Counting

It’s a four-hibiscus day. But those lovely red blossoms brighten our dining room windowsill. Not that I’m not grateful our hibiscus plant bloomed its little hothouse heart out all winter. But it’s May now, and I’m eager for outdoor things to bloom. I’ve been running outside twice a day and bending down really low to stare at crumbly black dirt—as if that will magically activate X-ray vision to see seedlings beneath the soil. My attempts to see green have been almost fruitless, but now I do have some numbers to report. 

• ·         Five sugar snap pea seedlings are now up. Their cute little round heads have not uncurled yet, but I can see the backs of their necks.
• ·         One carrot seedling is up.
• ·         Two shallots have appeared.
• ·         Countless lettuce and spinach seedlings have sat right at ground level for weeks. I’m not sure what they’re waiting for. Maybe they’re tired of my staring at them and want me to lead them in a cheer.
• ·         One grape hyacinth flower bloomed this year in what was a blue sea of blooms last year.

I walk a fine attitude line. If I dwell on the ratio of seedlings to seeds planted—about one or two to 24—I get discouraged. But if I put it out of my mind or blow it off—oh, well—I won’t be a productive gardener. Somewhere in the middle of those extreme attitudes, I will muster up the faith to count the days of normal germination time for each type of seed and go back out there to try again. There’s still time to plant more cool-weather-crop seeds.

My only really exciting statistic is that the romaine lettuce seeds bought at and harvested from Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello last summer are almost all up now. That would be 12 seedlings … but who’s counting?

Tomato Harvest Season

Baked tomato halves stuffed with sausage; baked tomato and zucchini slices topped with grated cheese; a huge pot of basil-infused tomato sauce studded with onions and garlic; salade nicoise kinda heavy on the tomatoes; ratatouille. Ah yes, one of my favorite seasons.

Weeds

Kneeling, hunching over a 4x4-foot garden section, perspiring profusely, plucking and pitching weeds, I'm beyond tears. The tears had come two weeks ago when I first saw the mauvaises herbes (French for weeds is aptly, literally, bad grass). I'd been so pleased that I'd made the effort to wrestle the wheelbarrow with the flat tire across the bumpy field to the community compost pile and back to enrich the soil of the little "salad square" of my community garden plot. I'd planted five rows of seeds, but seemingly before they'd had a chance to sprout, my salad square was a carpet of green. And I mean CARPET. Wall-to-wall shag. Apparently, the compost contained some kind of grass seed, and now I had an unwanted lawn where I wanted vegetables. When I first saw this had happened, my throat felt thick, my eyes watered, my heart sank. Gardening was already a lot of work, and now this ~ nuisance work.

After procrastinating several weeks, I decide today to tackle this task. Three potential helpers bag out. I feel really alone. Just me, my resigned sighs, and my muddy kneeling pad. Oh, and God. Who I'm talking to. And who seems to be showing me things. Like some parallels between this task and other hard things in life.

Oddly, I'm not angry with the compost provider. Oddly, I'm not angry with some recent critics of my writing. They both made things more difficult for me, but their intent was to help. And I know God will bring good from both types of mauvaises herbes.

Pluck. Pitch. Pluck. Pitch. For being only about two inches tall, these weeds sure have deep roots, some four or six inches long. I think about little unkind words exchanged with my husband and am sobered by their deep roots in longstanding hurts and anxieties. Pulling weeds feels somehow relationally freeing. Catch for us the ... little foxes that ruin the vineyards ... (Song of Songs 2:15).
Certainly my salad square is doomed; I see nothing here but weed grass. Pluck. Pitch. Pluck. Pitch. What? Scalloped edges of a cilantro seedling? And another? Only two of the whole row of cilantro seeds I'd planted, but still ... I'm as excited as Monet bringing his first water lily to life with a brushstroke. Pluck. Pitch. Pluck. Pitch. Oh my goodness ~ feathery carrot tops? They grew! I bet some of the seeds of diligence planted in my writing have sprouted, too. And some of the seeds of obedience to Christ planted in my marriage have also pushed their way up through weeds of wounds and disobedience. Suddenly, I feel encouraged about ~ well, everything.

The most precious part of today's tedious weeding is God's companionship. I find myself singing, When life's comforts fail and helpers flee, Help of the helpless, Oh Lord, abide with me. Sweet.

Flower Pots

Neighbors walking by enjoyed our colorful flowers today as we planted patio containers. Lawrence of Arabia even stopped by to water. :-) And the finished product ~ ta-dah!

Mosquito Season

Locavore

Easy to tell why gigantic red California strawberries are dirt-cheap at our Illinois chain grocer this week. They feel like cardboard on my tongue and taste like—well, if I have to guess something besides cardboard, I’d say zucchini. I tossed these strawberry slices with orange juice in our fruit salad tonight, just so they might pick up some fruitlike taste by osmosis. My ruse did not work.

Hard to wait for the little, just-greening, trefoil, notch-leafed strawberry plants outside our back door to fill out, flower, and produce their sweet, succulent, ruby-colored, heart-shaped fruit whose strawberry sensation spreads through your entire mouth—almost melting the moment it touches your lips.

Today I thawed a jar of strawberry jam I made two summers ago when I was picking more strawberries than we could eat then. I hope the jam will tide us over for another month or so until we again have our own strawberries to savor. My husband won’t even eat store-bought tomatoes because their taste is not worth the cost or the bother to even open his mouth and stuff one in. We’re out of the rich, lively tomato sauce he made several summers ago when we were harvesting more tomatoes than we could eat then. It will be a really long wait until we can even begin this year’s tomato vigil in the garden—April to August seems like an eternity.

The Oxford University Press recently named locavore word of the year. Now that I know what a locavore is, I can see I’m gradually becoming one—perhaps not for all the right reasons, but at least for some of them. Every year another vegetable gets added to my list of foods I want to either grow, buy at a farmer’s market, or I prefer not to eat them. Last year, garlic made the list. The garlic I bought at farmer’s markets was robust with a heady fragrance and fresh flavor that called to mind images of rolling Tuscan countryside—and I’ve never even been to Tuscany. The garlic from the store smells spent and tastes “off” by comparison, calling to mind the dank hold of a slow boat from China.

Reasons to be a locavore? Taste is the biggie for me. Broccoli that’s tender and bright and blossoms in my mouth is motivation for my aching bones to get out there and nurture my soil. By the way, you wouldn’t want to put butter on my homegrown broccoli, whereas you need butter or orange sauce or something just to choke down tough store-bought broccoli. When my aching bones have aged to the point when I can no longer grow my own broccoli, I’ll be plenty motivated to join a CSA to continue enjoying homegrown produce.

Eating organically grown fruits and vegetables is my next most important reason. Contributing to a healthy environment by removing myself from the demand for products that take slow boats from China or long truck rides from Mexico to get here is moving up my list of reasons too. Although this next reason is not last on my list, I’m not sure I can explain it very well: The simplicity of digging in dirt, relying on the land, feeling close to nature is quite winsome, and the satisfaction of eating what you’ve grown or people you know have grown is fulfilling in an elemental way.

Two authors who have expressed this simplicity and satisfaction beautifully and better than I could ever hope to are Barbara Kingsolver in Animal, Vegetable, Miracle and Wendell Berry in Jayber Crow. Also, the French, with their potagers (kitchen-gardens), really do this locavore thing right.

I’m not ready to join Barbara Kingsolver’s family and commit to eating only locally grown food, but I’m happy to be a locavore to the degree that I am and will cheer on this trend in my home and in the food culture of our country.