Apple mint in bloom.

I wanted to put a nicer title on this post.  But then I remembered my friend, we’ll call her K., who has a real aversion to spiders.  This is not your ordinary insect fear.  K. takes it to a whole ‘nother level.

And I didn’t want anyone to be opening up The Enchanted Earth for a nice dose of gentle contact with nature — and end up freaking out, their laptop on the floor, their day potentially a lot worse for it.

I’ve recently discovered that there are readers afraid of moths, butterflies, and even grasshoppers.  What will they think of a spider portrait?  We all have our challenges, and some of our past conditioning is pretty ingrained.  My sister is extremely wary of wasps, and I freeze up at sight of a cockroach.

No matter how cute this little girl is –and she is really, really cute — if looking at her will make you feel the way I do around cockroaches, I say, let’s not do that.  If you have any issues with spiders, you are to clear the blog room now.  Thank you for visiting.  I’m so glad you came.  A brand new post will be up tomorrow, and it won’t be insect- or arachnid-related, I promise.

And we will not talk about you behind your back, either.  It is safe to vamoose, as my mother would say.

To give everyone a little visual space to get out of here without glimpsing the cuteness (or horror — all is perspective), let me quickly mention that though I have appreciated spiders for a long time, and been fascinated by their intricate webs since childhood, not until I ran the garden with a no-kill philosophy last season did I appreciate them properly.  They eat mosquitoes — and don’t ever eat plants.  They don’t act as vectors for common crop diseases.  (The spider mite, which does transmit pathogens, is not a spider at all.)

Spiders are a gardener’s best friend.  I mean that.  Especially if you are attempting to garden organically or if you perceive your bit of Earth as part of the larger landscape.

Insect populations really do tend to keep each other in balance, if given the chance.  And arachnids and birds are a part of that big picture, too.  If your garden is hopping with life and activity, if you don’t spray poisons, especially broad-spectrum insecticides (which affect many more creatures beyond insects, including spiders and human beings) you will invite these creatures to come and participate in their cosmic dance right there among your basil and tomatoes.

Or in this case among the out-of-bounds apple mint that is a favorite of the tiniest winged pollinators.  The mint patch* is a bustling social scene all the day long, now that it has opened up its sweetly fragrant inflorescences.  If I were a small spider, I might think taking up residence there among the freshness of the apple-minty leaves, surrounded by tiny prey on all sides, was something close to paradise.

Are all the arachnophobics gone now?

Okay.  Good.

And now to share the cuteness that is…

*drumroll, please*

… Phoebe** the jumping spider, honorary garden maintenance assistant in the kitchen garden.

I was bent over weeding, and as I straightened, I came face to face with her, hanging out in the mint.  How could I not be charmed by those eyes?

I kind of wanted to cuddle her.  But I did remind myself that, although most spiders have mouth parts that are unable to pierce human skin, there are a few spiders who manage it anyway, when feeling threatened.

Besides, she was only three-eighths of an inch long.  Human cuddling might be perceived as threatening.

Also, I’d have interrupted her at her work.  (See the tiny thread she’s got going?  It’s just barely visible in the shot.)

I hate to be interrupted when I’m working.  Just ask F.

We did exchange a silent namasté, Phoebe and I, short and sweet.  It felt good.  Almost as good as this one does:

Namasté, y’all.

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*Yes, we went from a mint plant last year to a mint patch this year.  I will never plant mint in the ground again.  I knew plants in the mint family were overly aggressive, but I naively and arrogantly imagined that I could keep this one apple mint under control — at least until we moved again.  Then I’d pot it up and take it with me.  Only now I’d need about a dozen pots.  Large ones.  There’s probably a lesson and a blog post in there somewhere.

** Of course I named Phoebe.  I have a habit of naming the creatures with whom I make meaningful or prolonged contact.  Anybody remember Thad and Fiona?

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When I planted, the sun levels were far from satisfactory because at a true winter angle the sun barely cleared the treeline before getting ready to set.  The soil in the main area of the garden stayed cool and moist, and I complained to F. that there was no way the cabbages would mature with two to three hours of weak winter sun, and that the peas (both kinds) were never going to sprout.  But there was nothing we could do to change it.  We have used nearly every square inch of our tiny yard that was made available to us for a garden by the landlord, and if it’s not sunny in spring, tough luck.  When we prepared it last May, I already knew the sun exposure was weak and variable (and yet far better than it is now), and we went ahead with our plans anyway.

However, just lately the sun had begun making its presence felt, easily clearing the tree line by noon, and even before that sending strong, buttery rays through the mostly bare branches of deciduous trees to strike the earth with life-giving warmth.  The few snap peas that had reluctantly sprouted after 45 days (!) began to leaf out and send up tendrils.  And finally last week one of those tendrils grasped the pea fence and prepared to climb.  I was so thrilled.

And then the trees began to fill in.  Our sun situation may actually be worse in this part of the garden right now than it was in February.  It’s a lot harder to clear the tree line now, and almost nothing is getting through when the sun is below that height.

The new treeline is defined by the tallest trees, even if they are far taller than their fellows, and not by a common tangle of bare branches down below.

If only the pea vines had been allowed a week or two more, they could have fanned out and grown higher on the fence and received enough light to keep going.  The brick wall behind them gets a decent dose of sunlight — beginning about six inches up from the highest plant’s current position.  If only their butterfly-shaped leaves could truly lift them higher, all would be well, and they could get growing in earnest.

Just like a butterfly... but still unable to fly up the pea fence.

Unfortunately, I know for a fact that this wall gets hot early in summer.  I grew purple-podded pole beans in those pots last summer, and they sprawled up the wall quickly, completely smothering the support with their beautiful purple-tinted foliage.  But pole beans love the heat, whereas peas cringe from it.

A long way to go...

Because I’d foolishly assumed the snap peas would be done soon (ha!), I never considered that the heat from the wall might become an issue.  Of course, this pot-bound growing method was chosen only as a last-minute backup because a flash-flood river ran through the garden in late winter, destroying the plot where I’d planned to plant my snap peas.

I’ve concluded that it will be a miracle if we eat a single podded pea from the garden this year.  But then, miracles happen all the time in the garden; don’t they?

So do tragedies, I suppose.

Either way, I won’t take it personally.  My Zen-like acceptance says far less about the snap peas than it does about my memories of a successful bean crop whose seeds could easily be sown in a month’s time if this experiment doesn’t succeed.

Maybe the next place we choose to rent will be equipped with not just a kindly, garden-friendly landlord, but also a yard with a vegetable-worthy sun exposure.

One can always dream.

Namasté, y’all!

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With our temperatures reaching all the way into July territory for the past week (92° F yesterday), plenty of spring rains, and a golden sun bent on reaching its summer zenith in record time, everything in the Victory Garden has been doing well — in some cases maybe too well.  The cabbages have tripled in size seemingly overnight, and the mustards look suddenly moments from harvest.

All of the perennial herbs are back in the full flush of health, except for a single rosemary in a pot, the only loss the garden suffered this winter.  The oregano I’d assumed was dead has proved me wrong, much to my delight, and the chives, parsley and mint are already seeing regular use in the kitchen.  The annual herbs, cilantro and dill and basil, are sprouting as I type this, seemingly anxious to get growing.

I’m tempted to pull up a garlic or two to see what’s under there after all this time.  The stalks of the rocambole type are so fabulously thick and healthy looking, I picture huge, perfect bulbs below the soil line — but this being my first attempt at growing garlic, I’m nervous lest I discover too late that nothing much is happening where I cannot see.  However, the cue to harvest is not gloriously healthy foliage, but brown, dying foliage.  Patience, Meredith.

Of course, the poor lettuces and peas are not enjoying the heat and all of the remaining winter-hardy radishes bolted almost two weeks ago — although their flowers are attracting plenty of bees, so I let them hang out a while since not much else is blooming yet.  This weekend I plan to pull them and prep that bed for teepees of pole lima beans, a couple of Ronde de Nice squash, and a few direct-sown flowers.

But the weeds.  Ah, the weeds!

Lest you think from my recent post about dandelions that I am a sentimental weed-lover, let me set you straight.  No one can truly love them who grows vegetables — or perhaps one can only love them in a very Buddhist, non-attached manner, moments before one yanks them from the moist, crumbly soil that has been carefully prepared for some food plant.  These interlopers take up valuable nutrients that should be ending up in my produce, or in the healthy early foliage and roots of the plants that will fruit more abundantly later on because of their easy access to the good stuff now.  Weeds crowd in easily wherever there’s no shade from tall plants or healthy root competition.

This early in the season in a relatively empty vegetable garden, that means, well, nearly everywhere.

Truthfully, I’m starting to feel like half of everything I do in the garden is pull weeds… and yet three days later, it’s difficult to tell where I’ve been hard at work.  And keep in mind this is with a heavy layer of mulch piled on in late winter, in some places four inches thick.  It’s enough to make a person who hates the role of plant executioner despair.  (That is, if she didn’t also equally crave any activity that gets her hands dirty after a winter of scrupulously clean nails.)

Because I’ve been doing so much weeding lately, I guess I got a little careless.  This morning was my wake-up call to pay closer attention.  I saw a knot of seedlings coming up in an area where I’d planted things in straight, neat, well-spaced furrows and assumed immediately that they were another interloper trying to cash in on the spring compost bonus.

Wrong!

The whole clump came up easily as I pulled, a sure sign that the plant in question was no weed.  I stared intently at the yellow bits caught in the tightly-woven net of rootlets, as something vague tugged at my memory.  Then I stared at the seedling shape, and it was oh-so-familiar.  I’d ripped up a bunch of cherry tomato seedlings, sprung from a rotted ‘Sungold’ tomato that fell to the ground in late autumn, by which time the taste had diminished considerably with the waning warmth, and in any event we were so sick of cherry tomatoes we weren’t bothering to pick them anymore.

Oh, and if this last part sounds terrible and ungrateful to you because your tomato crop last year was visited by misfortune, as so many in North America were, I do apologize.  I made the mistake of getting overzealous with the tomatoes last year (who am I kidding?  I do it every year) and planted 19 tomato plants for 2 people, forgetting that I was far from home and could not foist extras off on family, and could not even manage to give them away in a rural area where so many grow their own.  As an example, the teenager who mowed our lawn assured me that he would have gladly helped me out and taken our beautiful extras, if only his father had not planted 40 (!) tomato plants in their backyard.

Tomato overkill did teach me some important lessons about eating seasonally, however;  namely that when a plant is in season, you get creative lest your appetite die of boredom.  (And even then, F. broke down and asked to have a tomato-free supper one night.)  But given a break of almost six months from anything remotely tasting of true tomato (that grocery store substitute doesn’t count), I’m now longing with all my heart for a bite of summer tomato.

So I was thrilled to see these wee volunteers.  I found three patches of them in all, and carefully teased apart their tiny roots, selecting only the healthiest and strongest seedlings among the approximately 50 total.  I planted them in a large container, carefully spaced, figuring I’d let them get sized up before finding a spot for them in the ground.  I even watered them in with a bit of fish emulsion to compensate for the stress of moving on a hot day.

And then realized I’d done a useless thing.

‘Sungold’ is a hybrid.  A lovely, highly-productive, part-shade tolerant, tasty hybrid, to be sure, but a hybrid nonetheless.  That means plants grown from its seed will not “come true,” a fairy-tale phrasing on the part of the plant wizards.  Those seedlings I saved may produce something… just probably not the juicy, crack-resistant, ultra-sweet, bright orange, baby tomato darlings that go by the name of ‘Sungold.’  Maybe not even anything remotely resembling the parent plant.  Maybe not even something I’d enjoy eating before I got good and sick of cherry tomatoes in late September.

And I just can’t waste space in this tiny garden of mine on something I might not like to eat.  Even though they were such perky volunteers, and the experiment does interest me.  What wonders might they make, if allowed to live?

We’ll never know, I’m afraid.  They are destined to die, like so many others in the Victory Garden lately.  How can it be that a place which later in the season seems just crammed with life, is now the site of so many little deaths?

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Radishes peeking above the soil line. No pictures of carrots sprouting yet.

Carrots are not so easy to grow.  At least, this has been my impression.  Other people seem to disagree, and I look with incredulity upon their huge bunches of perfect, slender, orange roots.

I’ve done a lot of reading about carrots lately, preparing to plant this year’s seed, my optimistic heart running against the grain of experience once again.

“Parmex” is my seed of choice this year, because I have a feeling that F. and I would need to amend the soil for several years in succession to get those classical, long, straight carrots.  The soil we started with here, although rich where it was practically undisturbed beneath the forest canopy, is mostly clay, and carrots tend to come out of heavy clay looking like unfriendly tumors or, worse, some kind of mutant species intent upon world domination.  (I believe the technical term is “misshapen.”)

You can still eat these carrots.  But they are a pain to peel or grate, and frankly the shapes are unappealing to the appetite.

The baby ball-type carrots, such as Parmex, apparently do well in any soil — or at least, that is what the seed sellers say, and I’m hoping it’s no lie.  Still, I’m crossing my fingers.

So when I called up my grandfather yesterday, I was planning to sneak some carrot questions into our conversation.   His farm had heavy clay soil as a base, although it had been well amended over the years by the output from eight chicken houses, several pigs, a couple of cows, the ashes from a wood stove, etc.  The farm also had a huge, dedicated carrot patch — although I might have a distorted memory of its actual size due to my childhood propensity to daydreams, wandering, and distraction which, when combined, could make the chore of being sent to the carrot patch for dinner supplies last a long time.

Still, I remember it being very productive.  Unfortunately, however, the gardening gene hadn’t yet blinked on back then, so I didn’t record many of the how-to details, being more interested in watching that hawk land in the trees beyond the field, or the tiny wildflower that had sprouted in the furrow.  (Hmm… in some ways, not much has changed.)

Here is how our talk went.

ME:  Granddaddy, I remember y’all used to have a big ol’ carrot patch.

GRANDDADDY:  Yeah.  Yeah, we did.

ME:  And it used to make lots and lots of carrots.

GRANDDADDY:  Not so many.  You took some time pickin’ ‘em, though.  (Slight chuckle.)

ME:  (slightly grumpy now)  Do you have any advice to give me on how to grow carrots?  It’s only, I can’t get mine to grow right.

(Long silence.  So long I wonder if the line has gone dead.)

GRANDDADDY:  Well, you get you some carrot seed.

ME:  Check.

GRANDDADDY:  (very slowly, as if disarming a bomb) And then… you put them in the ground.

Ta-da!

When I hung up the phone, I started giggling.  Granddaddy belongs to the figure-it-out-by-doing school of gardening.  Sometimes I suspect he wonders about my intelligence; mostly he thinks I’ve read too much, thus rendering needlessly complicated what is actually basic and simple.  For him growing vegetables is just natural:  that’s what the earth does, if you put the seeds in the ground.

When I was in my mid-20s, I figured out that this is 90% of the secret to what is commonly called a green thumb:  expect miracles.  Expect the stuff to grow and do well.  Expect tasty results.  A lot of this expectation comes from experience, from years of decent results in spite of silly mistakes, from patience when things don’t happen on schedule, from acceptance when it’s not quite right, from that inevitable failure — and from trying again and getting it right.  Over time, one gets the feeling that plants do their thing beautifully without needing so very much from us, on the whole.

Not to say that Granddaddy hasn’t had his share of disappointments, whether it be at the hand of Nature or of Man.  But he continues to expect good from whatever he plants.

(Apologies to those of you who were expecting an actual how-to article.  They’re not really my style.  But here is a link to a pretty good one from our nearby university, with lots of detail, just in case that’s what you were needing when you came by.  If you live in a different area of the world, I suggest you check with your local university or extension service for growing instructions appropriate to the conditions of your bioregion.)

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With the temperatures dipping back down into the 20s tonight, the cabbage transplants had to go under cover.  Yesterday evening, I cut the bottoms off of 10 bits of waste plastic which had been carefully saved by me, my parents, my sister, and my neighbor.  (People are remarkably generous with their trash if you ask politely and explain your need.)

Seven were gallon-sized milk jugs and three were two-liter soft-drink bottles, the latter requiring a knife to cut.  Granddaddy fully approves of planting cabbages early in the season… early enough to risk losing them.  Frost only sweetens the taste of cabbage, and they are quite resistant to the cold in general.  But brand-new transplants probably shouldn’t be exposed to these temperatures plus tonight’s high winds.

He’d told me before to immediately cover the baby cabbages with empty milk jugs, which have the added benefits of raising the outside temperature a degree or two to encourage strong early growth, protecting the maturing cabbages from marauding insects, and helping them to form a compact head if the temperatures are not chilly enough to make it happen naturally.

I suppose the idea is basically like a poor man’s cloche, only instead of a lovely dome of glass or a synthetic lookalike, these are, well, let’s just say not so aesthetically pleasing.  And I’m just finicky enough about how the kitchen garden looks, even in this time when it looks nearly empty (it is not, but looks it), that I refused to put the carefully hoarded plastic stash to use when I put in the first transplants.

But, oh, well, a girl’s got to do what a girl’s got to do.  I refuse to potentially lose half of my poor cabbages because I thought, in effect, that their scarves were an ugly color.  I can be practical, even if the result is not pretty.  (What you can’t see is how my lips are pinched as I type that sentence.)

To make the whole ordeal less sordid, however, I did go outside after the moon was well up, gorgeous and bright with a soft blue nimbus in that cold air, and request protection and maybe some extra love for my darlings who are now swaddled in yucky plastic, asking that this early undercover stint be followed by jaw-droppingly beautiful, barely-nibbled, magnificent, dew-spangled heads later in the season.  I pictured them for a moment rather like pimply, whiny, superficially-minded preteens swathed in baby fat who end up as ravishing, emotionally-mature young adults with deep thoughts and wonderful ideas for saving the world.  (Hey, it does happen, and more often than you’d think!  I’ve seen it several times, and it always gives me cause for hope.)

As you can see from the photograph taken when I peeked inside this morning, so far, so good.

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And it just turns out it came dressed in Valentine’s Day colors.

It’s kind of pitiful, though.  But we did eat these little radish thinnings, me and F. and my sis who was visiting.  The largest radish was about the size of my pinkie finger, but the tastes were full-bodied.

There were a few more that we ate before I said, “Wait, stop, let me get my camera!”  My sister and F. have a shared love of radishes, and both of them were in alt over the Daikons (ivory), which is why none of the really big ones survived until the photo shoot.

My sis was also a fan of the China Rose radishes (neon pink), saying they had a hint of sweet taste above their main spicy zing.  She declared them the most interesting, complex-flavored radishes she’d ever tasted.  F. thought they were too mild.  (Big surprise.)

When I told them that fully mature examples are supposed to be nearly baseball-sized, my sister began to earnestly root for the remainder in my patch to reach maturity.  There are probably about 18 left in the ground.  I tried to give the plants in that little row lots of extra space, as it surely takes some room to develop a root that fat.

Nobody approved of the taste of the Misato Rose radishes (green).  They had a strange, earthy taste that did not make you want to take a second bite.  We all agreed they probably haven’t had enough time to develop properly, as these were the smallest of the thinned babies.  I’d rather blame the grower (moi) than the plant — at least until facts prove otherwise.  Further taste tests are scheduled for March, or possibly April, depending on their recovery rate.

Meanwhile, after speaking to a local farmer this weekend, I learned that autumn-sown radishes often overwinter in this part of South Carolina, and if I had known, I might have had a real harvest by now.  This winter having been particularly mild, I might have even planted a second or third round in November and early December, and if thinned properly, been eating radishes for New Year’s Day.

They grow slowly in the cold, it’s true.  But they still grow.

I’m feeling a bit like that right now, as if the winter has slowed down all of my processes, including the growth of my character.  The radishes remind me that even when it doesn’t show, there is growth going on below the surface, even if it is of the slow and gentle variety.

Daphne over at Daphne’s Dandelions is hosting Harvest Monday, a blog carnival in which I hope to be able to participate more often as the season progresses.  The first harvest of 2010, such as it is, is my first opportunity. I’m excited to join in as I frankly love harvest photographs.  There is something about all of that bounty spilling out of its container, all the various colors and forms, all the textures, that just gets to me.

Even before I had a blog, I insisted on photographing nearly every harvest last summer.  (Except for those itty-bitty ones where I’d run outside for a handful of basil, or nip out to the back porch to pinch a few chives to snip over the baked potatoes, or dash outside to pluck a single, sun-warm tomato for lunch, or just stand barefoot in the garden eating a raw okra pod… mmm….)

Abbie of K-Town Homestead recently wrote that “[...] a close-up picture of a dew-kissed organic cabbage is just never going to get my blood flowing the way it does when I ogle the impeccably designed landscapes featured in Martha Stewart Living.”  (And it’s a great post.  I highly recommend Abbie’s blog in general; the writing is top-notch.)

Yet Abbie and I fall on opposite sides of the spectrum on this one.  A dew-bright cabbage will draw my attention first, even if it’s planted in a bed of beautiful flowers.  I even like pictures of onions growing — which I have been assured is a strange taste.

If you happen to feel similarly about enjoying the harvest vicariously through photographs, or if you like learning the details of how people are growing their own food, or even if you’re just a little curious, stop by Daphne’s Dandelions and check out some of the posts from food-growing bloggers around the world.

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