Because of the drought, I did no planting this spring, and instead let existing things go to seed. As I result, I have my own fennel and coriander seeds from the garden, as well as lots of chicken food!
But here it is, poetry Monday, and despite working all day in the garden, I need to post a poem. I found a set of poems that Richard Brautigan wrote on seed packets. Here is one, and you can see more here:
Although I have turned off the irrigation because of the drought, I have been watering the garden with dishwater from the sink–several gallons a day. In response, things are still looking good:
In the backyard, I’m using water from the shower…not as much growing, but still enough! Of course it’s early in the season, but I’m’ still hopeful.
After my trip to New England last month, where gardens are pretty much over for the year, I doubly appreciate being able to start a garden for fall and winter. I took all the dead tomato stalks, pea vines, and other debris, and turned them into mulch with the Eco-shredder, then planted seedlings and nestled them in:
The raw debris
The debris shredded to mulch
The mulched seedlings and garden.
Theres lots more, of course–seedlings waiting for planting, herbs flowers and spinach in the labyrinth, wildflowers sprouting up unasked for. What’s such a contrast to the winter I grew up in is that this is really the start of the been season here. I love it!
And here’s a Monday poem, by that garden master, Theodore Roethke, with his own thoughts about debris and the life force:
Nothing would sleep in that cellar, dank as a ditch,
Bulbs broke out of boxes hunting for chinks in the dark,
Shoots dangled and drooped,
Lolling obscenely from mildewed crates,
Hung down long yellow evil necks, like tropical snakes.
And what a congress of stinks!–
Roots ripe as old bait,
Pulpy stems, rank, silo-rich,
Leaf-mold, manure, lime, piled against slippery planks.
Nothing would give up life:
Even the dirt kept breathing a small breath.
Theodore Roethke
I posted this photo the other day, when the first of the Epiphyllum flowers bloomed. Yesterday, I watched a bee drench herself in pollen till she could hardly fly…
That little gold lump is the pollen pouch on her leg–almost as big as she is and one on each side!
Then I wrote this, which I’ll probably regret posting in its unedited state, but…
Epiphyllum
From squat slabs of cactus flesh
they flame up:
crimson tinged with fuchsia,
these giant
scentless
siren calls,
filigreed with pollen.
Even I
want in.
As for the bee,
she can’t get enough,
her back legs
so doused
with pollen
she drops straight down
before she can
struggle back up
and fly.
I’ve had this Epiphyllum for a long time, but it’s been languishing in the wrong corner of the garden–too much sun or not the right sun. A few months ago I moved it towards the street where it gets filtered late afternoon sun, and I’ve been watching it revive and bud… This morning, the first bloom.
And lots more to come…
All of which made me think of Stanley Kunitz, as I often do when I’m in the garden, as he was almost as famous for his garden as his poetry.
But often, when weeding especially, creating my own little piles (both physical and metaphorical), I think of this poem by Louise Glück…
I like watching you garden
with your back to me in your purple bathing suit:
your back is my favorite part of you,
the part furthest away from your mouth.
You might give some thought to that mouth.
Also to the way you weed, breaking
the grass off at ground level
when you should pull it by the roots.
How many times do I have to tell you
how the grass spreads, your little
pile notwithstanding, in a dark mass which
by smoothing over the surface you have finally
fully obscured. Watching you
stare into space in the tidy
rows of the vegetable garden, ostensibly
working hard while actually
doing the worst job possible, I think
you are a small irritating purple thing
and I would like to see you walk off the face of the earth
because you are all that’s wrong with my life
and I need you and I claim you.
Louise Glück
So deceptively simple and darkly complex! Now we’ll wait and see what the deer think of the Epiphyllum–I doubt my feeling if they eat it will be complex at all.
Sometimes I think that garden photos are about as boring as photos of someone else’s unknown family members on vacation, but this month, I can’t resist. Everything is just so lush:
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And I made my first dinner completely from the garden last night: Fava, parsnip, onion, garlic and tatsoi stir fry. Yum!
Everything here is blooming, spouting, burgeoning. The hens are laying, the bees are busy, and I watch the vegetables grow as much as an inch a day:
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It’s hard to be indoors at all…
Yesterday was the last Saturday of the month, which is the day of the great Berkeley compost giveaway. From 7:30 in the morning till it runs out, energetic Berkeley gardeners can shovel as much compost as we want into whatever vehicle or containers we bring.
This was the scene about 10 minutes before the official start of the process. I was in the middle, so this is about half as long as the compost mountain stretched. Nonetheless, people come early, as I did.
Then I spent the day carrying bags of compost downhill and spreading it in the unplanted sections of the garden.
As I have most of the growing sections fenced off, I decided to let the chickens participate. They went right to it, picking out weed seeds and bugs, taking deep dirt baths, and generally mixing up the soil for me. For once, they did just what I needed, and left my seedlings alone.
Plus they were very happy to do it.
After a long plane ride (this one was 11+ hours!), it often feels to me like I am still trailing molecules of myself along the flight path, and it takes awhile to feel reassembled in one place. Today, three days at home, I finally feel here. I celebrated by working on a poem and making a real breakfast from the garden enhanced with salt from the Camargue.
Both the literary and the culinary work were satisfying, with the hens still contributing a few eggs. Continue reading “We’re back”
Camping was only one of several recent adventures–about two weeks worth. In my absence, the garden has been burgeoning. The labyrinth is hardly labyrinthine anymore, it’s so overgrown, and a sweet potato flower has curled into the driveway.
The back is full of vegetables. We’re eating the tomatoes as fast as they ripen, but there are plenty of other delights: carrots, cucumbers, squash, potatoes, onions, scallions, and lots of kale and spinach.
Is there anything more delicious than produce from your own garden?
Meanwhile, despite foxes, the chicken population has been growing, too. I had ordered four chicks by mail before my eggs hatched, as insurance for winter eggs. However, only one of the four survived. I tried to get the mother to take the extra chick after our eggs hatched, and it seemed at first that despite the difference in size (three weeks old compared to newly hatched) she would accept her. But after a few hours the next morning, she was treating her like a threat. The girls convinced me that Toasty (their name for the chick) was lonely and needed friends. Continue reading “While I was gone…”
My neighbor and I have gotten to be friends, bonding over our love of chickens. George is an avid gardener and I have been trading him eggs for various plants. The most recent is this Peruvian tuber, called a Yacón (or Yacun). 
As you can see (using the spoon for scale), the tubers grow very large. When you peel and slice a piece, it’s like a sweeter, juicier jicama. It’s great in fruit salads, taking on the flavor of the fruit, in regular salads, or in stews. I like it so much I got some rhizomes from George to plant my own.
George said gophers were extraordinarily fond of the tubers, so I dug a bed and lined it with chicken wire before I planted them. Continue reading “The mysterious Yacón, footsteps on the roof”
Every gardener has favorite plants. Mine is a little vine called Ceropegia Distincta. It looks like nothing but a lot of green sticks a lot of the time, and then suddenly sprouts tendrils and leaves. Little flower buds form that turn into white and purple polka dotted upside down umbrellas that look like an illustration from a Dr Seuss book, this one from McElligot’s Pool. After months looking lifeless, the ceropegia is doing it again this week:
It’s not a metaphor for anything, but is just itself.
