Fall and Other Sadnesses

The seasons are changing, summer running toward fall.  It’s been cool here, cooler than I’d expect for September.  I will miss the Contented Crafter in the coming months.  Pauline, as many of you may have read in Alys’s lovely memorial piece, died on September 5th.  I first met her when she came to DC as a member of the “blogging babes” and was privileged to show her, Alys and Kelly around DC.  Since, we wrote, skyped, visited each other’s blogs and grew in friendship.  I wish her spirit Godspeed and her daughters, Danella and Joanna strength and comfort in the times to come.

In the garden, I’ve been planting for fall as I clear space.  If it’s a mild winter, I hope to have lettuces, beets, parsley and a few other things.  I’ve had eggplants, peppers and green beans galore this year, along with a lot more tomatoes than I usually get.  We’ve had a lot of rain, which may have helped.

In my garden, there is a mystery squash.  I have no clue what it is, but I think it’s a winter squash and I have quite a few of them.   If you know what it is, leave a comment.

Not an acorn squash, not an overgrown pattypan…

More to come soon on final donation weights and fall plantings.  Take care all!

The Garden Produces

Boy the summer crops are coming fast and plentiful.  I have more tomatoes than I’ve had for years–I think because I stopped trying to grow heirlooms.  We have so much fungal disease in our soils, that the only way to get a good crop is through hybrids.  The ones I have this year are tasty, so I can’t complain.  One year I made the mistake of buying Early Girls and I was so angry that I had allotted space in my garden to those horrible, perfectly round, hard, tasteless tomatoes they sell all winter in the store.  Even perfectly ripe from the vine, those things weren’t worth eating.

These have been tasty.

But I have summer and winter squash,

Okra in abundance,

the hope of an eggplant or two by season’s end,

and beans coming on, finally!  Yes!

The longnecks we planted in the dedicated garden are coming on crazily and have weighed 6, 8, 8 and more than 9 pounds!  As several people have said–that squash is the size of a baby!

I’ve got basil and I’ve planted more for fall.  I’ve also put in some other crops–more parsley, arugula and some kale.  I harvested all my carrots today, so that frees up some fall gardening space as well.  We’ll see how it goes.

The peppers took a break for a while, but I have 5 large ones now and more blossoms.

Sorry to be so out of touch both writing and visiting people’s blogs.  It seems like there’s always just a bit too much to do.  But I’ll be catching up on the fly.  Have a good week!

Growing and Donating

I have mentioned donating produce before, but haven’t shown what I do for the food pantry pick ups yet.  There are three every week: one to an elementary school and two to churches.  The other community garden, Four-Mile Run, chose these because they thought their food would make a difference at each one.  I have not gone to any of the pantries yet, though I’m familiar with both churches.  Four Mile Run garden has a really active group of volunteer donors and drivers to get the food to the pantries.  So far they have been happy to pick up from us and I have been grateful.

Packing food….

Our garden, known as 10 Barton Gardens, has two small plots dedicated to food production for donation. Previously, they were for the Plot Against Hunger, but since AFAC has stopped taking fresh produce during the pandemic, I just refer to them as the dedicated gardens.

These are growing in the small plot against hunger garden.

One of these is small, about 3 feet by 20 feet and I have planted asparagus in it, hoping to develop a good crop for spring that comes back every year.  The other plot has really enriched soil from a previous gardener who added a lot of organic material from manure to crab shells.  It currently is planted in squashes (winter and summer), okra, tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, blackberries and blueberries, and pole beans.  It has a few lingering carrots and beets from the spring.  We’ve donated about 70 pounds so far in combination with my friend Paul, whose garden I’m caring for while he’s away, and other gardeners at 10 Barton.

This is the large dedicated garden, with okra showing its best face and lots of squash and tomatoes behind it.

The pick ups happen in the middle of the day on weekdays and are tied to when food is distributed by the pantries.  We want it to be as fresh as possible.  I usually go in the evening of the day before the pick up and harvest and wash the produce, then I pack it in coolers.  My fellow gardener, Mike, has been a loyal volunteer to come on the day of the pick up and bag the produce to give to the volunteer driver.  It’s worked well so far and I’m glad to be giving good food to people in need.

Coolers, packed up and ready for bagging, nestled in the small plot against hunger for the evening.

My friend Paul’s garden has added to our poundage, primarily in kale and chard, but lately in basil, which I’m glad to share with people as well.  I confess I have eaten all the green beans, though.  I also planted cantaloupe and some winter squash for him to have when he returns.

One of the planters of kale in Paul’s garden…

After I met the pick up today (because I’m taking a little time off, even though I can’t go anywhere), I worked in my own garden.  I ripped out some zucchini that were producing only male flowers (for weeks) and replanted in another spot.  In recent days, space has freed up, and I was able to plant more parsley, including some of that Hamburg parsley that makes a root; rainbow chard; basil; and the two squash plants, a cocozelle and a black beauty.

The golden squash are really coming on. I harvested one of them today, but the others are still quite small.

My bean plants are blooming like crazy, but I have yet to get any beans.  Another gardener said hers had just begun to come on, so I will keep looking.

Sometime in the next week or so, I’ll likely plant some more cucumbers and start thinking more carefully about fall crops for the dedicated plots.

I harvest the kale and chard into a cooler bag, then usually bring it home to wash and package.

Have I mentioned it’s been hot?  Really hot.  Upper 90’s and humidity that makes it feel hotter.  One day I was out just harvesting in Paul’s garden (which isn’t much work; it’s raised beds in a driveway).  And when I got home, I realized it was way too hot to be out.  It isn’t often that it’s too hot for me, but whooooeee!  After a series of violent thunderstorms, it’s cooled back down to the upper 80s and lower 90s.  Feels great again.

I hope you have a lovely weekend and a great week to come.

Early Summer Lushness

The garden is at that point where spring crops are mostly out, summer crops have gotten big and are beginning to bear, and everything looks lovely and lush.

I just love this time with the seedlings coming up,

Basil. I thought it wasn’t going to sprout.

the flowers blooming,

squash plants thriving,

beans climbing, and tomatoes looking happy

and producing fruit.

We gave our first couple donations to different food pantries in the past week, mostly beets and carrots from the dedicated garden, which is doing well, thanks to help from my volunteer Holly, who weeds like a Champ and my neighboring gardener Mike, who keeps an eye on the water needs of all the plants.

This garden has beets and carrots, summer and winter squashes, cucumbers, peppers, beans, blueberries, tomatoes, okra, and some stray turnips, as well as chard.

The work is pretty much under control, so some evenings after work, I’ve just been walking over there for the exercise, to check on things and to enjoy it.  Sometimes I see evil lagomorphs.

It was eating grass, and far from my garden, so I left it unmolested.

Other times there’s a flock of song sparrows.  I tried to get pictures of them, but gave up and did a video instead.  Excuse me whistling under my breath on it; it was the chorus to Stan Rogers’ Tiny Fish for Japan, but unrecognizable as half the notes were in my head.  That was brought on by talk of smelt over lunch with friends on Saturday.  But back to the sparrows–They would perch on trellises and the fence and sing like crazy.  And they are cute.

It’s so lovely to see the trumpet vine blooming.

And the rabbits did not eat my okra seedlings as they emerged this year.

All in all, I can say so far, so good.

Updates with Old Pictures

Once again, I went to the garden without my camera.  It’s a pattern these days.  I have some old photos to share and will try to do better with the camera next time.

Things are looking good for the summer.

I’m really pleased with where the garden is at this point.  Some spinach bolted, but it still made fabulous salad, and now the summer seeds have all been planted, though not all of them appear to be coming up.

there have been blueberries since this picture…

Okra is up and some of the pole beans have come up.  The peppers and the tomatoes are doing well.  It could be a good tomato year, if only because there are so many of them, between what I purchased, was given, and what has volunteered.  We’ll see what transpires.

Sweet peas, bee balm, and seeding Nigella…

I also have winter squash planted for the first time in years.  It tends to be sweet, so various garden pests gnaw on it.  That, combined with the long growing time and the large amount of space it needs makes me avoid it.  We have planted it in the Plot Against Hunger garden, as well, hoping to extend the season.  There is more space there, though it won’t look like it once all that stuff gets growing.

I sat in the courtyard after the bike ride today.

The Plot garden has some nice beets that are ready to harvest, and some carrots that will be ready soon as well.  I’m in the process of talking with another garden about combining produce deliveries to some pantries.  They talked to all the distributors and figured out the ones that actually needed the produce.  A lot of places distributing have already got a good supply, either through grants, or the USDA (there’s a big farm nearby in Maryland that does research), or big donations.

This picture is from a couple weeks ago, so the beets are well and truly ready to be pulled.

I was in the garden yesterday and did a lot of weeding and trimming and nosing around.  Then I watered.  Today, I went on my first bicycle ride of the year and discovered I was not nearly as out of condition as I thought and replacement of the tires last fall really messed up the gears.  I’ll be working on those for a while on each bike ride, trying to get in better shape than I’m in and in a reliably better state of mind.  So much is going on in the world.  We have to take care of ourselves and each other.

The Constant Gardener?

Goodness what a week.  It started with a white woman threatening a black man with police for asking her to leash her dog in an area of Central Park reserved for birds and wild things.  It ended with riots.  In between, a white police officer knelt on a black man’s neck until he strangled him.  As I write, demonstrators are in Lafayette park across from the White House.  Tear gas has been deployed.  It’s like 1968.

Bees in the birdbath, drinking…

I remember 1968.  I was a child, but I remember Martin Luther King being assassinated in April and Bobby Kennedy being assassinated in June.  In April I was over at my friend Karen’s and my mother had come to pick me up, but the adults were discussing the murder.  In June, I was on a lake in Wisconsin where I turned 11 and every day I rowed out in a boat onto Loon Lake and caught and released little bullheads.  It was an idyll of family and friends, in the midst of which the adults talked about the murder.  Then there was the Democratic National Convention in Chicago.  Holy Toledo.

I should have harvested this rapini before it blossomed, but they were delicious anyway.

Back in the 90’s I was visiting a friend in Chicago and saw signs welcoming me to the city signed by Richard Daly and had flashbacks. (For those who don’t know the politics of American cities, Richard J. Daly was mayor in the 60’s and Richard M. Daly, his son, was mayor in the 90s.  Another son was a Senator.)  “All the news just repeats itself/like some forgotten dream/that we’ve both seen.”  No wonder I keep listening to old John Prine songs.  The kindling for this night has been stacking for a long time.

Foreground: bee balm; the rest is a fence of love-in-a-mist, something we could use instead of teargas.

I am disgusted and I fear for my country and its democracy.  I am afraid our lunatic President will declare martial law.  I am afraid the election will be cancelled and we won’t be able to get rid of him.  I am afraid the election won’t be cancelled and my fellow citizens will re-elect him.  Note that all the other news of the week, like more attacks on the free press and Twitter’s attempt to tell people to look further at the President’s assertions, as well as reaching a death toll of 100,000 from COVID-19 went unmentioned in my little ramble.  It’s been a hell of a week.

Thank God for flowers.

I baked cheese scones this morning,  the recipe from  Ellen Hawley’s Notes from the UK.

And delicious they were.

I did my laundry and cleaned the house.  I went to the garden.  The garden helped.  There were peas.

Find the pea pods. Yes, that’s mint in there…

There were flowers.

Larkspur, Nigella, Sweet Pea, Lavender, and that yellow bit–bolted mustard greens…and a bit of parsley I’m letting blossom for seeds.

Last week, I did some work, too.  I had been going to save seeds from the chard.  Looking at the wall of it, I wondered how much chard seed I actually needed, decided, and then pulled out all but what would supply enough.  Then I put in a new bean enclosure, since the peas are currently occupying the only other one.

The new bean enclosure with the old one in the background holding the peas…surrounded by mint and oregano.

I’ll be in the garden again tomorrow to plant the Plot Against Hunger garden for summer.  We’re working with a variety of pantries and organizations and the PTA President and I have a call with the Arlington Public School nutritionist on Monday to talk about the possibility of distributing vegetables through them.

Nigella that haven’t opened fully yet and a few poppy pods.

So there’s some hope.  Let’s do what we can, raise hell if we have to, and not waste time looking for an easier world.

All That Beauty (Jazz Optional)

The garden has begun that crazy, lush, blooming green growth.  Every year it amazes me.

The irises and roses are in their glory, columbine have finished, and the holly blossoms are wafting their sweet scent through the air.

The love-in-a-mist are getting ready to pop open with their intricate star blooms.

And look at these peas!!!  If it doesn’t turn from cold to hot too soon, I’ll have a crop.

The new lettuces are thriving.

I spent most of Friday in the garden, putting in seedlings and taking down the fences around a lot of things, so I’m just showing parts of the garden that still look the same.  I hope I can remember the camera next time I go.

Rapini and carrots. I took this enclosure down, as so far the things I left out to test whether the evil rabbits were going to munch are still growing…I plopped an eggplant seedling down among the rapini.

I’m running into the issue of the long cold spring with my planting.  It is time to put in summer crops like pole beans, zucchini, peppers, tomatoes, okra and other delicacies, but the carrots, peas, radishes, and rapini have been slow  and are still in the spaces those other crops would go in.  To add to the issue, I’ve decided to let the arugula and parsley go to seed, so I can save it.

Blossoming arugula and blooming thyme

Still, I put in peppers, tomatoes, and an eggplant, carefully calculating where the squash will go and where I’ll throw down some basil seed.  I put in another row of arugula, and some okra, though that was a calculated risk, given temperatures in the sixties next week.  I’m hoping the seedlings ride out the predicted cool days.  One plus is that it’s supposed to rain, so they can settle in nicely if it isn’t a gully washer.

More irises and bolting chard–I’m collecting seed from that as well.

The cold weather has really inhibited the early crops in the Plot Against Hunger Garden.  I put in pepper and tomato seedlings there and have had some tomato seeds sprouting in little mini greenhouses created with 3 liter bottles of spring water.  They’re doing okay, but still really small.

There are some carrots and beets and chard in there now as well, but we’ll likely put pole beans and plant squash and cucumbers next weekend.  The Arlington Friends Urban Agriculture have found organizations and food pantries that will take fresh produce, so I will contact the ones close to me when we have food to deliver.  That could be some time, but we’re plugging away at it.

Most of these have gone into salads at this point.

Gardening is a risky business, like life.  You never quite know what’s coming your way (evil rabbits, voles, too much rain, drought, squash bugs, stink bugs, long cold springs, brutal summer heat, rats and much much more…).

You never know when you’ll see a demonic rabbit…

Luckily, there’s usually only one or two really pesky things in a summer, so we’ll see how it goes.  Meanwhile, I’m going to enjoy all the greenery and flowers and sit close to blossoming holly trees when I can.

And for the optional jazz, If the Stars were Mine, by Melody Gardot.  I hope you have a lovely, flower scented week–and if someone offers you a jar full of stars, take it.

A Lot of Music, a Little Gardening…

Today, one of my neighbors was walking up the steps toward the Metro playing a banjo.  I heard it first and looked out the window.  When I saw him, I opened the sash and gave him a shout.  We laughed about a banjo being hard to ignore and he said he was “taking it to the streets.”  Last summer he played it up on the plaza between some office buildings and it was always nice to hear.  I’ve been reflective lately, trolling through my music, old and new.

In the garden, the peas, already mixed with mint, are coming along nicely.

It’s made me check in on people I hadn’t played for a while to see if they have something new out or a tour planned.  I’m surprised how many of the artists whose music I’ve loved are dead.  Some recently so, like John Prine.  When I first heard of his passing I thought how hard that would be for his family, and then I thought, “I hope Steve Goodman met him at the pearly gates and they’re jamming now.”

Kirsten, the County Extension Agent, set up outside the garden with boxes of seeds. There is apparently a seed shortage.

I came to John Prine’s music through Steve Goodman.  They were buddies in Chicago folk clubs and wrote songs together as well as sang together.  Goodman wrote The City of New Orleans, which Arlo Guthrie recorded, Banana Republics, which Jimmy Buffet recorded, and a boatload of other songs, including Go Cubs, Go (his family gave the rights to that to the Chicago Cubs) and The Dying Cub Fan’s Last Request among a lot of others.  He was a small-statured bundle of energy on stage and apparently in the rest of his life as well.  In this clip, he sings Banana Republics and The 20th Century is Almost Over.  That crazy bouncing and dancing in the second song is typical of his concert enthusiasm, and for some reason the song seems oddly topical and contemporary.  He and Prine also sang together fairly often, as in this rendition of Prine’s Souvenirs.

Fellow gardeners Atoshi and Mike kept social distance.

So without Goodman, I might not have learned of Prine so early.  One of the first of his songs I heard, Paradise, was about strip mining and became an anthem of protests against its effects.  His songs could be lovely and lyrical or unvarnished and true.  Mostly they were stories that pointed to some truth–like Hello in There, recorded by quite a few people–Bette Midler and Joan Baez among them–about an elderly couple with a history.  There was Sam Stone, about a soldier come back from war with a heroin habit, and Angel from Montgomery, recorded by Bonnie Raitt, about a woman worn down by life.  He said once in an interview that if you write a song and record it you’d better like it because if it’s a hit, “you’ll be singing it the rest of your life.”

Blooming thyme, with rosemary putting a blooming branch in upper right. I learned that AFAC is no longer taking fresh produce, as it involves too many people in the warehouse. Plot Against Hunger is looking for other places to donate. There is great need for food.

There is a lot of joy and fun in his songs, as in The Glory of True Love and Lonesome Friends of Science.  Two of my favorites are The Speed of the Sound of Loneliness, recorded by Nanci Griffith, among others, and Summer’s End off his 2018 album, Tree of Forgiveness.  What a lovely album that last one is.

Mike has a look at the blooming rosemary–and have a look at the Columbine (aka Aquilegia) by the fence.

I listen to a lot of music and like most of it, from classical to jazz to blues to rock to punk and new wave, and have dipped my ear into rap.  There is something about singer-songwriters though, that draws me.  I do like the way country music and blues and bluegrass rolled into the potent tidal wave of rock and roll and continue to change.  So I guess this is part of my Covid Coping.  I’ve seen that hashtag on Twitter and for me, a little music, a little walking in nature, a little gardening, a little baking, and a few friends are keeping me sane, for the most part.  Have a lovely week.

A Neighborhood Walk

I Face Timed today with a friend in California.  We have known each other since college, which means more than 40 years and seems kind of crazy.  But while we were talking the sun came out here so I decided to take my exercise outside.

Yes, I cut down an alley because there was so much foot traffic on the street I started down.

So did a bunch of other people, but everyone was mindful of keeping distance.  Honestly it was just nice to be out. I cut down some alleys.  I grew up in a small town and in the country, so alleys were like little grassy lanes.  Sure, the garbage trucks drove down once a week and all manner of car mechanics went on there, but there’s something alluring and homey about them to me.

Everything is in bloom, especially the camellias.  I’d have taken more pictures, but it felt sort of invasive to be taking pictures of people’s houses while zeroing in on a plant.

The squirrels love the camellia blossoms. I have no idea what they taste like.

The neighborhood is really lovely right now, with things in bloom, leaves coming out, and a profusion of bulb flowers.

There are a few places where there were drifts of violets across lawns.  I shot these rather solitary ones when I was taking a photo of our camellia.

And this flowering quince, not in its full glory, but still lovely, was on one of the streets.

It was good to be out and say hello to neighbors from a distance.  I will try to keep up my outdoor exercise when I can and do videos when I can’t.  I’m looking forward to venturing back in the garden on a nice evening this week.  We’ll see.

Have a good week.

First Planting

Today, I took an hour and a half after work to finish weeding the garden and to plant a few things.  I’ve been eating lettuce from the cold frame much of the winter, and decided it was time to plant some more.

There’s still good lettuce in there, but once it gets a bit warmer, I’ll have to get the glass off it. The silhouette is me, the lettuce eater.

The arugula I’ve been munching on for a couple months is blooming in the warming weather.

I’ve been adding it to pasta in the last couple weeks. It’s still delicious, and I’ll eat it until the new stuff comes up.

I’ve planted more of that, too.

Left, caged mixed lettuces; middle, delicious fall-planted parsley; right, more arugula. The Contented Crafter will be pleased to note that not all the lettuces are covered…

I pulled most of the broccoli from the winter and freed up space for rapini (broccoli raab) and some carrots.  I also planted carrots and radishes and put them under cover.

Rapini and carrots fenced in, radishes and carrots under cover, the cold frame and inside the bean enclosure, some sprouting peas.

I thought I had spinach seeds, but so far, I haven’t found them.  I had some spring onion seeds, but couldn’t get the package open (a small seed saver container with a screw on lid).  I’ll go after that with pliers tonight.

The oregano is extremely happy. You may have noticed it in the previous picture.

Stay safe, folks.  Enjoy the outdoors if you can go out safely.  It’s gorgeous now and things are greening up and bursting into bloom.

The rosemary is in full bloom.