Spring?

I wore shorts outside today for three minutes.

There is less snow in my lawn.

I am not currently drinking tea.

The neighbors have tucked away their Christmas lights.

Could it be (almost) spring?

Yes, I did plant some stuff last weekend in a fit of optimism. Then we were blasted by arctic air and two feet of snow. Some humble-Eskimo-pie for this upstart gardener here in Massachusetts. But I am so ready, so achingly ready for things to be green and a little warm again.

True confession: I just sat on my behind for fully 20 minutes trying to decide which picture of last summer's garden to put on the desktop of my computer. This is pathetic for two reasons.

1. I gave up "e-idling" for lent, even though I'm Jewish.
2. The real reason I want to look at this picture is because I don't believe that anything will grow out of my lawn again after this frozen recession winter.

This is the picture that's currently on my desktop:
Taken last September 9. Not an overly exciting picture, but like childhood pictures, saturated with sentiment and funny, poignant-only-to-me stories. Like, ha ha, that time when I accidentally cut the main vine of my favorite squash plant. Or that night when I set beer traps for the slugs, and then sat vigil for hours to rescue them before they fell in.

Ah, summer.

What silly things will happen in this season's warmth and abundance? That's a happy reverse memory. To contemplate what will be when the sun returns, and I can smell the earth again for longer than a brief thaw.

Tonight when I returned to my house after a wonderful dinner with friends (thank you, Liz and Jason), I stood on my porch and leaned into the breeze, quiet all around. It was one of those moments when nothing belongs to you, not even yourself, and you see your life from 30 feet up and a million miles away. I looked up at the moon, which was hidden behind the fir branches, and had the funny sensation that I was seeing it from below -- that I was seeing it from a particular vantage point that didn't define the moon, only my direct experience of it right now, in this life, in this body. I looked down at the two front gardens, which are covered only partly right now by snow. I tried to imagine them as they will be in July, absolutely realized green glory. Everyone on my block is asleep, I decided, judging from the dark windows. And the wind was so soft, and not cold, really.

This is my life. I feel so grateful.

And so ready for spring.

Winter vs. "two but's" (part 1.7 of 2)

Back to business.

So as I was saying, the plants in the coldframes? Not dead. In fact, they're startlingly alive considering how brown the landscape is around here.

I dusted the snow off one window, took it off and braced myself for the pile of ex-plants inside. Instead, this:
(turnips and an occasional radish)

And this:
(lettuce and chard)

And this!(baby turnips!)

Of course, the lettuce has pretty well checked out. That's fine with me, though, because I was never a huge fan of the variety I planted anyway. Too limp and wussy.

And the garlic - it continues to try to sprout through the 6 inches of compost I piled on top of the original sprouts.
I nervously went back and re-read the planting instructions for German Extra Hardy organic garlic. Indeed, I planted it none-too early (October 25), and the instructions warned me that the cloves would try to sprout before winter and advised to pile on the compost or mulch. But it's January, and they're still poking through? All in the name of experimentation.

Oh, yeah! I pulled up a couple turnips to prove to myself that there's action going on below ground too.They're small, but tasty. I put them in soup.

And did I mention that it's freezing outside? I bring this up only to brag about my new outfit, courtesy of my mom. She custom embroidered a very warm pair of cover-alls for me for Christmas. Though not flattering (won't be wearing these to any cocktail parties), they are WARM. Plus there's a chicken.
They're lined. In hot pink.Just what every city-farmgirl needs. Thanks mom!

Now to the "part 2" portion of "Winter vs. 'two but's".

The mailman cometh. And he bringeth - garden porn.
The seed catalog.

Not to be a major tease here, but I have to go to work - again. So though I have pages of notes for this next post ready to go, it will have to wait - again.

Back soon!

Winter vs. "two but's" (part 1 of 2)

Mini-feed in reverse chronological order:

It is Sunday. I sit here with my coffee.
House guests left yesterday. Before that, New Years, and with it, a large, fun, messy party. Before that, Mom's visit for 8 days, during which was Christmas. Before that, Ireland for a week - the entire magical island - and a wedding. (That's Newgrange)

And before that, I stated in a whining post that it was cold outside.

It is still cold outside, it is still that season where nothing grows and everything is asleep. At times, several feet of snow have blanketed the cold frames outside, and the back garden receives no light at all this time of year. My garden is a colorful memory like that of an old love, walled off by snow and time.

But . . . well, two "but's" . . .

Number one but: Something is growing. Inexplicably, slowly, but very certainly, the plants in the coldframes are actively growing. When we left for Ireland in mid-December, I had saluted the coldframes as we walked out the door, thanking them for our late-late crops of lettuce, radishes and turnips. Since our return, Boston has been pummeled by winter storms and arctic cold. On a walk the other night, both my coat, made moist by breath, and my eyelashes froze.

So yesterday, after our final guest took to the road, I grabbed a broom and a camera to investigate how dead everything was.- So very not dead, is the verdict.

Here's a peek:
- but I have to go to work right now. So the big "reveal" as well as the second "but" will have to wait a day.

Be warm, and Happy New Year!

It's cold, and I'm being a baby.

Cold outside. How unusual for New England in December.

So why does this somehow shock me each year? We built cold frames to anticipate, what? July? Well, this blog post was supposed to be a blog boast about how friggin' cool the cold frames are because my lettuce and radishes and turnips are all still growing! And it's 16 degrees out there!

Last night, we had dinner with friends, and brought a spinach salad. Before getting in the car, I pulled up three gorgeous radishes and brought them with us for dinner. They were a hit.

Next year, now that I know that these cold frames work pretty well, I'll try to plan better and plant more winter crops in early October. That way, they have 2 full months of good growing weather before it gets beastly outside, at which point they can just hang in until their dinner time cometh.

When I'm feeling like less of a baby, I'll go out there and take some pictures.

But for now, I'll just change the subject.

Argentina, anyone?

I just wanted to share two pictures I liked from my reunion with black and white film and my Leica. (You can click on them to enlarge them.) The first is of the caregiver of a vineyard and her son right before nightfall. The sky was dynamic and forbidding, and this child was so full of light and love.


And this picture is from the 106,000 acre estancia where Erik and I stayed for two glorious days with Walter and his incredible family. This is his daughter, Delfina, asleep on a sunny and perfect summer afternoon, in her father's pickup truck. I took this picture to try to capture something - that the world, this existence, is caring for us in each moment. It holds us, and holds up life's richness, and we are all, throughout our lives, just children.

Travels, part 1

I'm back.

Or somewhat back. I'm in that half-way state of mind that descends during a transition. To my right, the washing machine is humming along, trying to process an epic amount of dirty clothes, this here teabag is doing triple duty with yet another refill of hot water, and I'm sitting in a silent house, listening to the wind tickle the wind chimes and feeling the chill of November 23 in the Northern Hemisphere.

Many thousands of miles south, November 23 is very different. Having just returned from Mendoza, Argentina, I'm happy to testify that early summer exists somewhere right now. Baby pears are budding in endless orchards, tiny nibs that will someday turn into wine are sprinkled through a sea of vineyards at the foothills of the Andes. And though my lettuce out in the coldframes isn't so sure about this Yankee 20-degree spell, it is currently wiltingly hot and dry on the desert roads, way down there, at three in the afternoon.

Circadian rhythms notwithstanding, I'm experiencing a sort of biological whiplash. Not two weeks ago, I wrapped up the somewhat mournful process of tucking my autumn garden into its cold, dark bed, and was beginning to accept ever fewer hours of daylight each day. And suddenly, by technological and petroleum-fueled magic, it became June all around me.

This must be, I thought, how a recent divorcee feels at a wedding. Wistful, and a bit ironical, and jealous. Babies everywhere - baby grapes, baby basil plants, fistsfull of chicks, a mewing orange kitten - all in their earliest season. And I walked among them full of awareness of the difference time makes to the living thing, to my own garden, to myself and my loved ones. I am prone to this melancholic way of thinking anyway, but there at the feet of the Andes, where snow melt meets desert and earth gives way to crazy sculptures of rock and dirt, I felt at the bleeding edge of this thought, for days on end. And each night, as if to reinforce this mantra, came the stars, zillions of them, blinking unblinkinlgy, to frankly scare the hell out of me.



Some context is necessary, I realize. We were near Tupungato which is about 2 hours (not quite) southish of Mendoza - on the far west part of Argentina. Erik and I were fortunate to stay for a spell at Estancia San Pablo, an enormous (106,000 acre) ranch run by Walter and his wife, Karina (and their two knee-high babes). Walter deserves a blog entry to himself. If the Bible were rewritten in today's time, he would appear as a character in its pages.



My fuzzy brain is beginning to fail me and is crying out for a nap, but I'd like to get to my main point first. Out there on the ranch, life swirling around backed by huge mountains and an even bigger sky, I felt that I had stepped into an alternate universe. Everything felt so raw, imposing, indigestible and dangerous, and it felt foreign, unsafe, different, gorgeous. But this raw world, at the edge of comprehension for my urbanized sensibilities, is so much closer to the truth, ecologically speaking, than my own reality day-to-day. Which completely turns me on my head. I say I want that reality, that intimate closeness with the cycles of life.

What does it say about me if, when faced with what I revere, I am a bit afraid?

A few things have happened since the last post. For brevity's sake, I'll make the review short (and full of pictures) and go back only as far as last Tuesday . . . November 4.

Bright and early, we did this:
Then I worked like a crazy person taking pictures and doing a video about other people doing exactly that same thing.

And then this happened:

And then I stayed up all night shooting and editing this:


And then I did this for about 20 hours:
And then today, I went outside to find this:(Oh, yeah. . . I have a garden!)

So that's what I've been up to, and that's why I haven't written. Seeing that I work for a news organization, I cannot mention my feelings about the outcome of the election, except to state several facts. This is history, and whatever your feelings about the promised "change," -- well, change has already occurred. Both of those things are incredibly positive developments, and that's all I'll say about that.

Back to the garden, my little squares of non-partisan dirt that at the same time speak volumes about my politics.

Last weekend, I painted the inside of the coldframes white (using non-toxic, no-VOC paint) so they can make the most of the limited winter sunlight. That paint, by the way, is massively expensive! $26 for a small can!Then, Erik and I sealed the joints and screw holes with clear silicone so they'll cold up for several seasons in the rain. They are also stained and sealed on the outside to protect the wood.

Each night, if it looks like the temperatures will dip near freezing, we place the windows on top and close them. But if the weather is balmy and wet (as it's been for about 4 days here now), I just take the tops off entirely. Unless it's really cold, I leave the windows open so air can circulate. As the days get colder, I'll adjust this, and perhaps only leave the windows ajar during the sunniest hours. Again, learning as I go here -- advice is welcome, if you've got some!

It's been several weeks now with the cold frames, and the plants seem to love them. The lettuce has gone nuts:So is the Swiss chard:And we're getting little baby turnips (? - forgot to remember what I planted there - could be radishes, but I don't think so)Speaking of radishes, I went to check on them, and !#&@^#*#*@(@!!!!!!This little jerk is responsible:And this is how I feel:So I dusted off the ravished radish -and ate it.

Good news about the brussels sprouts! Remember this plant that would not, could not, mature so I chopped off its head?Well, now the sprouts have filled out. I think we're going to make then into dinner soon.There were two cantaloupes that hung on late in the season, though they remained tiny. I've left them on the vine in the hope that they'd get a little bigger, but to no avail. So today I plucked them from their home and introduced them to my kitchen knife.They weren't very good.

The composter in the front is just about ready.
And the back composter is full of the tomato, bean and pepper plants I tore up in the rear garden.Speaking of the rear garden, I decided that next year, it's going to be the dedicated vine and tomato spot. The tomatoes did great there this year (especially the Brandywines) and the purple pole beans - oh my. However, the one thing that all the vining plants needed was more support, so we (actually, Erik will) are going to build a trellis that stretches from the fence to the roof of the adjacent garage.
(like my illustration?)

And while I'm sharing my plans for next season, here's the area where we're (actually, Erik will - again) going to build the chicken run:I'm about out of updates, and both the cat and the husband are snoring, so I think I'll wrap up with some pretty pictures of rose hips, which I may harvest tomorrow to make jam.Th-th-that's all folks!!