Monday, October 27, 2008
September in the Garden
September is a poignant month. The garden is lush, the food delicious, but there are signs it is about to end. Now is a good time to collect your burlap if you are traditional, or some old blankets or sheets, against that day when a light frost is predicted over night. Throwing them over tomato, pepper or eggplant plants may preserve your crop for a few more weeks, perhaps a month.
We used to have our first frosts in November, but the past two years they have been in October. First frosts tend to occur at the full moon, when the moon's gravity pulls the covering atmosphere away from the earth.
The October 2008 full moon is only a couple of weeks away. Today's beauty is fragile.
Malabar spinach and basil are not likely to make it through a light frost. Now is the time to freeze spinach and pesto. If you calculate it right, you can pick the eggplant, tomatoes and peppers just before the first killing frost, and have a frenzy of freezing at that time.
Now is also the time to prepare for winter crops. I sowed some more lettuce seed outdoors today. My lettuce has not been flourishing in recent months, but some is trying. The arugula is wonderful, so we have good salads. Indentifying the volunteers in the garden is challenging. Is that green that looks like collards the real thing? I've been coddling some collards, kale, pak choi, and Chinese cabbage in my greenhouse window to supplement that which does not come up on its own. The Chinese cabbage in the cold frame is looking promising for January stir fries.
The poignancy of September seems special this year for two reasons. My own life is joyful and full of good harvests, but we all know what is to come. (Medieval schedules would have me now in December, but I live in the 20th century, so I'm still in September.) A contemporary, Marcia Sward, died on Sunday, making me especially aware of the temporary nature of life. In June she was happily at her daughter-in-law's graduation from medical school, but on July 4 she began her bout with what would turn out to be terminal cancer. A close friend emailed that she "never wept, complained or looked back. She concentrated on enjoying what life was left and the friends around her." Wow! Marcia was the first female
executive director of the (national) Mathematical Association of America, and I saw her only twice a year. Yet it was important to me to talk to her over the phone while she was still alive. She told me happily that her first grandchild will be born this winter. Recently she has been director of a regional Audobon Society. Forgive me if this doesn't seem appropriate in a gardening email, but to me this week, it's relevant. Marcia Sward lived a good life, as my tomatoes and peppers are doing now. Marcia Sward reminds us to cherish life while we have it, in the garden and elsewhere.
Pat
Photography by Lesley Cecchi
About a Garden
Hi! I've been raising almost all of my family's vegetables year round for decades in a small back yard plot 12 miles from Manhattan with no poisons, chemicals or power machinery. When I was also raising my family and working full time, I allowed myself only a half hour a day. My health improved remarkably. It's easy and fun!
I began this garden in the spring of 1978, having contracted Myasthenia Gravis the previous November. I didn't know what was wrong with me then (I was diagnosed later that summer), but I know that when I attempted to get some exercise by walking, I often had to lie down on neighbors' front yards to gain the strength to come home even when I had walked less than one block, which would be safer. Taking the wise advice of a 12-year old, I started gardening. As I harvested the fresh organic vegetables that summer, my health improved. Within a couple of years, my strength increased remarkably. Eventually, I began biking. Now I can bike several miles, convinced that my strength will hold out as I need it. I have commuted by bike, weather permitting, for abut 15 years. Meanwhile, my husband's stamina increased too. He routinely leaves a car to be repaired five miles away and walks home.
Now that I am feeding only two, we have about 300 square feet with vegetables. The only vegetables we buy are potatoes and onions. I've raised them, but they take up too much space in our small yard. I also raise many flowers and fruit. In 1997 I was fruit self-sufficient form late May to late October, but since then the squirrels have challenged that lovely arrangement.
When I was raising vegetables for six, I had 1000 square feet of vegetables. I gave birth to two (humans), and in the early 1980's my husband and I became licensed emergency parents for teen-agers having difficulty with their parents. We often had two extras in our home, and we all six ate from the garden. Raising vegetables takes remarkably little time in the Garden State.
About half the years I've been gardening, I did not water with a hose. I never water my lawn, and it looks fine. Of course, I use a watering can for baby plants, either seeds or seedlings that started in my greenhouse window. I've never used a hose more than three times in one year. When I do, I water deeply, aiming the water in one direction for an hour at a time.
I learned this from the "old guys" who were still selling plants when I started gardening, the heritage of several generations of gardeners and sellers. Back then they were disappointed that their youngsters were "going to college and leaving the business." I also learned from my parents, whose fathers' raised abundant gardens amid successful careers. My earliest memories were of Victory Gardens, my parents' and others'. I learned lots form reading seed catalogs and books.
For several years I've had a growing email list of those who want to learn how to garden on a small plot in a metropolitan area and to be entertained by stories from my adventures. This blog will reach out to a wider audience, and includes some recipes and photographs form my garden. I plan to post some choice past emails and add others when the spirit moves me. As time permits, I will answer questions. There is much to be leaned, and everyone who gardens experiments. We can learn much form each other!
You don't have to know much to get started. Sweet-100 tomatoes just grow! They even volunteered in my front yard, where they get little sun and I've done nothing to improve the Montclair clay soil. I said to the first, "You stupid thing. Tomatoes can't grow there." but they were right and I was wrong. So I gave them a tomato cage and the great-grandchildren of those first pioneers grace my front lawn as I write. And they taste so much better than anything you can buy...
Pat
Photography by Lesley Cecchi
Labels: Intro
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