Mark and Velma's CSA*

The garden on Saturday morning October 14

A month ago we harvested the potatoes. The ones in the back that didn't get water or much sun, didn't do much, just lots of marble sized potatos with a couple of golf ball sized. The potato plant by the tomatoes, that got plenty of water and sun, made us about a dozen fist sized potatoes. (Mark took the pictures. Maybe, if we're lucky, he'll post them sometime or email them to me to post.)

The potato harvest inspired an interest in me in vegetable gardening. When we moved in, my upstairs neighbor asked if I was planning to plant any veggies. I told her that I was only interested in native plants and flowers. The "only native plants" thing went out the window with first trip to a nursery. Oh well. Mark wants alpine strawberries, Mark get alpine strawberries. I mean, really, who can say no to strawberries?

To get ready for my future vegetable garden, I gave in to testing the soil for nitrogen, phosphorous and potassium. I've had the test kit for five months at least, but never felt like actually using it. Turns out the soil is low in nitrogen, low in phosphorous and high in potasssium. The ph of the soil is 6.5, which is actually good. This means the soil needs lots of manure and bonemeal.

The Soil Test Results

Then, I went to the libary and checked out 8 or so gardening books, to actually learn what vegetable gardening is actually about. You'd think that since I grew up on a farm, I'd know all of this already. But, we moved to town before I was witness to garden planning and prep. I was just used for harvest help. I got really good at picking corn and carrying watermelons. I also did pick up a fondness for dirt and getting dirty. That comes in very handy for gardening.

Two of the books proved really informative. I'd already decided that I wanted to try intensive gardening, since we have such a small space with enough sun. One of the books gave a really clear description of what to do. The next day we went to the garden store and we got manure, more mulch, bone meal and plenty of seedlings in desperate need of some dirt. The seedlings included lots of lettace, chard, peas, some last season annuals, an ornanmental cabbage and some ground cover plants. I also bought a pound of fava bean seeds, as winter ground cover for most of the garden, that also fixes nitrogen in the soil.

That afternoon, Mark took another branch out of the fig tree, and cleaned out the dead wood from the pear tree. I worked on double digging the bed between the pear tree and the plum tree. Mark's mom came up and was stripping the leaves off the fig tree for me to dig under. In 2-3 hours I can double dig a bed that's about 7 feet by 4 feet.

This is the harvest from Saturday. The figs aren't very sweet because it doesn't get very hot here. The tomatos are VERY mild. And the pears, surprisingly, are good!

On Sunday morning, before Mark got up, I started double digging the sunniest bed, which is the one we planted first, the one with the sorrel and flowers, i.e. Mark's favorite. I had to do this before he got up so I wouldn't have to listen to him moan as I killed "his plants." I did concede and NOT dig up the corner with the impatiens and the exceptionally prolific ground cover with little white flowers. Everything else will live on by feeding the next generation of plants as they decompose. I went ahead with planting the lettace, chard and snow peas. I spread the rest of the manure around the yard and then planted the fava beans everywhere. (More on fava beans in a later post.) Mark "single" dug the area around the stepping stones and planted more ground cover.

Mark's handiwork.


This is a picture of the garden at the end of the weekend.

Soon, I'll post a picture of the progress.


*CSA stands for Community Supported Agriculture. We definitely get a lot of support for our "agriculture" from our neighbors. Nearly everytime we're out there, someone stops and comments about how great it looks. Last weekend, someone even asked if I was a professional gardener! Ha!

Perfect Roasted Pumpkin Seeds

1. Enlist two friends to help get the brains out of six pumpkins.

2. Wash and drain the pumpkin seeds. (Note: don't dry the pumpkin seeds. that takes too much time.)

3. Spread half of the seeds on one cookie sheet and half on another.

4. Generously drizzle olive oil on both sheets. (note: don't measure anything. again, who has time for that?)

5. On one sheet very liberally sprinkle garlic salt, on the other sheet, sprinkle cayanne pepper and salt.

6. Stir the seeds to make sure some seasoning gets on all the seeds. Then spread out evenly again.

7. Stick in oven at 300 degrees F and set timer for 45 minutes.

8. Meet and greet the people coming to the party. Make at least six rounds through the house. Enlist four more friends to help carve brainless pumpkins. Go outside.

9. Come back inside. See a neighbor taking the seeds out of the oven - five minutes after the timer went off.

10. Taste test. They're good. Put in bowls and spread around the party.

11. Wake up in the morning. Eat the last four pumpkin seeds and be glad you saved one pumpkin for yourself to carve.


Inspired by: http://www.fabulousfoods.com/recipes/appetizers/snacks/pumpseeds.html

Hope

Some mornings, I wake up to the news and don't handle it well. That's a really hard way to start the day. Darfur. Iraq. Suicide bombs. Refugee camps. Guantanamo. Torture. Miramar. Dictators. Military governments. Riots. Deaths. Trials. Secret memos. Election. Street violance. Identity theft. Indictments. War. Villages destroyed. Kids with no toys. Kids eating processed foods. Kids without insurance. Kids without parents. Kids without homes. One man's hope is to take a second wife, so that he can make more boys to fight the terrorists.

All of that was in the morning news - the 30 minutes I spend cuddling with Mark in our warm bed as we gain consciousness. Usually, I think, "That sucks. I'm going to go help save some trees today," and get on with my day. I get the day off today, so I have time to sit with the news.

And it SUCKS! I'm sitting here crying because I don't know what to do. I don't think I can do anything. I don't know where to start. There's so much that's wrong with the world. I feel guilty - for my prosperity. for my warmth. for our food, especially the non-organic, junk food. for my general complacence. for not wanting to know what's going on in the world because it hurts too much.

Two days ago, I finished the book Animal Dreams by Barbara Kingsolver. It's going to be with me for a while. Someone in that book dies while working to do good in the world. I haven't experienced death much. It has a big effect on me. The death of this character and her story in the book makes all of the news so much more real to me. so much more human. That's probably why I'm so affected by it this morning. I can practically see the faces.

The character in the book writes in a letter, "Here's what I've decided: the very least you can do in your life is to figure out what you hope for. And the most you can do is live inside that hope. Not admire it from a distance but live right in it, under its roof. What I want is so simple I almost can't say it: elementary kindness. Enough to eat, enough to go around. The possibility that kids might one day grow up to be neither the detroyers nor the destroyed."

That last sentence has been stuck in my head.

As an american, I'm one of the destroyers, by paying taxes that subsidize wars. by buying food produced with poisons and wrapped in oil. by filling my gas tank. It's depressing.

The character also writes, "Wars and elections are both too big and too small in the long run. The daily work -- that goes on, it adds up. It goes into the ground, into crops, into children's bellies and their bright eyes. Good things don't get lost."

So, now, I'm going to go for a walk. I'm going to visit a neighbor and see her sunflowers. I'm going to go get a few items for tomorrow's picnic. I'm going to let the word hope rest in my brain and see what comes up. There's got to be something in there.