GroHappy

Eating on the wild side

As rains and warming temperatures bring new growth to wanted plants, our unwanted plants “weeds” seem to always outpace those more desirable cultivars. But one must remember that a weed is just a plant that you don’t want in a particular place. So with that in mind I thought about changing a few heads at my recent horticultural therapy class at Ann’s Place about the “weeds” that might be all too common to their yards and gardens. And even quite yummy.

With all the talk of eating veg raised nearby I thought the most local way that you could eat would be from your own back yard. Time to forage. This was an easy class to prep for as my yard is replete with weeds as I use no herbicides or fertilizers on my lawn or ground-cover areas. So when I went out for a quick search for eatable plants. They were easy to find. I found burdock, chives, clover, dandelion, garlic mustard, mints, plantain, Queen Anne's lace, sheep sorrel, sweet woodruff, violets, wild garlic, wild onion and wild thyme.

At this time of year the dominant weeds are garlic mustard and dandelion, though red and white clovers are beginning to make a good push through the Earth to cover the bald spots on my lawn. And I have to admit that I picked some sweet woodruff a week ago, dried it and then mixed it with strawberries to make May wine to serve to my students.

As I laid out my different samples I was a bit shocked on the diversity of plants I had. It was a mix of sweet and tangy greens and different herbs that could dress up any salad we made or freshen up a dish with a unfamiliar flavor. After taking my clients out for a walk, they came back ready to dig in somewhat amazed at what you could do with the different plants.

“This first one, burdock, is a delicacy in Asia. The tap root is cooked. But the small leaves can be used in a salad while the larger ones sautéed,” I said. “Historically this has been used as a diuretic as well as a remedy for skin problems.”

I offered clients a taste and the group was very divided with half deciding to take a chance while the other half demurring politely. Perhaps I should not have told them first that poison hemlock (used to kill Socrates) looks just like Queen Anne’s lace though it is easy to tell them apart (QAL has hairy stems, hemlock does not; the root of QAL smells like a carrot; the disturbed leaves of hemlock smell as would a rodent.) But I did need to warn them about foraging in the wild as there are a variety of very poisonous plants out in the yard, as well described in Amy Steward’s excellent book Wicked Plants.

“If you are not very, very sure of what you are ingesting, don’t take a chance. Also don’t harvest food from areas that have been sprayed; on the other hand if the areas had been sprayed, the weeds would likely be dead.”

That said, all were very interested in at least the smells of the different plants: no harm in smelling. I was able to clip a mint from our property that my mother-in-law had smuggled in from Guatemala many years ago. It has a very strong minty scent with a bright purple stalk. “It is really best used for chicken soup,” said my wife Juana who attended the session along with my granddaughter Charlotte. Each client took a sample to start at home.

“Sorrell is a great addition to salads if you want a bit of a kick,” I said. “Another name for it is lemon leaf because of the flavor and it is a favorite with kids.” And then almost on cue Charlotte reached over to stuff one in her mouth. She chomped on it with a big smile.

After I finished with the plants I got out the May wine, a traditional German drink to celebrate May Day as well as the coming of Spring. As I opened the carafe I let each client smell the mixing of the herbs, fruits and wine. “This is amazing,” said one. All were smiling in anticipation of that first sip.

“Now be careful when you drink this as it does have a reputation as an aphrodisiac,” I said. They all smiled at me and took their first sip. No one was displeased.

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.

Tussie-mussie mashup

After a series of natural mishaps, I have finally been able to start the horticultural therapy program at Ann’s Place. While 2011 was the year of building out the landscaping, this year I hope to build out programs as well as a number of therapeutic gardens. Creating tussie-mussies would be my first project.  Tussie-mussies were popular among women in Victorian England in the 19th century and represented the high point of flowers as an expression of language. There were countless pocket volumes of books that became essential companions of young women attempting to decipher the meaning of a bouquet. Red rose means passionate love, a daisy, innocence and rosemary, remembrance. During the heyday of tussie-mussies young women would consult a variety of different “floral dictionaries” to discern the true meaning of a received bouquet from a suitor or friend.

While flowers are often considered to be expressions of beauty and loveliness, they can also have not-so-nice meanings. For example, the combination of foxglove, nettle, lettuce, and a yellow carnation would basically say “ I have distain (yellow carnation) for you, you cruel (nettle), cold-hearted (lettuce), insincere (foxglove) person. If you add the herb valerian (shown on the left) to the mix you add the insult ‘drunk and slutty.’ This is probably a flower you never want to include in any bouquet (unless you want to break up with someone.)

But none of these plants were part of the bunch I put together for the half dozen or so of clients I had to work with. All save one were women. While many had a good background with flowers, few knew of the tussie-mussie story, which goes back to Aztec and Middle-Age cultures.

You can make a tussie-mussie with just a few flowers but given the fact that I didn’t know what people would want to say I had to collect a wide variety of flora, some of which I clipped from my yard and surrounding gardens.  They were:

Arborvitae—Unchanging friendship
Baby’s breath—Pure heart, festivity
Carnation —Admiration
Carnation, Deep red—Alas, for my poor heart
Carnation, Pink –Woman’s love, beauty, pride
Cedar—Strength
Daffodil—Respect, chivalry, gracefulness
Daisy—Innocence, simplicity
Fern—Fascination, sincerity
Forsythia—Good nature
Holly—Good will, domestic happiness
Ivy—Fidelity
Lily, tiger—Wealth, pride
Moss—Maternal love
Periwinkle—Pleasures of memory
Primrose—Early youth
Rose—Love
Rose, Red—I love you
Rose, Yellow—Friendship
Rosemary—Remembrance
Sage—Virtue, wisdom, skill
Spruce—Farewell, hope in adversity, immortality
Thyme—Activity

As I showed my clients how to put together different bouquets I told them to be watchful in the future of what types of bouquets they purchase from stores as it is easy to make mistakes. I had pictures of four different flower arrangements, each of which looked very nice, each of which had very different meanings. “This one, for instance, is for a hangover as the main flower is hens-and-chicks, which means,’welcome-home-husband-regardless-of-how-drunk-you-are”  One woman mused how perhaps she could send that to her ex.

Cedar, which represents strength, was a favorite adornment but was easily confused with arborvitae (unchanging friendship). While they look very similar, cedar has the smell of cat urine when cut; it was easy to differentiate once with a simple snip. Some of my clients initially made their bouquets too large but were able to scale them down with a bit of help and guidance. It takes a bit of a knack to tie everything together as many people have the tendency to grab a large number of samples and try to tie the group together rather than layer in one or two at a time, attaching them with florist wire.

I created a small tussie-mussie for my wife, showing my clients that bigger is not necessarily better. I picked a red rose, daffodils, periwinkle and primrose. They thought it very beautiful and when I brought it home to Juana (with a crib sheet of meanings) she thought it equally beautiful and sweet and rewarded me with a kiss.

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.

Looking to no-mow a no-grow lawn, part 4

Last fall I stopped writing about my fledgling lawn as the grip of winter ceased its growth. It’s been a long haul over the past 8 months since the first bits grass were planted. To recap, over two-thirds of the property that I garden was torn up last August when a new septic system was installed. The lawn was torn up, which over the years went from a Wimbledon-like monoculture supported by a lawn service and chemicals by the prior owner to a collection of greenery that was mowed and neglected by me. To me the purpose of a lawn is to stop erosion and support the occasional Wiffle Ball game that our family plays during the holidays. So unlike many of my fellow Americans (and neighbors) I do as little as possible to spruce up and maintain the lawn. I don’t fertilize it. I don’t water it. I let the clippings fly and decompose where they might. I mow the law with a Scott’s manual mower and behead recalcitrant blades with a hand sickle. And my wife and I have aggressively been shrinking the size of our lawn with flower beds, shrubbery, ferns and anything else that will take up space.

So rather than do the slavish thing and replant in rye or bluegrass (which require lots of water and chemical support to be healthy,) I figured that I would seed with grass (and other things) that would require little if any care. Throwing caution and seeds to the wind, I replanted with clover and five different varieties of fine fescue that grow slowly and need little human intervention. I then waited and worried.

Unlike rye, fescue grows deliberately and slowly with most of the grass showing growth of a little over 1 inch in a patchy fashion by the time it went dormant in November. Given the sloping topography of my land I was worried that it would not hold the soil and large rivulets would be gouged from the soil. But surprisingly, after three storms that each dumped between 6 and 10 inches of rain, there was little erosion. The tiny blades were holding the soil, which meets my first criterion for a lawn.

But there were a lot of bald spots so I decided in late March to mix 1 pound of clover seed with 40 pounds of play sand and broadcast it over the lawn to complement the fledgling grass. And with the rain and warmth of spring it started to grow as well as the grass I planted.

In some areas the lawn had become thick and lush. Erma Bombeck wrote a book called, “The Grass is Always Greener over the Septic Tank,” which shows she knew nothing about grass or a septic tank. The reality is that the grass is always greener over the septic field, which is where my grass and clover was growing well.

By early May the lawn had become a quilt of a few stubborn dirt spots, tuffs of clover, thick and thin patches of fescue and crabgrass. Now I didn’t plant crabgrass. The birds and the wind did. For a while I didn’t care and had an attitude of noblesse oblige. A no-mow lawn is about not working (or caring) that much about a lawn. Let 1,000 weeds flourish. Who cares? Already some bugleweed had taken hold in areas as well as wild violets. Dandelions took their own place and the clover was spreading nicely. I also seeded some creeping thyme in my greenhouse and it should be ready for transplanting in another month or so around the lawn to take its place. I’m sure other things will emerge and I was looking forward to it.

After a few weeks, however, a certain cultivar of crabgrass became all too pervasive. Its presence started innocently with a few lean sentinels rearing their forms six to nine inches above the soil. No big deal. I grabbed my sickle and knocked them down in a few minutes. (Other crabgrass expressed itself by simply laying down. It could stay.)

But like the mythical beast Hydra of Lerna for every blade I cut, two or more sprouted up. And their growth seemed faster and more virulent than before. These lean sentinels became thick groupings. Taking my mower to these persistent intruders was a waste of time. This crabgrass adheres to the Taoist proverb, "To bend like the reed in the wind, that is the real strength."

Now if I just let them go, they would change my no-mow lawn to a swinging-sickle one. So with few natural alternatives I’ve been pulling crabgrass. Every day. And it seems to be working. For now.

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.

Shoveling snow, sowing seeds

 

After being away for five weeks it was good to come home though as we approached the less temperate North, it was with a bit of trepidation. We got lucky, however, as the warm weather seemed to follow us home and when we arrived a few days ago the temperatures were in the high 50s with much of the snow melted. Except at our home.

As we live on the top of a ridge, on a northern-facing slope, the warming rays of the sun were turning a blind eye to our snow timidly bouncing off rather than being absorbed. On Tuesday there was still a foot of snow in our backyard while in town there was barely a pile of snow to be found.

But the warm weather has held and with a strong rainstorm expected this weekend, the snow should be a faded memory. My kids had done a good job shoveling off the greenhouse and the cold frames so that the snow would not collapse them but there was lots of snow surrounding them. With a warm sun beating down, I took out the ice chipper and shovel and dug out the paths in the greenhouse so it would be less dangerous to walk and work around the garden. After removing much of the piled-on snow, I carefully pulled away the white blanket of icy snow from our herb garden with the hope that some of the perennials would reemerge within the month so we could put some of our McCormick spices into storage. 

Still most of my vegetable garden is under snow, while the cold frame and hoop houses are toasty. As I lifted one of the cold-frame panels, a waft of warm, moist air greeted me as well as the smell of rotting vegetation.

The Swiss Chard, Romaine and Mizuna greens had been wiped out by the cold. I pulled their shriveled and rotting leaf remnants from the garden and placed them into the compost heap. The soil, warm to the touch, gave them up easily and weeds were starting to sprout. I then took my trowel and placed it into the soil; it went down over six inches. All was not lost in the garden. The Winter Destiny lettuce was perky with a small head that is about 3 inches in diameter.  I broke off a small leaf and enjoyed its sweet taste and crisp texture.  I am hoping that with the warmth and spring light its growth will accelerate and be ready for harvest in the next month.

It is a bit early but having nothing to lose save a few seeds I decided to sow a few early spring crops. After working some compost into the area I intended to plant, I put in a few rows of radishes, lettuce and spinach. With any kind of luck I should see some sprouts in a week or so. That would not be the case for the garlic and strawberries, which still sat under a foot of snow.

The rest of the yard was still recovering and I found a bunch of snowdrops that had sprouted since we left. It was one of the few signs that the weather had turned.

Spring peeks

While it is snowing today and recoating the ground with a clean white blanket, earlier this week we were treated to one of the typical albeit unpredictable thaws that often occurs in late January or early February. A southern storm moved up the coast doubling the temperature to a balmy 55 degrees and dumped three inches of rain to transform our dirty icy plot into a soaked muddy mass. When the rain ended and the ground drained I surveyed my property to collect broken twigs and sticks and to see how things were fairing. What surprised me were the number of plants that were greening up and growing.

I hadn’t been into the cold frame or hoop houses since mid December as the relentless cold and snow have given me little reason to peek inside. But instead of stalactites of icy hanging off the panes, there was a thick cloud of moisture and heavy drops of water. Upon opening the frame a wave of hot air and a strangely sweet scent embraced me slightly fogging up my glasses and obscuring the condition of my greens. It was better than I imagined.

The kyona mizuna and endive looked as if they had had it for the season. The leaves were dry and crinkly. The romaine, red- and oak-leaf and Winter Destiny lettuces, however, were holding their own with fresh tasty leaves. The Swiss Chard was a mess with running rotting leaves through a few fresh ones were emerging from the centers. I cleaned out the plot of the decay and replaced the panes so that the lettuces (perhaps) would begin to increase in size.

The parsley, which had been buried in snow, was remerging with a few fresh leaves hanging over its raised bed. As I bit into one, I was reminded of summer pesto sauces and late afternoons on the patio with a summer beer in hand. That was far from me now though an 82 degree temperature reading in my greenhouse almost made me want to grab a beer and  chair so I could sit amongst my potting tools and supplies contemplating the day.

As I walked by some of our overgrown butterfly bushes I noticed that some of the branches were sporting fresh green leaves. These leaves were more than outnumbered by their shriveled counterparts but they were alive and growing well. I couldn’t figure out how such a tender bush could still have intact leaves given the fact that we had over a week of sub-10 degree temperature weather earlier this month.

A normal sprouting of snowdrops in an adjacent flower bed was more acceptable to the senses though surprising. The ground is still very frozen for most of my property but perhaps the bulbs’ proximity to a concrete foundation provided them with enough warming to coax growth.

The three hellebores in a different garden were all healthy with large buds looking as if they would soon burst into flower. Today’s snow will slow that down but I’m looking forward to the blooms of this “Christmas rose”  in the next month or so. Next to one of these plants was a wild strawberry that my wife planted last year. It looked fine as if it was getting ready to put out buds for spring berries. Our large bed of strawberries are resting beneath a bed of hay though a few fresh and green stragglers were poking their heads out, apparently seeking the sun. The many foxgloves that self seeded themselves were greening up though some of the larger plants’ outer leaf margins were burned. The smaller, ones, however, looked ready to start sending a flowing spike up toward the sun.

The last little surprise was the emergence of a few iris spikes in the back yard. Something that I have never seen before.

So with the warmth came little bits of spring though now they are all buried under four inches of snow.

We need another warming trend, but I don’t think one is coming any time soon.

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.