners and we started to remove old stalks of mint.

I asked her if she remembered what herb was here before. She didn’t.

“Rub your hands on the stalks and see if you can remember,” I said. She removed her gloves and rubbed the stalks against her two hands and moved them to her nose. At first she looked puzzled but then she smiled and said, “It’s mint, isn’t it?”

I had her do the same to the herbs that we were not cutting including some creeping thyme, oregano and lavender. The freshness of the herbs seemed to refresh her as she tired. When she started to become either bored or had difficulty with the task, we would take a quick aromatherapy break and I would ask her what each herb reminded her of.  Lavender reminded her of perfume. Most children identify oregano as the pizza herb.

I had my next set of children work in our Row for the Hungry, which had produced over 100 pounds of food for a local food pantry in 2009. To start the season, we needed to add compost. Our pile of compost was over six foot high and much of it was still frozen. I instructed Ben to work around the edges rather than dig into the middle. He would not listen and kept striking the side of the pile ineffectually. He started to become frustrated.

“Ben, if you go with your shovel around the sides and top it will be much easier,” I said. “Let me show you.”

I took the shovel and started to scrape off the warm compost from the top and the sides of the pile. Ben looked on and asked how did I know that the top would be melted.

“Ben, this pile was rock solid only a few weeks ago but since then the sun has been warming it up so parts have started to melt. It takes a long time, however, for the sun and warmth to reach the middle of the pile, which is why it is still too hard to shovel. By removing the top and sides of the pile, we are helping the sun melt the pile faster.”

Ben seemed to understand and he filled up the wheelbarrow many times using the technique I showed him. He was happy to be working up a sweat and getting the bed ready for planting.

I took my next charge, Eric, to the cold frame near the greenhouse to collect the lettuce. Our cold frames are both thrifty and clever. We use rotting bales of hay to build a space next to one of our greenhouses and place old storm windows on top to capture the sun during the day and discarded horse blankets in the evening to hold the heat. These structures are actually warm frames as the rotting hay creates heat via an exothermic reaction. When I arrived at Green Chimneys in the morning it was 37 degrees yet the warm frame was emitting billows of steam. We use them to harden off the seedlings that had been started in prior weeks before placing them into the garden.

As we were removing the storm windows, I had Eric place his hand within the first layer of hay. “That’s really hot,” he said. I then explained to him that the decaying hay was generating heat, which in turn kept our seedlings warm. He thought it was cool that old hay would heat our plants.

In looking over our stock, we had a good selection of vegetables to choose from: broccoli, lettuce, arugula, cauliflower and spinach. I grabbed a flat and a half of romaine lettuce, placed the cell packs in the wagon and started with Eric back to the garden.

Though the wagon was weighted down, Eric kept digging in to pull it. On a few occasions he wanted to have me pull it but I told him I would help him, but not do his job for him. He understood and we shared the task.

Eric and Fred, my next student, would spend the rest of their time planting lettuce. It takes a bit of dexterity to separate the seedlings from the cell pack but after a few simple demonstrations, each was able to remove the root balls intact. Both students were amazed to see how the intertwined roots held the soil in the rectangular shape of each cell.  Thin white roots contrasting against the dark soil created an interesting pattern that was unique to each seedling. On the rare occasions when the soil fell apart, each thought that they had ruined or killed the plant.  I assured each that the plant was fine and if we tenderly placed it into the hole we had dug, it would grow well.

When working with children who are planting seedlings, I have found that the best way to work is as a team switching jobs with the student and letting the student take the lead in determining how we should plant the seedlings. Both Eric and Fred, however, liked to remove the seedlings from the cell pack and plant them leaving me to dig the holes.

The children are beginning to get used to working in the garden in all seasons. All were hoping for a veggie snack, but there was little to be had. The sorrel was just beginning to come up and we had very small rosettes of spinach and leaves of romaine lettuce. I gave each child a bit of lettuce and spinach telling them to be a bit patient as food would be forthcoming in the next month or so. They nodded with approval.

Christmas greens (not to eat)

This is the longest stretch I have not been blogging since I started this endeavor almost six months ago. It has not been for lack of topics but rather lack of time as the Christmas season can easily consume any spare moments. Making preparations for Santa more than makes up for the time I get back from a dormant garden. Christmas is a pretty big event for our family so between the cards (we are still sending snail mail), the gifts, the wrapping, etc. it is a frenetic season. And when it comes to plants, there is much that needs to be done.

Planning for Christmas begins back in August when we remove the amaryllises from their perch in the back of the garden and place them in the basement to go dormant. Regardless of my methods, I never seem to be able to get them to bloom around Christmas. This year I potted them up in early to mid-November with half of them still appearing dormant and the other half just beginning to leaf out. So there will be no amaryllis this Christmas but with any luck they will bloom in the next month or so.

Christmas cacti is a misnomer as ours bloom during Easter, Halloween and Thanksgiving. Every holiday but Christmas. While the professionals are much better than I in timing the flowers, there is only so much work I am willing to put forth with house plants. For us their blooms will be a surprise.

After Thanksgiving we start decorating in earnest, with this year compressed due to its late date. The big outside job is to put lights on a recently transplanted fir that we bought over a decade ago in memory of my mother-in-law, Stella. Every year the task has become more difficult as the tree has increased in size; this may be our last year of it having lights unless I want to break out my 30-foot house ladder. Or hire a cherry picker.

Even though it was difficult to hook up the lights this year it was a lot of fun with my daughter, Kathryn, and nieces , Helen and Lucy, as we tromped through the pachysandra tossing strings of lights around the different branches. It does look spectacular this year though because of all the snow we have had. I am not sure I’ll be able (or wanting) to take the lights down until the spring.

The next part of our Christmas greenery was to cut down a tree. We are fortunate to live in an area where there are lots of Christmas tree farms within an hour’s drive of our home. We don’t have any favorite farm but rather drive to a different place every year to be surprised. This year’s trip was a real Courier & Ives experience as we drove through the hills of western Connecticut surrounded by a landscape covered with freshly fallen snow. Trooping through snow while throwing snowballs at each other just added to the special time we had in selecting our tree this year. And while we cut down the tree over three weeks ago my wife Juana just put the finishing touches on her nativity under the tree this afternoon. It takes a lot of time to build a village.

I then planted up a couple of pots of paperwhites for a Christmas display. Like the amaryllis, I was late in potting them up and will not get flowers for at least another week, though their fresh growth is wonderful to look at. We wait anxiously for their sweet overpowering smell.

Wreaths were next on my list and I bought quite a few from the country store at Green Chimneys, where I volunteer. One of the employees makes wreaths daily so the shop emits the sweet smell of conifer sap. The fir wreaths had bits of white pine throughout giving them a more fluffy and festive look than the typical ones brought down from Canada. I also purchased a few holly wreaths and combined them on our front door and gate for a wonderful effect. Pinecone wreaths that I made years ago were also brought out for display as well as dried mistletoe.

Then there are the little touches. Thick mosses growing on rocks outside brought in for my wife’s nativity. A rope of princess pine, which is neither a true vascular plant nor true fern, used for accents. Pine cones placed around the mantle. Small holly shrubs and a miniature spruce replace long since spent summer annuals in window boxes. Sprigs of winterberry and viburnum are place to accent other plants with their delicate dried berries.

With the hope of not having to leave my yard for a Christmas tree, I planted a quartet of blue spruce seedlings. Three years ago we harvested a fir that had self-seeded in the yard. So now every year we plant a couple of seedlings with the hope of a Christmas tree selection in five years or so.

And what of poinsettias? My wife and I went on a small field trip to a local wholesale greenhouse and were mesmerized by a sea of this time-dependent plant (for a poinsettia to bloom it needs to be in total darkness for 15 hours for 45 to 60 days). Reds, pinks, whites, variegated combinations lined up ready for market. It gave my wife ideas of what she really wanted this year from this Mexican plant.

Tomorrow I need to run off and buy the last of our Christmas food. The plants are done for now. Except, like Thanksgiving, their ingredients will make up the vast majority of our winter feast. And with any luck I may be able to pull greens from the garden to eat (rather than display). That would be a real treat. I’ll put it on my Christmas list.

Pruning expectations

One of the things that is always a bit of a crap shoot in the garden is introducing a tool to a child. You never know how much experience or aptitude they have and you are always on edge as to how well and safely they can use what you place in their hands. Even something as elemental as a shovel may be totally unknown to a child. In certain circumstances it can be turned into a weapon.

For me that has not been the case so far and my largest concerns have been two fold: How to make the children feel successful with a tool and for the children not to hurt themselves (or me) while using it. This came to mind recently with different children as we were cutting stevia and sage to dry.

The project we were working on was straight forward: Cut two-thirds of the growth off each plant, collect a small bundle of branches, tie the branches together in a bundle and then hang them in the shed to dry . The first child Alec (not his real name,) had little trouble with the chore or the tool. After I showed him the locking mechanism of the Felco #6 pruners I gave him, he was able to figure out where to cut, how to organize the cuttings and group them after being trimmed and then hung them in the shed. He was a natural and even though it was the first time he used pruners, he mastered the tool quickly.

But my next charge, William (not his real name,) was an entirely different story. The locking mechanism was a puzzlement to him. At the start he couldn’t figure out how to open the pruner by engaging the locking mechanism even though I showed him how it worked. I needed to demonstrate the action of the pruner and assist William quite a few times before he could open and close it with ease. Then it was time to cut. While in certain ways he more clever and advanced than Alec, he could not understand the concept of two-thirds. I altered the cut length to one-half, but that didn’t work either.

So to have a successful session, I grabbed each branch and told William to cut it right below my fingers, about 1 inch. In the beginning for me, this was a little dangerous as William found it difficult to regulate the distance between the cutting blades of the pruners and my fingers. Sometimes he was 6 inches off, other times he was too close for comfort. But after a half dozen attempts he was able to cut the branches about 1 inch below my fingers. I took the sage and dropped it into a small pile next to us.

When we were ready to tie bundles of sage I told William to take four branches, match the ends together and then hold the bunch so I could tie it up. He said fine and then dropped the pruner on the ground.

“William, why did you drop the pruner?” Nothing. He stared. I picked up the pruner.

“Please William, look at the pruner. What do you see?”

“Dirt and stuff.”

“That’s right and that dirt and stuff will clog the pruner and make the blades dull. Remember what I told you before. When you finish using the pruner, you lock the blade and then put it in your pocket.”

He nodded. I had him clean the blades, lock the pruner and place it into his pocket. We then tied bundles of sage. He didn’t drop the pruner for the rest of our time together easily moving back and forth between cutting the sage and helping me tie it into bundles.

Then there was George (not his real name) who earlier in the day was unable to safely use the pruner. Like Alec, George was able to figure out the mechanics of the pruner quickly and could use it well to harvest lettuce. But when we stopped to take a break, George took the pruner and placed the space between his thumb and index finger between the blades of the pruner.

“George,” I said in a firm but calm manner. “What you are doing now isn’t safe. Stop.”  He followed my instruction but within a minute he repeated his prior action.

“OK George. Why don’t we mix it up a bit and I will cut the lettuce and you place it in the bin.” He thought that was a great idea as the lettuce we needed to harvest was in the center of the row and hard for him to reach without stepping in the garden. I took the pruner from him and we finished our activity without incident.

I often wonder how far I should let the children go when faced with this type of choice. I don’t think that George realized the danger of his actions, but I didn’t want to take too many chances and have him slice a piece of his hand off. As it was, we had a good work session and he was happy as I took him back to class. Next time I give George pruners, I’ll have a more controlled activity so that he will learn how to use them safely. Or so I hope.