Garden Dreaming

On By StefanieIn Food, Gardening, Seasons

Autumn was long and warm, and then suddenly it was over. Upper 30sF one day and the next 20F with single digit wind chill. My body was not ready for such a drastic change. Mid-morning at work I’d get ravenously hungry. What’s going on? And then I remembered, oh yeah, biking in the really cold weather takes more energy. At night James and I would fall into bed, exhausted. I’m not sure I’ve completely acclimated yet, but I’m getting there.

Before the cold hit we managed to finish all of our outdoor chores and get the chicken coop winterized. On the last truly nice weekend day we even managed to meet a friend for breakfast. And now I am ready to draw inwards and slow down, hibernate a little.

Thanksgiving at my house this last Thursday was a quiet affair, just James and I. James made our “traditional” vegan meal of enchiladas and pumpkin pie. The pumpkins we grew in the garden this year. The variety is naked bear, a pepita pumpkin that is also sweet enough for pie, an uncommon 2-in-1! I grew Lady Godiva one year and got several huge pumpkins full of delicious pepitas. James tried cooking the pumpkin flesh and it was so bland that no amount of spice could save it. Sadly, naked bear is an f-1 hybrid, but I saved a few seeds anyway and we’ll see how they grow out.

The seed catalogs began arriving several weeks ago. I planned on saving them and not looking at them until Thanksgiving. How long do you think that plan lasted?

I must say, I was pretty proud of myself for making it an entire 24 hours before tearing through the first arriving catalog. The second one I managed to make it a couple hours. The third one, I took it out of the mailbox and immediately started paging through it.

But even though I looked through them all sooner than I had planned, I still sat down Friday morning and looked through them all again, going to the websites and creating my wishlists as though I had all the garden space and time for working in it in the world.

After lunch it was time to look reality in the face. I began to whittle things down. Then I compared prices across seed companies. And then I whittled some more. I saved so many seeds last year that I was’t planning on buying much this year. But I recently decided that I want to include more herbs and medicinal plants in the garden, and that plumped up my seed list significantly. It plumped so alarmingly that it has taken some deep thought about what, exactly, I am hoping to accomplish.

With the help of some kind folks on Mastodon, the Plants For a Future database, and Midwest Medicinal Plants, I decided to cut out everything that used only roots and bark or that required tinctures made with alcohol. We are a sober household and making medicine with vodka is a hard no. That still left quite a few plants for teas and salves.

Next I cut out ones that are potentially invasive, take up large amounts of space, or prefer moist areas—something my sandy soil cannot offer. That still left a lot. So then I decided to favor plants that could grow in shade or part shade, had culinary and medicinal uses, are easy to grow, or just had pretty flowers attractive to pollinators. And that did the trick. In a year’s time, I can get seeds to some of the ones I cut from my list this year.

In addition to food, herbs, and medicine, James is reading a book about night time critters and asked if we could grow some flowers for moths. After doing some research I came up with a list and will be getting seeds for moonflower, evening stock, evening primrose, and nicotiana.

I’ve not placed any orders yet, it’s still early. And I may cut a few more things from my list. I was going to try growing collards and Swiss chard but do I want to do both? And if I only do one, which one? I have zero luck with beets, will I have better luck with chard? I also have zero luck with cabbage. Will I have better luck with collards? I suppose there is only one real way to find out.

Also, I can’t decide whether I want to try growing long beans. Has anyone grown them? Are they worth it for more than their unusualness?

While the weather outside is frigid, spending my long holiday weekend garden dreaming has been lovely. Once I finalize my seed list, I will be sure to post it here.

On a side note, I am very behind in replying to kind comments y’all have made. I will endeavor to catch up on that in the next few days!

Reading

Quote

“To name the world as gift is to feel your membership in the web of reciprocity. It makes you happy—and it makes you accountable. Conceiving of something as a gift changes your relationship to it in a profound way, even though the physical makeup of the “thing” has not changed. A woolly knit hat that you purchase at the store will keep you warm regardless of its origin, but if it was hand-knit by your favorite auntie, then you are in relationship to that “thing” in a very different way: you are responsible for it, and your gratitude has motive force in the world. You’re likely to take much better care of the gift hat than of the commodity hat, because the gift hat is knit of relationships. This is the power of gift thinking. I imagine if we acknowledged that everything we consume is the gift of Mother Earth, we would take better care of what we are given.”

~Robin Wall Kimmerer, The Serviceberry, page 22-23

Listening

  • Podcast: Planet Critical: The Plastic Crisis with Jane van Dis. Jane van Dis is a medical doctor specializing in obstetrics and gynecology. When her patients started having more and more medical issues, she began investigating the effects of plastics and petrochemicals on our health. If you’ve been on the fence over cutting down plastics in your life, after listening to this podcast you will be horrified and motivated to change. James and I have been cutting out plastics but have hit a plateau. I feel another plastic purge coming on.
  • Podcast: The War on Cars: Cars are done with Adam McKay. McKay is the director of the films Don’t Look Up, The Big Short, and many others. McKay thinks the age of the car is over but people just haven’t realized it yet. He also talks about his movie directing career and what led him to do Don’t Look Up.

Watching

  • Movie: Paterson (2016). Starring Adam Driver as a man named Paterson who lives and works as a bus driver in Paterson, New Jersey. It is a beautiful, quiet movie that takes place over the course of a week. It’s full of poetry and the small details that make up a life. James and I both loved it.

James’s Kitchen Wizardry

James has been making magic these last couple of weeks. We’ve had spaghetti squash chow mein, and of course our Thanksgiving enchiladas and pumpkin pie (best vegan pumpkin pie recipe ever from Vegan Pie in the Sky). And week before last he made up a recipe for what he called a cookie cake: chocolate cookie on the bottom, peanut butter cookie in the middle, and chocolate chip cookie on top. Mmmmm

24 thoughts on “Garden Dreaming”

  1. It’s always so exciting to be planning next year’s garden and choosing which seeds to buy, old favourites to enjoy and new ones to try for the first time. I think it’s a wonderfully optimistic activity which lifts the spirits at this time of year (even though I generally end up having to change my plans and curb my enthusiasm!). Have fun, Stefanie!

    I love your quotation, by the way. There’s such wisdom in it and it is a perfect antidote for this mad consumer-driven time of year. 😊

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  2. I almost laughed when I read that Adam Driver plays a bus driver. He seems so fancy, such a presence. And then I remembered that he actually went to public school right by my house. That’s right; Adam Driver is a Hoosier. So that’s weird.

    I thought of you on Thanksgiving. I saw my father-in-law, who went on extensively about this tractor he wants to give us, and I immediately pictured tearing up the yard and planting pollinator flowers. Well, maybe I shouldn’t have done a deep dive into my imagination because I missed the part where he said we could have the tractor upon his death.

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  3. So you and Adam Driver were kind of neighbors! 😀

    A most excellent Thanksgiving story! Maybe your father-in-law will let you borrow the tractor so you don’t have to wait for the pollinator flowers? But also, I love that a gift of a tractor immediately made you think of tearing up your yard for flowers 🙂

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    1. LOL Karen! That is definitely a ringing endorsement! 😀 I think I’ll be trying bright lights chard and also make some room for collards, see which one does best. Hopefully one of them will!

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  5. I loved, loved, loved Dwellings. Just gorgeous. It made me want to go on a looooong second-hand bookstore crawl to find everything I’m missing of hers.

    Even though it’s perhaps a well-known plant, this was the first year we planted nicotiana, two planters, and it was very popular (and it smells strong and lovely…although maybe not every critter would think so, so it could perhaps serve a purpose with companion planting too).

    I’ve not grown either chard or collards, but my vote is for some of both because if conditions don’t work for one you’ll still have one leafy green. But that’s so easy for me to say because it sounds like each is new to you so extra time there.

    Also, I am so envious that you have no cabbage: we have four of them in the house right now, seemingly unable to roast and chop and bake and matchstick them all, along with SO many many potatoes. These are #niceproblemstohave of course. Very grateful to have fresh food and locally grown.

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    1. Yay for Dwellings! I feel compelled to read all of her books now too. I’ve read one or two of her poetry collections long ago but now I want to read everything.

      I’ve heard nicotiana is strongly scented so thanks for confirming that. I’m sensitive to strong floral scents, so it will not get planted too close to the house.

      Heh, I think I’ll be doing chard and collards both and see which one does best!

      Make some sauerkraut out of that cabbage! That way it will keep. And can one ever have too many potatoes? 😉

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  6. Your adventures with the seed catalogues reminded me so much of my mother. Her gardening is more about beauty than food, but she goes through a very similar process at this time of year!

    And your reading list gave me lots to explore. I think I need to read both Dwellings and The Serviceberry.

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    1. Your mother is a woman after my own heart Andrew. At my house we call the seed catalogs garden porn 🙂 I believe it is generally a gardener ritual to get lost in dreaming over them.

      I hope you enjoy both books should you get the chance to read them.

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  7. So much here. I am eager to read The Serviceberry! I apparently need to see that movie, Patterson. I’ve never heard of it but it sounds like something I’d enjoy. Also, I’ve gotten two seed catalogs and am so excited by them. Garden dreaming is so fun!

    James’s kitchen wizardry sounds so enticing. Has he ever thought of making a cookbook?

    And now I’m going to have to research flowers for moths. I’ve never thought of such a thing!

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    1. I hope you like Serviceberry when you get to it Laila! Patterson is one of those movies where nothing happens and everything happens. Enjoy browsing and dreaming over your seed catalogs!

      We have friends who have suggested he open a cafe or something and James says absolutely not, it would take all the fun out it. I think he feels the same about creating an actual cookbook. Most of the time he makes it up as he goes along 🙂

      Moths, James tells me, are amazing critters!

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  8. Too much to comment on, but i love your enthusiasm for the plant catalogues!

    I was interested in your comment about not having moist soils because I assumed you would. Then again, Canberra, a dry relatively hot place has poorly draining aka clay soils, we always looked for plants that don’t mind wet feet!!

    I’ve never grown long beans but I think they are the same as snake beans and I love eating them, particularly when cooked the Chinese way (whatever that is, because I’ve eaten them out but not cooked them myself either!) Talking things Chinese, James’ spaghetti squash chow mean sounds delicious.

    Your reading looks interesting as usual. I love those last two news articles – wildflowers in the city, and upward acts of kindness.

    As for cars, we still drive them, but one of the joys of our new downsized apartment is that a bus-stop is 1 minute walk from our apartment front door, and the bus only takes about 10-15 minutes into Canberra’s (small) city centre. En route it goes through our main cultural (aka galleries, library and museums) precinct. We like using it. Where we lived before the bus service was very inconvenient and involved a change of buses part way through. Almost never did it, unless we drove to a point where we could park-and-ride (meaning just one bus!

    Keep warm.

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    1. Thanks WG! I have a friend who lives about 2 miles away whose garden is clay. Mine is sandy probably left over from a long ago creek a neighbor told me used to run through the area.

      I’ve been doing some research on long beans in Minnesota and they apparently require hot temperatures and a longer season and so are not very productive here. Plus their vines grow longer than any trellis I might be able to put together. So I’m crossing them off my list. Room for something else! 😀 The spaghetti squash chow mein is surprisingly delicious. James added tempeh and peanuts for some extra flavor and protein.

      Wow! Your new apartment sounds like it is ideally located!

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  9. I love collards, but as a southerner I’ve always had them cooked with some fat, so you might need to look around for some recipes. Of course, I like my vegetables cooked a long time, so maybe there are other ways to make collards!

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    1. Heh, Jeanne, if I can get collards to grow I will definitely need to look up some recipes. Though I have learned you can make sauerkraut out of them and some people like it better with collards than cabbage. That sounds like something I’d really like to try.

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  10. Happy belated Thanksgiving! I love the sound of a quiet, laid-back celebration with just a lovely meal. I fervently wish Christmas could be that way and know that it will not. I am also trying to be inspired by your seed whittling maneuvers. Since returning to blogging I have had a TBR explosion (it will NOT surprise you to know), and I read far less than I used to. I ought to have a process by which I decide whether or NOT to buy that 99p Kindle book and I don’t. I think for approximately half a nanosecond before deciding it would be rude not to buy something that’s practically free. You can see how this might go! Anyway, I can’t wait to hear all about your adventures with medicinal and culinary herbs. I’m sure they will be delightful.

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    1. Thank you dear Litlove! Hopefully your Christmas is not as hectic as you expect it to be.

      Seems to me the TBR issue is exacerbated by the Kindle. When you can’t see the piles of books because they are all neatly tucked onto a small device you lose perspective and inhibition. Maybe limit yourself to only a certain number of kindle books? Or just decide it doesn’t matter and go with it 🙂

      I’m looking forward to adventures with herbs. So far my limited engagement with them has been quite successful so I am emboldened!

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