Garden lessons
The first harvest
How did it happen? The growing season is half way over and I have barely had a moment to reflect on it–to reflect on the jungle that has become my garden.
In the beginning there was so much waiting and faith and then suddenly, the first tendrils of the peas and the tips of mesclun leaves peaked through and then suddenly spring had sprung.
But spring is the craziest of times. A friend of mine says that May is the busiest month of the year, even busier than the holidays. I believe her.
After all my careful preparations, other than watering, (or rather saying quiet thank yous for the rainy spring) I barely paid attention to my garden as I raced about my life.
For one, I couldn’t tell the difference between tender seedlings and weeds.
For another, spring is perhaps the busiest time of year with children (or at least my child). End of school year performances, baseball games filled the after work hours. Despite my best intentions, my garden became an afterthought.
Mother’s Day weekend I put in some tomato plants and chilis and a couple of eggplants. Edamarie showed me how to dig them in so they would be stable, each plant requiring a slightly different–though not terribly complex technique. We pulled old cages out of her garage for support. We spent a couple of hours digging around together and I made a list of projects I wanted to complete (mostly having to do with taming the weeds in the alley that kept threatening my little bed), but work, family commitments, and the crush of spring schedules kept me away.
I was certain that my inattention would kill it.
But gardens grow.
In early June Edamarie called me to tell me that my peas were ready to harvest. My first sweet (if small harvest) of peas and lettuce proved to me that this was not a dream. It also proved to me that sometimes action has nothing to do with it. Despite the fact I had not been at my garden bed nightly (as I imagined I would back in February), plants grow. They grow without me doing anything other than planting them in good soil and praying for rain.
And sometimes, despite lots of loving care, they don’t.
When I was planting my seeds the crop I dreamed of were my chioggia beets. When my garden was just a canvass of mud, I lovingly measured the rows and laid them down seed by seed, covering my hands in stickiness. But not one seedling popped up. Not one. Was it a bird who stole my seeds? Did I misjudge seed depth? Its a mystery that I am not sure I will solve.
Its now July, and my garden is a jungle of lettuce that is still flourishing, (despite the crazy heat) chilis that are doing nothing (though all signs say this heat should have spurred them on!), tomatoes that are producing green fruit (which have me paying close attention, waiting for them to ripen and fill my fridge with red juicy goodness) and invasive nasty weeds (that speak to me of the need for constant vigilance–and the importance of that alley weed eradication project I had forgotten in the spring). The carrots are still small and scrawny, the onions may never produce but I have enough greens to feed us salads every night.
My garden is a metaphor of messiness and unpredicatability and mystery. It looks a little like my life, rough around the edges, full of lots of tasty goodness but not necessarily everything I hoped for.
Summer is settling down and long hot evenings are opening up, allowing me to make way to the bed and pull out those weeds, pick my first ripe tomatoes beat back the bugs and try to solve the mystery of the beets. In the slowness that is unfolding now, I have time to make sense of the glorious growth, to cull and attempt to understand.
This is what my garden looked like at the end of June, almost a month ago.
Meg Casey is an activist and blogger and mom in Silver Spring Maryland. With the loving support of Edamarie, she is making a go at being an urban farmer and blogging about the new experience here.
July 11, 2010
Posted in: Garden Reflections 
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lunch in the garden (at 9PM)
The end of the school year is as busy as the holidays: kids are finishing up spring sports and starting summer swim team practice, one is getting promoted and will start middle school next year, one will be going to Rwanda for 6 weeks, one may or may not have a  boyfriend…the to do list includes mounting self portraits of the 5th graders for the promotion ceremony, getting our oldest vaccinated for yellow fever and stocked with iodine, arranging a pool party for a bunch of 6th graders so we can meet the new ‘boyfriend’ whom my daughter seems to be constantly texting, cleaning the house, changing the sheets on beds for visiting grandparents, and so on.
After Desmond’s last baseball game of the season, I came home to find my friend Meg finishing up an evening gardening session. Morning glory vines had taken over her tomato cages. Maple seedlings were sprouting everywhere. The garden must not have understood that single moms need time to get through their to-do lists before weeds should be allowed to take over.
8:45 at night, we grabbed a couple of flashlights and went outside to see what looked ready to harvest and where to cut the vines from the cages, tasks a bit easier to do in daylight, but a bit more fun with flashlights.Â
We picked large lettuce leaves to go with the even larger radishes Meg had harvested before we got home, a few carrots not quite ready to eat, and a couple of fava beans so I could post the pictures on my blog for Jen, who is not sure whether her own favas are ready for harvest.Â
(Jen:Â here are the photos:Â Pods were about 4″ long, and the beans inside the warted pod were as delicious as those from the one with no deformities)
If my husband weren’t in Amsterdam and I working 12 hours a day, maybe I’d sautee them in olive oil and snip a bit of precious rosemary from the new plant that went in as a replacement for one lost in the snow storm this past winter.
However, right now, I am happy to “do lunch” by sampling raw beans and slightly immature carrots, bagging up lettuce and radishes for Meg’s lunch box tomorrow. I’ll take time with friends and the taste of fresh food any way I can get them.
June 8, 2010
Posted in: Vegetables 2 Comments
peas and pests
It was too hot to walk the dog for more than 15 minutes this afternoon, so I was glad when I finished picking all these peas by around 11 AM. Stayed inside and watched old episdodes of ‘30 Rock’ with the kids while shelling peas and avoiding the weather. The first pods of the season were ready to pick Memorial Day weekend. Now we are separating pods and peas. We snap the tops from the peas, peel off the string, and then drop top and string in the compost bowl, pods in a second and peas in a third, In this hot weather, we only wnat to have cold Vietnamese salads and noodles for dinner. We are saving the pea pods for those.
Caterpillars are eating up the bok choy, another reason for making more aisian salads, a Chinese cole slaw, perhaps.Â
We’ve pulled all our arugula, but still have some salad that is good.
Dinner tonight: Steak, peas and Angel Food Cake with Strawberries. Tomorrow: Peas: Snap pea salad, pea, radish and feta salad, seared chicken and snap peas, peas and prosciutto with pasta…
June 6, 2010
Posted in: Garden Recipes, Vegetables No Comments
May Flowers
Our white Wisteria has been transplanted 3 times. First, from a pot in Montclair, NJ then, to our first home in Riverton, NJ and finally, to suburban Washington, DC.   It is the first major bloomer in our spring garden, and every time I walk under it, I think about the New York Botanical Garden.Â
Many years ago, I taught English in the South Bronx. Nothing makes you appreciate green like a daily commute on the Cross Bronx Expressway. Friday afternoons, rather than fight the exhaust and the massive lines of cars heading out of the city for the weekend, I would cross Fordham Road and walk into an urban oasis.Â
3:45:  drive by a gang house and try not to stare at the men  sitting outside drinking beer and carrying automatic  weapons
4:00: smell the sweet fragrance from banks of peonies blooming along the walk across from the perennial garden.Â
When you look at the ugly, you have a hard time functioning without moments of beauty. Gardens and flowers are not a luxury. They are the sustenance that feeds hope.Â
May 22, 2010
Posted in: Flowers, Garden Reflections No Comments
Even husbands need gardens…
As the original customer and primary beneficiary of Backyard Bounty’s services, I can attest to the difference it makes in your life.Â
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Having come home from a long trip last night, I was greeted with a truly splendid sight that was both impressive and calming at the same time.Â
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While I was never a gardener, I can appreciate what it means to have a beautiful place to relax after a long day….
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Thanks, Backyard Bounty! Now go do the laundry…
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OK, maybe that last part is optional.
April 24, 2010
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Seeds Take Faith
Seeds take a lot of faith. Really.
I built my bed. I amended the dirt. I watered and amended some more. And then I planted seeds in neat little square foot sections, marked by popsicle sticks. “Carrots, scarlet nantes, half-long”. “Beets, chioggia”, “Mesclun” and “Favas” and “Peas” (oh my!) But then, after all the work, it was just me and a slab of mud (watered again for good measure).
I have been coming back each day to water, looking at the dirt. I am imagining all the things that could have gone wrong. I left too much clay in the soil and the fragile seedlings can’t push through. I didn’t plant the seeds deep enough and the birds have gotten them. I planted the seeds too deep and they are buried and will never see the light of day.
In the past when I have gardened, in my own home plot of shady perrenials, I have often done so in the more immediately satisfying way. That is, I ran to a garden center and purchased plants in 3 inch pots. A little digging and ah…instant satisfaction. But this waiting…it brings up all sorts of interesting musings.
This week we have been experiencing unseasonably warm and sunny weather. I have been making frequent trips to my little alley plot to water the mud. And I have been reflecting on what it must have been like before the days of grocery stores, when seeds were planted, as winter stores were at their thinnest. Would they sprout and bring with them promise of a season worth of food? Or would they simple disappear into the earth? Everywhere around life is bursting forth, but my plot of dirt, remains bare.
I realize that my little farm is a luxury. If it all falls apart, I am out a minor sum of cash and some precious weekend hours, but we will still live (and live well). I can journey to the farmer’s market. I can shop at organic grocery stores or the Coop or maybe even still buy a farm share. Unlike my sisters, centuries before me, my children will eat. I try and settle into their ancient fear while I wait, to try and know what it really means to grow my own food. To know that all that stands between me and hunger is a tiny seed, a bit of rain, a stretch of mud and a whole lot of faith.
Meg Casey is an activist and blogger and mom in Silver Spring Maryland. With the loving support of Edamarie, she is making a go at being an urban farmer and blogging about the new experience here.
April 9, 2010
Posted in: Planting, Vegetables No Comments
Say it with figs
Starting a business, I’ve gotten lots of support, advice, and help from friends.  And like any good Italian, I tend to show love through food.Â
March and early April are tough months to find local fruit, and so now is the time that we are grateful we spent a summer afternoon making fig jam. Almost immediately after we signed the papers for our home, we were off to the nursery to buy a fig tree for our yard. Unlike peaches or apples, figs are a fairly trouble free fruit in our area, and if you locate the tree properly, it will survive our typical winter cold.
Our favorite fig jam recipe calls for 3 pounds fresh figs, washed and de-stemmed, the zest of a lemon  and a handful of fresh basil leaves, and fresh lemon slices. We cook the figs and sugar over low heat until for about an hour until it is thick and a deep amber. Then, we quickly stir in the basil and pour the jam into jars we have sterilized while the figs are cooking. We top each jar of jam with a lemon, and then process the jam jars and put them up for the winter.Â
When the oranges from the store are dry and the strawberries taste green, we grab a jar of fig jam, spread it in a tart shell, top it with pine nuts or candied pecans (and sometimes blue cheese and rosemary), and bake it in a 375 degree oven for about 30 minutes. The tart is delicious and fast, ideal features for a woman who wakes up at 4:30 AM to start work.Â
April 9, 2010
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Digging Dirt
84Â bags of “Peat Free, Earth Friendly, Mom Approved, Sustainable, Biology Inside, Organic, Premium Ingredient” soil arrived on Friday.
That sentence makes such an arrival sound far simpler than it was.Â
A couple of days ago, a driver pulled up to my door in a 40 foot truck that he’d manouvered through an old neighborhood of narrow streets overhung with large trees. Then, he walked out back with me to look at the alley where the soil needed to go. More curved streets, more large trees.  A head’s up call to the trucking company yesterday and a surcharge on the delivery fee didn’t widen the streets or trim the low tree limbs. It required  kindness and a lot of extra effort for the driver to help me land 2 pallets of “black gold” in this spot.
He drove the truck to the larger street that intersects the alley, loaded a dolly with 2000 pounds of soil and, with a running start, pushed the pallet as far up the  gravel driveway as it would go. Not far. I grabbed some scissors to cut open the wrapping, and started to unload the first pallet while the driver, Pete, got the next load. I must have looked pitiful, standing next to a couple of piles of bagged soil taller than I am, because Pete was nice enough to help me unload the bags. Together, we stacked and talked. Â
Not having a loading dock gave me a chance to get to know the driver. As we worked, I learned that Pete is a woodworker, and when he noticed my great-grandmother’s sewing machine we talked about the art of furniture making. My grandfather’s business was restoring antiques. Our conversation moved from furniture back to gardening, and we discussed what plants he might use at the house he just bought in York, PA, and I agree to swap some design advice for his help unloading. Â
The foundation of organic agriculture is healthy, hummus rich soil. If plants have all the nutrients they need to thrive, it is easier for them to ward off disease and recover from pest damage. If the soil is rich in micronutrients, there’s no need for synthetic fertilizers which run into our streams. Somewhere in the many courses I’ve taken on soil and permaculture, I heard that it takes 100 years for an inch of topsoil to form.  That’s why construction companies scrape and sell topsoil from their building sites.
So, while it took a lot of phone calls, driver flexibility and 15 minutes of heavy lifting, I’m grateful that Mark Highland founded Organic Mechanics in 2007, and that I could get a delivery of planting and potting mixes that will speed up that topsoil production at my place. A few extra hours of searching and planning feels like nothing compared to 100 years….
March 28, 2010
Posted in: Growing Basics No Comments
On Creating Mud Canvasses and Building Spaces for Veggies to Be Born
Some people say that one of the hardest part about making a dream come true is finding the space for it to be born. Is it silly to say that about gardening too? It is certainly true about my dream of growing my own food. I think the hardest thing I will do in my garden this year is to create the blank canvass–to build that elevated bed where my veggies will grow.
I have to be honest, it is wasn’t for the encouragement of my friend (and the pile of brightly colored yummy looking seed packets on my dining room table) I might have given up before I got started. The idea of having to build a bed felt like a scary and uncomfortable amount of work for this fully employed single mom.
The process of building an elevated bed when spelled out in whole felt like so much that I wanted to simply go back to bed and wake up for the farmer’s market. Railroad ties, weed barriers, wheelbarrels of compost and topsoil… OH MY! But my peas wanted to be planted and I was already 3 days behind the Saint Patty’s Day “deadline” for getting them in the ground. So Friday morning, fresh off a red-eye flight I found myself in the backalley moving dirt.
And what I learned is what I learn anytime I tackle a big project. The instructions in totality may be overwhelming but when I look only as far as the next step, each task is doable, even easy. The garage is full of cardboard boxes waiting to be turned into weed barriers, and it sure feels great to rip the pieces into the proper shapes. It does not take much work to move a shovel full of dirt into a wheelbarrel. It does not take much effort to roll a wheelbarrel across an alley. Railroad ties may be heavy, but they can be dragged. So can rocks. Taken step by step, piece by piece none of these things are hard, and while they take time, it really isn’t that much time, even for a single mom with a to-do list a mile long. Later that day, I reflected on how many hours I spend in the produce section of the grocery store, tromping to farmers markets and the coop. The four hours I took to build the bed was a marvelous investment.
Furthermore, I was reminded again that leaving visions of perfection behind, and simply aiming for getting started is indeed the perfect way to move forward. Flexibility and creativity and using what we have right there can sure make the project easier. Sure, anchoring the wood with asphalt and rocks found strewn around the alley might not be the proper way (best to drill holes in the wood and insert rebarb or spikes in threw the dirt) but it works in a pinch, puts “garbage” to work, and best of all cost nothing and doesn’t require an extra trip to the hardware store. I will go back eventually to secure my bed properly, before the torrential summer rains which might challenge my rocks, cause my dirt to slip and slide and push the wood out into the alley, but for now an imperfectly built bed is better than none at all.
Creating the space for the veggie dream to be born was a perfect way to spend the solstice, to honor the coming spring. Now, with seeds and mud as my medium, water, tools and nets, we can see what beautiful art we can create!
March 24, 2010
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Middle-Aged White Woman Practices Gardening, Yoga
Photo from March 14, 2010 NY Times Magazine about smart women raising their own food
So reads the headline that staff at The Onion might construct for this post. I was about to write something silly about how much gardening is like yoga, when a healthy sense of perspective saved me from painful earnestness.   I thought about what The Onion might say about my “revelation.”
Then I picked up the article on Femivorism from last week’s Sunday NY Times (another pause to chuckle at another stereotype), that I’ve been thinking about all week, and realized that the woman in the photo looks a lot like the women in the catalogues that have been coming to my house from Title Nine and Athleta.  Would you be surprised if the next line of attractive sportswear offered by these companies was for pruning and digging?
At 16, the age of my oldest child, I was pretty sure I was unique, at 44, well…
It’s comforting to know that a lot of the people you know want to connect to the rythms of the earth the way they’ve learned to connect to the rythm of their breathing.Â
 I came to NJ this weekend for a baby shower hosted by my oldest friend who is moving permanently to Carmel, California.  We have different politics, but similar habits.  My friend told me yesterday that her husband wants to plant a veggie garden on the slope behind their home.Â
I picked up the latest copy of Eating Well magazine and learned that 7 million more Americans planned to grow their own food in 2009 than in 2008, a 19 percent increase from the year before. According to the article “Grow Your Own Food and Save Money with a Vegetable Garden,” more and more people are eager to save money and to eat food they know is safe.Â
Looks like the number of us Urban Peasant-”Tomato-Canning Feminist”-Yoga Gardeners are everywhere, and that, as our friend Martha might say, is a “good thing.”
Why? Beyond saving money and getting fresh, local, organically grown food, the backyard garden is a place where you get to pause and breathe. Put a seed in the ground.  Water it. Wait.Â
You’ve just found a great excuse to grab some peace with very little guilt (well, “very little guilt” as long as you don’t feel pressure to plant the thousands of seeds you bought on an impulsive February morning when you were stuck inside during a blizzard…plant just a few and store the rest in the fridge. The seeds will last).Â
Then, put your phone on mute, disconnect from your inbox and don’t look at the pile of laundry in the hall. Breathe again. Listen to how quiet it is when you sit still.
March 21, 2010
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