Do you ever get the feeling that everything’s already been made? That nothing is really new or original, and our culture has been saturated by nearly every conceivable image or utterance? Even more so with the surge in AI, computers are flooding the internet with rearrangements of stolen images so that anyone’s silliest thought no longer takes any effort at all to visualize, albeit poorly still, and it’s not yet become clear who owns that image, that thought, the larger narrative, or what the ultimate cost will be.
At the same time, this summer has seen the hottest consecutive months ever, with the hottest ocean temperatures on records. Wildfires are engulfing the boreal forests, while the temperate zones alternate between baking and flooding. It’s getting harder (I hope), for people to ignore the Climate Crisis. These are two slices of the same crisis. The climate collapse, pandemics current and future, how we shape the internet and use technology, political strife, wars for resources, and workers rights are all tied up in the one big “metacrisis.” The end of modernity, late-stage capitalism, the collapse–whatever you want to call it. Things are changing, and we don’t know what the future of anything looks like, let alone culture and how it will or won’t imbue our lives with meaning and allow us to cope.
I think that’s why I am so interested in looking at the past when exploring my own creativity, and at utilitarian works. We’re in a crisis of excess, where everything’s been done before; the world might be ending but we’ve arguably also never had it easier. I think we should ask ourselves what knowledge should be preserved, what’s worth our time, what makes us feel better but also serves a purpose, and what art needs to, and more importantly doesn’t need to be made.
What does any of that have to do with gardening!? Gardening is everything. It is a creative act producing nourishing consumables and no waste, no fluff, no drivel. It is nature worship and stewardship, and a vehicle for practical learning. It is a window into the past, an opportunity for mindfulness, a celebration of life and death. It is a social tool for sharing knowledge, produce, and tools with neighbors. It is exercise, health, escapism, and apocalypse survival training.
While I’m asking myself what art needs to be made and where I should spend my time, the garden provides a creative outlet, as big or as little as I need without clogging up my life and attention with totally impractical imagery and “content.” So let’s dig in.
The 2023 garden started last year when we made the commitment to install new raised beds along the driveway and front-walk. This area is a heat-sink with 3/4 full-sun and would have a longer growing season than my bed in the back yard that only gets partial sun. After four years of novice-gardening and two years studying CSA’s at two local farms, I set a goal of replacing 70% of our store-bought produce with home-grown food. Beds were installed in the fall and filled with carefully arranged layers of wood, unfinished compost, finished compost, sand, and perlite. January started with lots of research, worksheets, and the gift of growing shelves in the dining room that Jake set up for me. Crops were planned around what we eat, and plantings were scheduled based on space, season, and yield.
In the spring after the thaw we installed in-ground irrigation to water the beds automatically, greatly reducing my daily chore load. Transplants and direct-sews were set in place in both the front and back gardens and things slowly started to grow.
In rough order of sewing/harvest I grew/am growing: Yellow onions, Ishikura green onions, spinach, golden beets, radishes, chamomile, rosemary, dill, peas, four types of lettuce, mizuna, calendula, thyme, lavender, lovage, sage, chives, ten varieties of tomatoes, purple tomatillos, miniature corn, rosemary, pole beans, bush beans, strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, rhubarb, tarragon, tai basil, Genovese basil, marigolds, kolrabi, kale, celery, swiss chard, nasturtiums, bell peppers, parsley, violets, and carrots.
Let’s talk trellises! We got some inexpensive metal trellises from Lowes for the vining plants like tomatoes, tomatilloes, peas and pole beans. So far the only crop that’s really overtaken the short trellises are the peans. The tomatoes I transplanted very deeply and started pruning aggressively once they reached the top of the trellises. The tomatillos are the same; they seem to want to spread more horizontally than vertically so I’ve used a lot of twine tying them to the metal for support and I am pruning like crazy to keep them in check. The pole-beans have had no complaints climbing over what trellis is available and then moving onto their neighboring tomatillos for extra space.
It’s amazing how slow everything is to take off in the spring and how quickly things shot up once the temperatures reached 80. It’s been such a wet and warm summer that I am really quite overrun with herbs and tomatoes even though I thought I was being careful not to plant too many. I only planted one of each variety!
One of my biggest successes of the year has been the lettuce. Lettuce is easy to grow, fast, and doesn’t mind a chill. I was able to keep us well fed with nightly salads for all but August when it simply became too hot. I wasted no time getting my fall lettuce, mizuna, and spinach started indoors in July so we should be enjoying homegrown greens again in a few short weeks.
Perennially, I plan to solve this problem of no lettuce in the hottest month with lovage. I planted three lovage plants early this year, which was lucky because that’s all the seed I could get to sprout and I tried many more….It takes a long time to get established so I haven’t tried any yet, but I’ve heard people use it as a substitute for lettuce in August. I’m hopeful that we like it and that it survives the winter.
We are in zone 6a and I have had trouble getting rosemary and thyme to survive overwinter. I’m trying to expand my perennial food crops with this year’s addition of lovage, strawberries, rhubarb, and raspberries. Our blueberry bushes are 4 years old and finally producing large quantities as long as I keep nets on them. The sage bush and chives are well-established and keep us stocked all year.
I just ordered some garlic and walking onions to try and convert the back bed into more perennial food. Because of it’s location away from the house and its vulnerability to rabbits and woodchucks, I don’t weed back there as often and sometimes crops get eaten. I’ve heard that pests will go for onions and garlic as a last option. Two years ago I planted walking onions in the fall but they rotted. I followed the planting instructions on the packet, but I think that was sowing too deeply. Wish me better luck next year; I love and miss garlic scapes.
Currently we are working on replacing the plastic edging that we installed around the new beds with stone because the dogs have not been kind running through the mulch, cracking a plastic piece here and there as they wrestle and chase one another. That is a slow-moving project because it’s been hot and pruning, mowing, and weeding take priority.
As I wrap up this very long post, I want to say thank you for sticking with me. I’m very proud of what I’ve accomplished in the garden this year and it’s been a lot of what I needed it to be. Gardening expands to fill time, but with the right infrastructure in place, which we finally have this year, it doesn’t need to take up a whole weekend. Most of my gardening happens first thing in the morning or just after work, in peaceful little bits.
In between contemplating my fall projects and summer reading, the garden has been there for me, doing its magic work of turning sunlight, water, and air into food.
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