Signs of Summer

A beautiful, light rain fell this afternoon, the kind that leaves a mist hanging heavy in the air through which the sun sets. I know it made the garden happy -- it’s amazing the difference between a good hose watering and an adequate rain shower. There’s something more complete and nurturing to a plant about rain; you can see it right away. The greens fairly glow, and you’d swear every rain drop opened a spot of soil for a weed or planted seed to pop up in.

And while I look forward to these warm, late-spring showers, I must say I am less enthralled by some other signs of summer coming. Something is turning tomato leaves into brown lace, and burrowing holes in our earliest-ripening fruits. They are probably two different pests, and are probably different still from the bugs that are munching big holes indiscriminately throughout the garden, but the evidence seemed to appear all at once in these past few weeks full of mid-eighties days and occasional thunderstorms.

But still the planting goes on. Robin donated two dozen plants late last week, almost all of which we’ve found homes for. We used a bunch of them to start back up the little bed next to the east side of the bottle wall that had gotten kind of overlooked and neglected for a while. In fact, the plants who lived there ended up meeting a sad end -- in their disguise among Virginia Creeper and poison ivy, they got weed-wacked. So we planted up a bunch of four o’clocks, a few shrimp plants, a comfrey, and a pineapple sage and promised to take better care this time around.

In our effort to take better care in general, we’ve stepped up the weeding effort and even utilized some organic insecticides on the tomatoes. We’re also being less emotional about fading plants -- in their weakened states, they attract bugs, so up they come.

On a happier note, Kitty Kerner has written a review of Michael Pollan’s Botany of Desire that will be published in next month’s Apalachee Tortoise. I just finished editing the review, and thoroughly enjoyed remembered how much I liked the book when I read it a few years ago. It’s at both the public and the university library should you be inspired to pick it up (and I think you will).

Getting into shape

Three of us, Anna, cracker-jack gardener/first-time visitor Nancy, and to a lesser extent, myself, spent Saturday morning getting the garden into shape. We spread some of the new compost and mulch around in the beds, added many weeds to the compost pile, planted up Nancy's donated comfrey and rue in the spiral, pulled up the rest of the collards, de-wormed the couple of tomatoes that were being munched, and otherwise tried to tidy up and get things back in order. We have some pretty flowers at the moment: cosmos, nasturtium, sweet peas, squash and zucchini, pineapple sage and butterfly bush. And everything green looks lush and happy.

The itchy labrynth

Suzanne, a beautiful friend who drops by the garden occasionally while at WeMoon, remarked to me recently that while she was walking through the labrynth, she had to sidestep poison ivy. This did not strike me as the best conditions under which to meditate, or even to walk. Suzanne is a dancer, and is very graceful. I am neither, and so I know I would end up with itchy feet and a bad temper. Therefore the focus of this Saturday's open gardening, and perhaps next Saturday's, too, is to get the spiral in shape, and maybe even fully planted. In the mean time, you may want to consider wearing wooly socks and long pants.

Tomato Stakes

If you have been by the garden lately, perhaps you noticed that our tomatoes were a little... shorter than most. Not having 10 6' lengths of ribar threaded with rope or sufficiently large tomato cages to contain them, they had fallen over and began acting more like the vines that they are. This was not good for the tomatoes or our garden -- when tomato leaves come in contact with the soil, they become incredibly susceptible to soil-borne diseases, and one risks losing the whole plant. Furthermore, being fairly heavy and sprawly, then were suffocating and pushing around other nearby plants. But there they lay for two or three weeks, waiting for the support that simply was not manifesting. As the days went on and the tomatoes grew fruit, I became very nervous. I was worried that our trial would be a total failure, and I'd have to explain to the other growers that our results weren't exactly reliable since we didn't do the best job we could have with the plants. And then! MaryLou, my mom, came to visit me. While we both were weeding Saturday morning I mentioned the staking problem to her, and she quietly slipped away and found a big stick. Next thing I knew, the tomotoes were all supported -- gently tied to sticks buried beside them, but not interfering with their roots. Not a single plant is sagging now, and here four days after they were tied up, they are thriving. Thanks be to moms!

May

Today is May Day. Yesterday, on the last day of April, it rained. The familiar smell of garlic in the garden, one that I once only associated with spaghetti night, was heavier and thicker than ususal. I have come to love that smell.

The Spirit Gardens were forgiving of our neglect. Two weeks of sun, wind, and rain did its job, and the plants continued to grow. Some, the tomatoes particularly, outgrew our expectations -- unstaked, they leaned and then fell ontop of one another, then grew again up and toward the warmth and light. They are wild now, and I will feel a slight regret at having to pull them tall again and into straight, tidy rows.

We pulled the oldest collards, added them to the compost pile, and left their space empty. We, and the bed, needed some time to think what would come next for that soil in that space.