The Inadvertent Gardener

It’s probably no surprise to any close reader of this blog that this past year has been, well, challenging. I’m a girl who keeps her chin up, who tries really hard to make things — even the unpleasant ones — work out for the best, and who is determined to seize every possible opportunity to celebrate. But this past year had its moments. There was loss, and that ever-lasting winter. I spent more hours than I care to count trudging back and forth through O’Hare.

Spring has arrived, though, and I am most definitely celebrating. First, I’m celebrating two years of blogging – Post #1 went up on the site on May 6, 2006. I have loved every minute of it. I’ve met amazing people, made wonderful friends, and been lifted up by a community of readers and fellow bloggers just when I needed it most.

I’m also celebrating a fairly momentous announcement: In just more than a week, I’m going to pack up my car and take the gardening show on the road. I’m heading West for a job (and, no doubt, a very expensive apartment) in Oakland, California.

I had the unique opportunity to choose where I would land next, with no strings tying me anywhere, and California’s been tugging at the hem of my jeans for a long, long time. I have never felt so certain about a decision in my entire life.

So what does this mean for my little toddler blog? Well, it’s not going anywhere. When I interviewed for my job, someone asked me why I wanted to move to the Bay Area, and I mentioned the blog, and my love for slow food and sustainable agriculture and how the first time I walked into the Berkeley Bowl, I wanted to pull up a cot and move in so I could have 24-7 access to the satsumas. I’m heading to Mecca for the way I love to eat, and I’m going to want to tell you about all my discoveries. The Inadvertent Gardener is rolling on, whether I land somewhere – at first – with a garden or not.

My posts might be a bit sporadic while I make the move, but I’ll be back to a more regular course of business just as soon as I’m on the ground out there. Stick with me, folks. Even though I’m about to drive out of here, I still have some Iowa writing to attend to. There are stories I have not yet told.

I’m writing this entry out on my little back porch while the sun sets, with a glass of wine by my side, listening to the sounds of the yard and looking over the garden I’ve come to love since living here. A cardinal’s up in the black walnut tree, fluffing his feathers. Every now and then, the dangling metal moons of my wind chime ping together as the breeze kicks up. I’m barefoot, and there’s chicken roasting inside, stuffed with thyme I harvested last year and froze for the winter. I’m going to miss this – and all the wonderful friends I’ve made during my time in Iowa – terribly.

But it’s time to move on. California, here I come. I hope you’re ready for a little inadvertent gardening, third-year-style.

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.

When I was in college, I had a lot of things at the top of my mind: what cheese-laden item would be most tasty at the dining hall at dinner, when I was going to leave campus to drive to visit my boyfriend (two hours away and he didn’t own a car—I definitely know how to pick ‘em), whether I was going to be able to get up in time for swim practice… Gardening? Not one of the things I spent a lot of time thinking about.

In fact, I didn’t even think that much about cooking. My college roommate can tell you a horrible story about my one experiment with Hamburger Helper, and I was often more interested in making a Waffle House run than actually cooking anything. I did whip up a mess of pancakes for a sudden and quite welcome influx of 9 midshipmen who drove down from the Naval Academy one weekend to visit me and my friends (I went to a women’s college, people. That weekend goes down in my mind as one of the miraculous ones that made college great…), but I think I used a big box of Bisquick to make that happen.

My own college experience meant I kind of chuckled when I got a call from The Daily Iowan, the independent newspaper at the University of Iowa, from Brian Stewart, a reporter interested in doing a story about me and the blog. College students? Interested in gardening? Alrighty, then.

The next step in the process was a photo shoot that, because of my schedule this week, had to take place Wednesday morning before I went to work. Ever-patient photographer Beth Skogen got out of bed at an ungodly hour to come to my house and shoot me (I’m sure, when her alarm went off, that took on a very different meaning…) making a frittata. Brittney Hibbs of DITV, the television arm of the news-gathering organization, decided to cover it, too, so there I was, in the kitchen, wielding a chopping knife under pressure of two cameras: one still, one motion.

That was worse than trying to pull off my first Thanksgiving, people. Much, much worse. Much more pressure.

Regardless, the story ran today, and it makes me sound fairly articulate, possibly because I sent a piece of frittata along with Beth to take back to Brian in the newsroom. (Note to the Journalism Ethics Police: I’m kidding about that last part. I’m sure Brian would have written a fabulous article with or without sustenance.) Anyway, if you’d like, check it out, although know that it might require (free) registration to read the article. If I get a link to the DITV story, I’ll post that, too.

(And hey…Alanna…that last quote in the article? I dedicate that one to you…)

UPDATE: If you go to the the box to the right of the story and click on “Play Today’s Newscast,” you can see the television version of the story. The segment’s right in the middle of the newscast, just after the weather and a story about some singers at West High in Iowa City. If you let the file load, you can navigate through the newscast with the slider bar. I’m not sure how long it will be available, so act now if you want to see me talking with my hands and wielding a big knife!

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.

I have not been very good at storing garden food. I did a better job with freezing things this year, sure. But storing food in such a way that it hangs out and survives for a whole winter? Not so much.

That’s not the case, though, for California native David Cavagnaro, a Decorah-area photographer who, with his wife, spend much of the winter eating out of the root cellar they built 17 years ago on their property. “We have almost as much fresh food here year-round as we did in California,” he told me.

Cavagnaro’s root cellar is one of the ones I profiled in my latest article for Edible Iowa River Valley. The winter 2008 issue, which features my piece, as well as features on locally-made maple syrup (including an amazing-looking recipe for Squash Bisque with Maple and Templeton Rye), a tour across the Iowa Wine Trail, and a profile of Jude Becker, who raises organic pigs outside Dyersville.

The magazine just hit the streets here in Iowa City—even the never-ending snow hasn’t kept it away. You can find a free copy in the usual locations, or pony up and order a subscription to have it delivered to your home. And if you aren’t local and don’t want to subscribe, just be patient—the article will be up on the Edible site once all the current issues are distributed.