I wish I had a river

I don't remember when I started not liking the "Holiday Season." As a kid I loved Christmas - the anticipation, the excitement, the decorations, the carols, the snow, the Christmas vacation, the Christmas tree, and the presents. Playing with the manger scene, mixing trolls and Barbies with Mary, Joseph and the Wise Men, all wanting to hold the baby Jesus. Tinsel. Ice skating. Secrets. Shopping. I think it most of all, was the magic. This was the time of year when everyday boredom and fear was suspended - it was a reprieve. At least that was my expectation. Perhaps, over the years, as this reprieve gradually eroded, as the suspended gunk oozed back down to earth, so did my Christmas spirit. When bad stuff could happen even on Christmas, that was that.

Now, I just want to skate away. I catch the edge of the joy, sometimes more, which then makes me feel worse. As the season comes to a close and the new year beckons, I'm oppressed by disappointment about not getting something I wasn't even aware I was hoping for.

I look at the garden. Oxalis gone wild. Crinkly tomato plants with withered fruit that didn't get a chance to ripen. Dead vines clinging to the garage wall. It looks how I feel. Weedy. A little out of control. Daunted. Yet a few plants are valiantly thriving in spite of the cold, dark, and drear. Some pea vines look incredibly healthy. And the cover crops in the corn patch are steadily inching up in neat rows. Logically, I know that a good mow and removal of dead stuff will work wonders. Yet how it seems at first glance resonates so well with my mood, it's hard to muster the hope that gardening is all about.

I know there is no summer without winter, no light without dark. I could learn from the plants who go through their dormant times with grace and acceptance.

Love the one you're with

At the meat counter at my local natural foods store I asked where the prawns and scallops came from. My sweetheart's 50th birthday is today and I wanted to bring home something special for dinner. The scallops flew in from the east coast - a little far for an everyday choice but I made an exception to my goal of eating locally just this once. But the prawns came from Vietnam! They did not come home with me.

The woman standing next to me said she was glad she wasn't the only pain in the butt when it comes to asking where the food came from. We chatted about how hard it is to be pure in living one's convictions. But that striving for purity is a good thing.

Last evening we went to a "Slow Food" dinner at an organic farm that was a benefit for the Open Space Alliance. This farm, High Ground Organics, is on one of the first organic agricultural easements in the country. It can only be used for organic agriculture - forever. The land abuts a conservation easement where, in cooperation with High Ground, habitat restoration is taking place. The land is being reclaimed for the endangered tar plant, other native plants, owls, egrets, hawks, and more.

All of the food served was locally produced, most of the vegetables from right there on the farm. The salmon was line caught in the Monterey Bay, the sacrificial lamb from a nearby farm.

In the garden today

A bee rolling in pollen deep inside a California poppy. Green tomato babies clustering on the vine. Brown pea vines crackling as I pick the last of the viable pods. Peppers taking their good old time to redden. Midsummer in the garden.

By the time I get the all the tomato supports built I will at least be ready for next year. It's slow going. I hope they last a few seasons. I saw the first appearance of blossom end rot yesterday. Gotta get that watering more consistent, think I'll get one of those stick in the ground gauges to tell me how much moisture is in the soil and how deep it goes.

I know what this country needs

I made my own tomato cage today out of 6 ft wooden stakes. Seems sturdy, the Brandywine it now supports seems happy. One down, 11 to go. I hope the rest go faster now that I have the basic design. I had never used an electric saw before. Now I have visions of all the garden structures I can make out of sawed and nailed wood.

Tomatoes, like many garden plants, need support. Sure, they'll grow and bear fruit without support, but they'll sprawl all over the ground, making them difficult to water and more likely to rot. They need the support early in life - doing it while they're more than a couple of feet tall leads to damage.

If I took the same approach to my young tomatoes as George Bush's approach to children's health insurance, I would have fewer and less healthy mature fruit. The president argues that making publicly funded health insurance to available to more low-income children (there are more than 8-9 million of them) and their families will make people drop their private insurance to get on the dole. Here's what he said a few days ago in Cleveland:

The immediate goal is to make sure there are more people on private insurance plans. I mean, people have access to health care in America. After all, you just go to an emergency room. ... [T]he reason I emphasize private insurance, the best health care plan -- the best health care policy is one that emphasizes private health. In other words, the opposite of that would be government control of health care.

And there's a debate in Washington, D.C. over this. It's going to be manifested here shortly by whether or not we ought to expand what's called S-CHIP. S-CHIP is a program designed to help poor children get insurance. I'm for it. But now there are plans to expand S-CHIP to include families ... In other words, the program is going beyond the initial intent of helping poor children. It's now aiming at encouraging more people to get on government health care. That's what that is. It's a way to encourage people to transfer from the private sector to government health care plans.

It's debatable to what extent this will happen since the idea behind expanding eligibility is to reach families without private health insurance. It could result in some folks leaving private insurers, but those will mainly be people who are having a hard time affording health insurance.

In the garden today

I started setting up drip irrigation for the tomatoes - they're getting all the love right now. It was too hot to do much else. The plants were droopy and so was I. It isn't usually this hot here in July - the sun feels particularly broiling. Or maybe it's just me and my changing body (i.e, hormones).

Rocky you met your match

If only it were true. There's one spot in my Fatali pepper patch that is a dead zone. I plant a Fatali, it dies. I replace it, it dies. Couldn't figure it out until one morning I found a warm, steaming pile of raccoon offering. Guess he was peeing there and pooing in the oak half barrel. I took away his number one number two spot when I emptied and turned over the rotting half barrel. In retaliation, he began making larger deposits in the Fatali patch.

For the last two years, raccoons have been eating my Mammoth sunflower heads. I tried raccoon repellant which only turned the sunflower leaves black and made them more irrestible than ever to the bandits. This year I planted Teddy Bears which don't seem to appeal to ol' Rocky and friends.

Twas a gopher who chewed my morning glory's roots, causing it to all but die. There are a few living tendrils I have coaxed up the trellis. I will tend them in hopes the morning glory will get better as soon as it is able. The gophers have never eaten the morning glory roots before this year when I planted all the peppers and tomatoes in gopher baskets. Again, I suspect retaliation.

In the garden today

More like, in the garden center today. I only bought stakes to make tomato supports and a gopher basket to replant the morning glory into. But I admired many plants, especially Annie's Annuals. While it's great to browse the aisles of four-inch pots of unusual sunflowers, lupines, and poppies, perusing the web site is also rewarding. You can browse by plant type or color and search by sixteen types of plants, color, water and sun requirements, and annual or perennial. So, if I want more purple perennial flowers, I can get a pageful. Lots of pictures to moon over.

Now I better get started making those tomato supports. And setting up the drip irrigation.

Plant your love and let it grow

When a plant is ailing, it usually involves the roots. Blossom end rot on tomatoes and peppers comes from insufficient uptake of calcium. Even if there's plenty of calcium in the soil, the roots can still have trouble getting it to the rest of the plant if you've over watered or watering has been too sporadic. Foliar applications of calcium just don't work. The different kinds of wilt come from a soil-born disease that is transmitted by the roots. All you can do is not compost the plants and not plant the same thing in that place again - and plant wilt resistant varieties next time. I'm now trying to determine why my 5-year old morning glory suddenly died after gloriously returning each spring. It did so this year and then passed on. I suspect a gopher. There's so much going on beneath the surface that affects the garden's health. Most problems require you address the root cause.

My good friend Bill is big on working for fundamental change - the only kind that will prevent annihilation and, in his words, "create a civilization in which all people have the opportunity to live happy, fulfilled, empowered, and actualized lives." Count me in. We need to change where we're heading or we're likely to end up there. His blog is Mutual Empowerment for Fundamental Change. Making this kind of change is a tall order, but it's within our reach, Bill says, if we use what we now know about behavior change.

Bill also told me about a network of researchers, thinkers, and doers who want to eliminate humiliating practices in the world. I've often thought humiliation to be a form of violence. If you experience humiliation in your formative years, it's hard to grow into a healthy and whole human being. Not impossible, but harder than if you experienced an abundance of love, nurturing, kindness, and encouragement. This group says, "Our work is inspired by universal values such as humility, mutual respect, caring and compassion, and a sense of shared planetary rights and responsibilities." Their site is called "Human Dignity and Humiliation Studies."

In the garden today

There's an organization in my town, the Grey Bears, that delivers bags of fresh produce each week to seniors. My neighbor -- the one who know the history of my inherited plants - gets more green onions than she can use from the Bears. She tried planting them to grow mature onions and it seems to be working. When she got more than she could plant, she gave me a few bunches. I planted them today - I'll let you know how it goes.

I also planted even more peppers and then put some out front as give aways. Two out of seven went to new homes. There are still Fresno and Jalapeno seedlings in pots that I have to squeeze in somewhere. Harvested more snow peas and a magnificent head of lettuce. I am aching to plant carrots, but I need to gopher proof first.

Them 'ol U.S. Blues

Today is my least favorite holiday. It combines two things I don't like, explosives and drunks. The self-righteous, even rabid, patriotism is also a turn off. I love the ideal of independence. Also the spirit of revolution to free people from tyranny. There's lots that is good about the founding fathers crafting the Declaration of Independence. Thoughtful, intelligent people creating a new form of government based on laws and equality.

However, when they held the self-evident truth that all men are created equal, they really did mean "men," that is, white men. Not women, not Indian and Black males who were not considered men. I suppose we can excuse that way of thinking as a product of a less-enlightened time. Yet it's still hard to get around the fact that this new, independent United States of America was a land already inhabited by people, like the Iroquois with their own laws and form of highly functional democratic government.

Independence is a freeing concept. Not having to depend on anyone for anything. On your own, out from under another's thumb. Growing a garden makes me feel sort of independent - it gives me some sense of security, foodwise. But there are many things I eat and use that I don't or can't produce in the backyard. I depend on others for fuel, tools, bread, clothes, and so on. It's OK, it doesn't hurt me or make me less secure. True freedom and security come from interdependence more than independence. That's how nature works. Everything and everyone is connected. We need each other, so we ought to try to get along.

In the garden today

As I watered the corn, a curious hummingbird came within a foot of me to inspect the spray. The corn plants are all different heights, and some of the seeds didn't germinate. So I planted some more. This will make for even greater disparity in heights. I hope it makes for a longer, continuous harvest of those sweet, sweet ears.

The occasional boom of bombs bursting in mid-air startled the other birds and set off every dog on the block. And it's hot - true Fourth of July weather. The lettuce and peas are hanging in there - they are fainting by the end of the day though. Even the sweet peas that "they" say won't grow in the heat are flourishing. Living here on the central coast of California, I can ignore what "they" say with impunity.

I went to a neighborhood potluck today - my next door neighbor had made a delicious pie with the plums hanging from the branch of my tree that reached into her yard. Happy Interdependence Day

Must have been the wrong place

Someone told me that the definition of a weed is "a plant that is out of place." How perfectly subjective.

I just heard on NPR about Maria Carvajal, a woman whose developmentally disabled (U.S. citizen) son, Pedro Guzman, was deported to Tijuana. When they asked the Spanish-speaking, brown-skinned man if he had documentation, he said no. So off he went, to wander the streets of a city of strangers. His mother can't find him. Today there's an article about Zoila Meyer, an ex-city Council woman of Cuban descent who thought she was a citizen (but isn't). She was arrested on a felony charge of voting while not a citizen. She could be deported - to Canada. These are just a couple of examples of uprooting people because they are judged to be out of place.

When looking in the seed catalog for cover crops, I see bermuda grass! The white oxalis growing in front was planted (on purpose) by Agnes, my house's former owner. I get compliments on the pretty blue-flowered borage in the back yard. To me, it's a weed, but to the bees, it's manna. Because the bees love it so, I can't even pull it out until it's all but spent, even though it's in my way and creates a haven for earwigs.

And then there are the volunteers, the robust snow peas and the purple blue delphinium, healthier than any I ever planted. I didn't ask these plants to grow here, but I decide they can stay. They are useful to me.

When uninvited people from other countries come to the United States, they too get treated based on their perceived usefulness. Need cheap labor? Look the other way and hire a Mexican with a fake ID. Need a scapegoat? Build a big fence on the border because "they" are stealing "our" jobs.

I know, the law is the law. I appreciate living in a "nation of laws." It's essential to justice. And, I am concerned about the impact population growth has -- whether from immigration or procreation. I just think the United States is taking the wrong approach. It's one that fuels racism, nationalism, and violence. I'd prefer a policy based on human rights and justice.

Compassion, inclusion, fairness - justice needs these too. The immigration crackdowns we are seeing have more to do with fear than justice.

It comes down to what kind of people do we want to be. I want people to have a chance. People aren't weeds.

In the garden today

Mulched, mulched, mulched. This is my first year of serious mulching - let's see if mulching lives up to its reputation. I planted yet another dahlia. Harvested more yummy snow peas. In the front, shook the seeds out of the dried poppy heads so I could compost the seedy-looking spent plants. These poppies are glorious volunteers, originally planted by Agnes' mother I'm told. I have a neighbor who gives me the history of the plants I inherited when I moved in seven years ago. The giant hydrangea that started out in a 6 inch pot, given to Agnes for Mother's Day. The antique rose installed by Agnes' mother way back when. It is now over 6 feet tall and is so laden with blooms it falls over, blocking the sidewalk. I have several plants that I put in from 6 inch pots or 1 gallon cans that are just huge - a lavender and three kinds of sage, a fuschia that seems to die everytime there's frost, but always resurrects in spring.

For free

Always happens, I start more seedlings than I can plant. And then I feel responsible for making sure every one gets planted. One solution is to put the extra tomato plants in front of my house with a sign "Free Organic Tomato Plants." Then I secretly watch from the living room window to see who takes them. Two years ago two women with a toddler in a stroller walked by, stopped, did a double take and then doubled back. They took the toddler out of the stroller and loaded it with as many tomato plants that fit, and then headed back the way they came. I was relieved when the toddler toddled off with them and wasn't left in trade.

It's extra great when people come by and tell me how the plants are doing or how delicious the tomatoes were.

In the garden today

Other than giving away a choice selection of sweet pepper seedlings, not much happened in the garden today - at least not involving me. But yesterday, I planted even more peas and mulched stuff. Two years ago I planted oats as a cover crop in one bed. I never got around to planting anything in that bed, so a whole 'nother crop of oats volunteered last year. It provided good munching for Kitten and now, good mulching for the peppers and tomatoes.

We are stardust

We are dirt. At least we we all will be after our time as gardeners is up.

Someone once told me that to be a good gardener, you need to learn how to kill. That makes me very uncomfortable. Crushing snails and earwigs brings pangs - I wonder if they feel pain, have families that will miss them. I imagine a giant foot coming out of the sky and crushing me - fear, horror, agony, and then ... nothing. Is killing ok as long as you feel bad about it? Or is empathy for earwigs misplaced?

I love the soil, I love when it's dark and crumbly and I can dig a hole for planting with my hands. Compost is the best. You can really see how rot and decay are raw ingredients for life.

In the garden today

Twelve tomatoes can finally sink their roots into the earth, six Brandywine and six German Pink. Twelve more are still yearning to break free of their pots.

Cats love my garden. Picture above is the cat from across the street. I learned his name when I heard his person yell, "Buddha, stop fighting."

Time to get myself back to the garden.

Gardening at night

In the house I grew up in there was fear, chaos, confusion, and loneliness. It was not a nurturing place.

I have a recurring dream where I am trying to create a garden the yard of the house I grew up in.

I am very excited and hopeful. The soil is hard and the sun is hot. In these dreams, I never get far enough to plant anything, let alone see it grow and harvest it. But I never give up either. Planting the garden seems like the answer. If I can get a garden going, I can transform and heal the past.

The garden is life. Sometimes we're the gardeners, other times we're the plants. Often we're the earwigs and slugs. We seem to devour everything in our paths, just trying to survive. Or maybe we're just trying to find something delicious to eat.

In the garden today

I took the day off (it's Monday) because I couldn't stand the stress of having only two days over the weekend to do all that needs to be done. I am blessed with a long growing season, but I'm really pushing it. No tomatoes in the ground yet; still have peppers to go in. Lots of blackberry brambles to cut up and send off in the green waste can. But I was going to talk about what I did, not what I didn't do.

Built a trellis and put in snap peas that sat sadly in their six pack for too long. Prepared two more beds. Killed lots of earwigs and snails - the bottoms of my garden clogs are sticky with carnage. Planted more baby bok choy. Started lettuce, onions, cilantro, and lemon cucumber. All old seeds, so I planted a lot.

Happy plants already in the ground include sweet peas and peppers (Habanero, Fatali, Fresno, Marconi Red, Tolli's Sweet, Chervenka Chuska, Jalapeno, Buran). That's only eight varieties, wish I had more dirt. Also the corn is as high as a field mouse's eye. Three kinds of lettuce are happy - Galactic (a red), Butter Crunch, and some green stuff that I forget the name of. Snap peas, snow peas, and shelling peas. Harvested my first snow peas yesterday. Wonder if any will make it past my mouth and into the house this year.

When I'm getting the garden ready for planting, it's too big. When I'm planting, all of the sudden it's too small.