The Inadvertent Gardener

Apparently, over the winter, someone decided to throw approximately 1,000 small twigs into my garden plot. It’s lucky that, although I definitely have areas in which I exhibit great symptoms of obsessive-compulsive disorder, the garden is not one of those areas. Therefore, on Sunday evening, I picked about 428 of those twigs out of the garden before giving up and just deciding that the remaining ones provided some interest, and also a good challenge for the seedlings to come. The really strong ones, after all, ought to be able to push the twigs out of the way, right?

Don’t worry, Master Gardeners. I’ll pick more out in the next couple of days.

Besides the twigs, I needed to remove the clumps of grass that had infiltrated the plot over the winter, which is miraculous, because how the grass was able to be all sneaky like that underneath 20 inches of snow baffles me considerably. I also yanked any dead plants that would have come out if said snow hadn’t snuck up on me itself before I had time to clean much up last year.

But there were signs of life. Besides the garlic and the aforementioned baby spinach that is just coming up all on its own, it appears that one of my sage plants is resurrecting itself. There were some green baby leaves that are destined to become tasty treats sooner rather than later.

I yanked the rest of the sage plants as carefully as I could so I wouldn’t disturb the newcomers, and took all the dead plants over to the compost pile. Then I set about turning over the soil, unearthing all manner of worms who were not particularly thrilled to see me hanging out. Then I got moving on dropping in seeds in my normal, laissez faire manner, starting with the chard, which has bony little seeds that I loved from the moment I saw them.

After the chard, I moved on to the rest: spinach, rosemary, sage, Italian parsley and some green beans. Once I had put far too many seeds in, as usual, ignoring the wise advice of the back of the seed packet, I covered everything up. Then I stepped back from the garden plot, the sun setting behind me, and nodded. Oh, tasty spinach. Oh, tasty chard. Oh, delicious herbs. I hope some of you come up soon, despite my best efforts to plant you incorrectly.

Yesterday afternoon, I clicked on the link to Michael Pollan’s excellent New York Times Magazine piece on all the good things that arise from gardening—his focus is on climate change and the behavioral shift everyone must undergo to make any kind of difference in the daunting problem, but he makes the eloquent case about why we ought to all grow some of our own food. A few minutes later, an email came in from a friend in California, sending the article my way.

It’s a piece worth sharing, and not just because Michael Pollan is my hero. I wish everyone thought this way, and I realize that I’m speaking as someone who came pretty late to the gardening party. But now that I’ve lived a life where I can just run out to the yard and clip some herbs to throw in whatever meal I’m cooking up, there’s no going back, and I want everyone to experience the same thing. It really doesn’t matter whether you get your food at your local superstore or at a co-op or even the farmer’s market (although if you’re not going to grow it yourself, farmer’s market up, people, ’cause it’s good stuff, too)—the best, healthiest, most delicious, most amazing food is always going to be what you grew yourself.

For me, the connection Pollan draws to climate change is a worthy one, but the other connections he talks about—to the miracle of how something starts as a speck-like seed and becomes edible just with the addition of some sun and air and dirt and water, to the neighbors around you, to the land itself—are the ones that I value the most highly.

That being said, I fully agree with Pollan. If you make those connections, the larger one—the willingness to make changes that will benefit the climate without feeling like you’re yelling into some sort of howling void—will come easier, too.

UPDATE: You can also learn more about what the company I work for is doing on this front in my post re: the Pollan article for The GeoVoices blog.

I’m going to admit a weakness for Twitter, an online microblogging service I once discounted as totally stupid and now? Now? I’m completely hooked.

It was through Twitter’s blog that I learned about a service that just might have solved my aloe problem: Botanicalls. This company has set up plants that actually send you a message via Twitter when they need to be watered. Not too soon, not too late. Just right.

Check this out: here’s a plant that you can actually follow. Of course, because none of us know where it is (besides New York City), we can’t answer the call for help when it comes. But to watch the drama play out on my very own cellphone? I can barely resist.

Although Valentine’s Day has come and gone, it seems appropriate to tell you about a little indoor plant experiment I have going on right now. At Christmas, my former roommate Susan, who has managed to locate the world’s greatest gardening gifts ever since I started this blog, sent me a terrific gift that I will unveil to you patient blog readers when the season for actual gardening comes around.

But in the meantime, there was a smaller, more immediate part of the Christmas gift: A small “Valentine” kit, with a teeny-tiny pot, little strawberry seeds and the growing medium to plant them in.

I haven’t had much luck with strawberry plants outdoors, but thought it would be cool to try the kit indoors just to see what will happen. Susan and I coordinated by email: we would both plant our kits on January 21, mine here in Iowa on my chilly windowsill, and hers at her new house.

The growing medium arrives as a flat disc that requires a little water to expand out to a thick cylinder. It’s sort of like sea monkey dirt: you add water and the fun begins.

I planted the seeds and put my pot up on the kitchen sill, and but for a couple of days, have managed to remember to open the shade so the thing has some sunlight. It’s watery, often-snowy sunlight, but it still has to be healthier than the gloom in my kitchen without the shift in shades.

So far, nothing has broken the surface of the dirt, and I’m trying to take a lesson from the aloe and not water it every single day. We’ll see how it goes—even if I don’t end up with a ripe strawberry, it would be nice to see something green rise up from the dirt.

So last year, I decided to spend a February Saturday at a gardening fair. That’s how I roll, you know, as the Inadvertent Gardener. Rocking out the winter Saturdays learning about staking flowers and planning herb garden layouts.

Except it was far too wintry a Saturday that particular day, and the fair was cancelled, leaving me bereft of opportunities to learn more about bees and composting.

This year, the Iowa State Extension Service is trying again, offering the Winter Gardening Fair 2008 on February 2. I’m planning to go, although I have not yet registered.

I have friends who have known me long enough to be shaking their heads right now. I am an incorrigible planner, that girl who buys the tickets to shows and events and plays and concerts before anyone else even looks at their calendar book, that girl who is most likely to say, “Sure, I’d love to, but I’m going to see B.B. King that night and I bought the tickets in 1994, so I can’t possibly change my plans.”

You may ask, then, why I haven’t registered? Well, part of it’s because I haven’t been able to narrow down what sessions I want to attend. Here’s the day I’m considering so far:

Session 1:
The Kitchen Garden
Including vegetables, flowers, and herbs, LCMG Ellen Skripsky will explore raised garden beds, vertical growing, and successive planting as space-saving techniques.

It should be obvious from my various recipes why I want to attend this one. Also, I definitely need to do a significantly better job with successive planting, so I can definitely pick up some tips here.

Session 2:
This is where I run into problems. I’m debating between the following three sessions:

Starting Garden Transplants
LCMG Zora Ronan will show us how to successfully start our own garden transplants from seed at home.

I haven’t tried any seed starting yet, but probably need to give it a whirl. I suspect this session would help demystify the process for me so I might feel brave enough to try it this year. That being said, I refuse to invest in grow-lights. I mean, I refuse to invest in them this year. This is not a sickness, people.

Summer Flowering Bulbs
Learn about summer flowering bulbs and their care with LCMG Ian Philpott. Examples are allium, calla, lily, canna, dahlia, and gladiolus. Learn how to lift bulbs, corms, and tubers and store for the winter.

Since I did so poorly with bulbs last year, it occurs to me that it might be nice to actually learn what I’m doing this year.

Peonies
Peonies were the queens of Grandma’s spring garden. Join Linn County Master Gardener Lu Barron and find out what’s new in herbaceous and tree peonies as well as how to plant and care for them.

I have come to love peonies. That’s all there is to say about that.

Session 3:
The Good, the Bad, and the Buggly
Dr. Donald Lewis, ISU Extension Entomology Specialist, will provide us with information to help us identify and manage those garden bugs that attack our gardens.

How can anyone go wrong with a session titled The Good, The Bad, and the Buggly? It’s so punny, folks! Plus, as I’ve said before, I’m a little bit obsessed with garden bugs, even though the ones in the house still freak me out.

So, here’s the thing. I need to send in my registration fairly soon, but I’m willing to wait a bit. Why? Because I’m going to let you, my fair and lovely blog readers, decide my future. My future, that is, when it comes to Session 2. Place your vote (and, if you so choose, your rationale…) in the comments and let me know what you think. I’ll go with a simple majority rule on this one.

And, just to make things more interesting, I’ll let you switch your vote one time in the process, just in case you’ve already voted and someone else comes up with a better rationale for why I should attend a different class during that session. That way, it’ll be that much more like the Iowa Caucuses. It is election season, after all!