Saturday, April 13, 2013

this compost

45 degrees, overcast, breezy
wind, 17 mph
53% humidity

Last year, I found rats in my compost bin, so I've been working on designs for a new bin that will hopefully be critter-proof (or at least resistant). I suppose there are worse things to have in your compost, and I do admire their resourcefulness. It's warm in there, and there is a constant supply of food...we want these things, too. I could just let it alone, but I've wanted to go larger anyway - multiple bins and such.

Thanks to Todd for finding this gem by Walt Whitman:


This Compost
By Walt Whitman
1819-1892


1 

Something startles me where I thought I was safest, 
I withdraw from the still woods I loved, 
I will not go now on the pastures to walk, 
I will not strip the clothes from my body to meet my lover the sea, 
I will not touch my flesh to the earth as to other flesh to renew me. 

O how can it be that the ground itself does not sicken? 
How can you be alive you growths of spring? 
How can you furnish health you blood of herbs, roots, orchards, grain? 
Are they not continually putting distemper'd corpses within you? 
Is not every continent work'd over and over with sour dead? 

Where have you disposed of their carcasses? 
Those drunkards and gluttons of so many generations? 
Where have you drawn off all the foul liquid and meat? 
I do not see any of it upon you to-day, or perhaps I am deceiv'd, 
I will run a furrow with my plough, I will press my spade through 
the sod and turn it up underneath, 
I am sure I shall expose some of the foul meat. 

2 

Behold this compost! behold it well! 
Perhaps every mite has once form'd part of a sick person--yet behold! 
The grass of spring covers the prairies, 
The bean bursts noiselessly through the mould in the garden, 
The delicate spear of the onion pierces upward, 
The apple-buds cluster together on the apple-branches, 
The resurrection of the wheat appears with pale visage out of its graves, 
The tinge awakes over the willow-tree and the mulberry-tree, 
The he-birds carol mornings and evenings while the she-birds sit on 
their nests, 
The young of poultry break through the hatch'd eggs, 
The new-born of animals appear, the calf is dropt from the cow, the 
colt from the mare, 
Out of its little hill faithfully rise the potato's dark green leaves, 
Out of its hill rises the yellow maize-stalk, the lilacs bloom in 
the dooryards, 
The summer growth is innocent and disdainful above all those strata 
of sour dead. 

What chemistry! 
That the winds are really not infectious, 
That this is no cheat, this transparent green-wash of the sea which 
is so amorous after me, 
That it is safe to allow it to lick my naked body all over with its tongues, 
That it will not endanger me with the fevers that have deposited 
themselves in it, 
That all is clean forever and forever, 
That the cool drink from the well tastes so good, 
That blackberries are so flavorous and juicy, 
That the fruits of the apple-orchard and the orange-orchard, that 
melons, grapes, peaches, plums, will none of them poison me, 
That when I recline on the grass I do not catch any disease, 
Though probably every spear of grass rises out of what was once 
catching disease. 

Now I am terrified at the Earth, it is that calm and patient, 
It grows such sweet things out of such corruptions, 
It turns harmless and stainless on its axis, with such endless 
successions of diseas'd corpses, 
It distills such exquisite winds out of such infused fetor, 
It renews with such unwitting looks its prodigal, annual, sumptuous crops, 
It gives such divine materials to men, and accepts such leavings 
from them at last. 

Sunday, April 7, 2013

planting time at last

72 degrees, overcast and pleasant
wind, 17 mph
28% humidity

The last couple of weeks have been all over the place. Cold, windy, dry, now balmy. This was the scene just 1-1/2 weeks ago:

our backyard during the final snow (we hope)
Most of my work outdoors has been of the sod-ripping kind: I've laid in the outlines of the new, larger beds, and dug out part of them. Much more to go, which is a bit overwhelming, but also nice in that it is simple labor. I call it part of my de-screening process after spending the whole day on the computer.

one small section of what I am taking out

My pull to be outside is intense. Every year, it's like this. I woke up this morning at 8am and head directly outdoors. By 10:30am, I had weeded, assembled my new tiller (which is a freakin' animal!), distributed compost over most of the garden, tilled it in, built two pea fences, and planted two varieties of peas. (I'm adding a new widget that will list the varieties of things I'm growing.)

trying to keep up with my little animal

happy tilth

made for the peas from old dog fence left by previous owners



Saturday, March 23, 2013

vitality

39 degrees
wind, 6 mph
53% humidity

Sore muscles tonight...I spent a couple hours on this gorgeous day digging the last few feet of sod out between the herb and veggie gardens. It got up to 51 degrees today, and not a cloud in the sky. It went from this:


to this:



It's a 90 square foot addition to my garden, making it a total of approximately 280 square feet. 

Removing sod by hand is not an easy task. I found that getting a roll started with a shovel would allow me to get enough of a hand hold to then pull the sod out and roll it up.


The amount of biomass that results is quite remarkable. I am hoping to dry it out and get more soil back before composting it. 


While toiling away, I was contemplating the drive I have to do this work. It is not necessary per se; gardening at home rarely is, particularly in this culture. I could simply go to the store or a farmer's market to buy produce. If it was important to have something locally grown, I could subscribe to a CSA (and have in the past). So if not out of necessity in the basic sense, then what? 

"Vitality" is the word that arises. 

1   a : the peculiarity distinguishing the living from the nonliving
     b : capacity to live and develop; also : physical or mental vigor especially when highly developed

2   a : power of enduring
     b : lively and animated character

I love "peculiarity" in the first definition. As if this is a strange thing, to be alive. 

Thursday, March 21, 2013

seed cathedral

29 degrees, partly cloudy, light snow
wind, 12 mph
72% humidity

In February, I pored over the 2013 catalog of heirloom and open-pollinated seeds from Seed Savers Exchange. This publication is seductive, tantalizing me with its vivid descriptions and gorgeous photos. 
An example:

36-Cherokee Trail of Tears Bean
(aka Cherokee Black) Given to SSE in 1977 by the late Dr. John Wyche, SSE member from Hugo, Oklahoma. Dr. Wyche's Cherokee ancestors carried this bean over the Trail of Tears, the infamous winter death march from the Smoky Mountains to Oklahoma (1838-1839), leaving a trail of 4,000 graves. Green 6" pods with purple overlay, shiny jet black seeds. Good for snap beans and dry beans. Pole habit, snap or dry, 85 days. +/- 1,600 seeds/lb. Packet (50 seeds) $2.75. 

"Graves" and "Green" next to each other. That's it, isn't it? Life and death side by side. 

If I ordered everything that I wanted, we'd need several acres to grow it all. I pared it back to this, which I will add to my cache of seeds from last year:


Is there anything more powerful than a seed? It is life held in stasis, waiting for the right conditions. It starts out a dry little speck, and produces leaf, flower, fruit and root. In these 21 packets lies more potential than I have room for; I will not be able to plant them all. 

Todd (my husband, for those of you who don't know) just introduced me to Thomas Heatherwick of Heatherwick Studio. He and his team designed the UK pavilion for the 2010 Shanghai Expo, titled the "Seed Cathedral." Here's a great TED talk about the piece as well.




"There are 250,000 seeds cast into the glassy tips of all the hairs. By day, the pavilion’s interior is lit by the sunlight that comes in along the length of each rod and lights up the seed ends. You can track the daily movement of the sun and pick out the shadows of passing clouds and birds and, when you move around, the light moves with you, glowing most strongly from the hairs that point directly towards you. By night, light sources inside each rod illuminate not only the seed ends inside the structure, but the tips of the hairs outside it, covering the pavilion in tiny points of light that dance and tingle in the breeze." (from project description)

I am sort of speechless at the brillance, elegance, and audacity of this piece. 




Wednesday, March 20, 2013

the first day of spring


34 degrees, overcast with frequent sunbreaks
wind, 20 mph
44% humidity

It is the first day of spring. Potential is in the air, despite the chilly rattling of the windows. The daffodils are up, their yellow heads still tightly wound and waiting. A few errant snowdrops have found their way into a pile of overturned sod from last year. Persistent mint is already leafing at the edges of its enclosure; oh, how I strive to be as tenacious. The ground is thawed, and I was able to take up 30 square feet more sod to make space for MORE garden. 

I hate exercising for no reason; this work better suits my temperament. I like the rubbery feeling of worn-out muscles, the dirt under my nails, the outside smell of my hair. I love reclaiming soil from a mute, complacent grass patch to bring forward succulent, giant tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, eggplant, peas. My body was made to hunch, dig, lift, rake, pick.  

While doing these things, I think about plans, life, grubs, now, bird song, the pickers who go through our garbage, neighbors, travel, humus, teaching, damn cucumber beetles, children, fresh basil, friends, blossom end rot, family, mint in my salad, dinner. I also think about art a lot. I've been asking some questions lately. Specifically, though not entirely, these: what connection do art and gardening have? Can they be integrated into one another? Can my studio be both inside and outside? 

Other artists have gone here before. Fritz Haeg, Mel Chin, even Jeff Koons. I need to research more, perhaps find some companions. Among this cohort right now are poets Stanley Kunitz and Mary Oliver. This blog is named after one of Stanley's writings from the book The Wild Braid:

Compost

The compost pile is a site of transformation, taking what has been cast off and returning it to the garden. It's not just garbage, after all.

The distillation of any philosophy of composting has some connection with the positive concept of waste and death. The contribution that mortality makes to civilization is the equivalent of what composting contributes to a garden.

We are all candidates for composting. So we cannot approach the compost heap without a feeling of connection.