May (remembering)

In May, I thought, I'd like two more of these peonies in this East-facing Western edge of the garden. There is a sort of wall of older plantings there that defines the back edge of what we see from the kitchen, against the blackberries in the squatter yard. It is an undefined spot, where we can't decide if we need a path or not. Later in the summer, big grasses grow up and bend forward, and the Highbush Cranberry behind explodes with new growth and the peony greens are buried in the mess. But in May, oh how my heart sings (along with nearly every other gardener's I'm sure, and, from the evidence, all the bees as well) to watch this tender queen unfurl her paper petals to bare her sparkling cunt. 

No cops. No prisons. Total Abolition.

Early May seeding... where did I get okra seed? I think I just wanted to see the flowers. Turns out they don't stay long enough to really witness. Not one of the okra that grew were truly edible. And the peppers and eggplant are still out there, finally finding their stride, as frost approaches. There was such a long, silly cycle with keeping the seedling pots on the proofing shelf of the oven, where it was too dry and not bright enough. When I finally moved them to the window and covered them with plastic, things started to poke up more willingly. Just last month in the great basement clean out of fire season 2020, I found the heat mat on the rat slab, under the camo netting curtain we finally threw out. I think next spring I'll try to seed in the greenhouse. 

The peas ended up growing fine in the stone circle, but they were plagued by slugs, as I realize now everything that I planted in there this summer was. Too many places to hide. It feels like that spot wants to be a larger accent planting, anyway. Maybe a tree. 

In contrast, the fava beans overwintered so well loose in the West bed. Beautiful, productive. The calendula bloomed so much and I appreciate them - but that orange is not my garden color. Can I get the cultivars with pale petals to self seed like that?

Wow, how the back edge explodes with growth. I can't even remember it being so low and managed. Reminds me to properly prune all over again.

Precious friend from Rebecca's garden, poking her delicate head up in the side strip. I think it is hard for tender new things to get going over there because of the web-mat of oregano roots. Maybe I'll look for her this moving season and see where else she might shine better.

Yes, committing to move the peonies. Eliminating that back path. Shifting the Coyote Brush that doubled in size from the center of that bed to further back. Dividing the grasses so some of them can come forward. The peonies are two different colors. Maybe I'll separate them. Maybe I'll let the pink one go.

Progression shot; closer to the end of May. The mullein starting to show their truth. 

I grew fennel!

How those allium bulbs define the garden for their time! Then disappear so I forget them.

The tomatoes did well tucked against the house. The flowers I seeded at the end of May were well timed to step into holes in the garden in late June when the big wave of spring bulbs and greenery and calendula had faded out. Those zinnia and amaranth and strawflower are beginning to blacken in the garden now, but their season was long and glorious.

 

October 24

How I love to watch the garden fade. 

I never was one for "putting the garden in" or "putting it to bed." 

I like to see the seeds, the dying leaves. 

I am here to allow these things in myself: the drawn out compost of my urgency and dreams.

Missed yesterday a gathering with an internet crush and a longtime student/old friend. 

Just plain spaced it, in my here-ness. I feel that not as lack, but as abundance. 

In this patch now, instead of eggplant, tulsi, peppers, there are bulbs in the ground, snuggled in bunny poop and mycelium milk shake. 

It is not that I am unwilling to have an impact. 

(Spy the bunny)

Clara plays alongside me, making tiny things for her tiny doll who rides on a dragon (plastic pterodactyl) and helping her doll explore "the rainforest" where the massive plants provide adventure, cover, rest. I gather seed - not all, certainly. A few gifts, to receive to pass on. 

I hardly cut flowers from the garden. They have their own lives. It's very romantic. 

Also a matter of respect. 

I made an arrangement today, in ceremony. 

The big girls bounced around some, and I spent an hour and a half with my daughter's bestie's mom, sitting with tea made from garden leaves, honoring what is already here, making 

the ground for trust to grow. 

I am hearing: Winter is Coming. People say it with different levels of ominous. I didn't watch that show, but I know some of the people think they're signaling to me culturally. I am blissfully unavailable.

Instead, I consider the values of colonial settlers - my ancestors: expect disaster; strip the land; plan for isolation, hoard to prepare. They didn't know the cycles of the land, or the gods. They acted from fear, but not fear of the right things. And they fed their fear with harm, so they could justify it, so it would feel real. They acted out what they feared.

I think of the particular threats that loom: we will make each other sick; we will not be heard; poverty will continue to spread like wildfire, as the poison of wealth further concentrates. We could continue to tread the daily water of loneliness, technology, irrelevance. Getting tireder all the time. 

Zelda said yesterday on the topic of a close friend who is trying out they/them pronouns: I guess that even though this time is Super Depressing... there is a lot of opportunity for self realization. 

As I expressed to this other mom, I have to keep coming back to trust. That is what I most need my children to know about themselves: that they, at the deepest levels, are deserving of trust. And this means that I have to trust myself. I have to trust the world that they live in, to give them what they need.

I want to show them how to trust the urge to share. 

How to trust the impulse to let go. To rest. 

To watch and wait. To witness our own impacts. To love. 

 

May Day

May Day means: We are more than our labor. We belong to the Earth. The collective generosity/ generativity of a living web is more abundant than we can ever earn in an individualized, zero-sum system. Capitalism will consume us. It will make us forget. Each small act of rooted joy can be an act of resistance. Spring is here. 

March / October

It is mid October. Stopping at Coastal for bunny hay, I fill my arms with bulbs. Mostly daffs, a few indulgent tulips.

I return to this past March garden to see where I wish to place more color for the future March to come.

 

Remember early March? These top photos are from the 1st. We had no fucking idea. That smash of daffodils across the back, though.

The far small bed beyond the tree stumps is pretty shadowy in summer now, under the pear tree in Giorgio's yard. I put some rhubarb in there this summer. Last year in April there was an explosion of forget me nots, with a few small head, orange nosed narcissus poking up. I wonder if all that got enough sun to show again.

All three of the metal edged beds can take a lot of new bulbs, I'm seeing. But I always hesitate to push this transition. I love watching things fade and whither.

It was a smoothie heavy time, the early pandemic.

Somehow, we had no idea, and also really already knew. 

I remember the appalled inner rush of those days. My guts pacing. I said to Jeff more than once, voice strained with strange grief-laughter: I Feel Really Weird Right Now

Against the panicked urgings of the internet, we kept a small core of our chosen family together. We brought in the Equinox. 

We did what we could to ground.

Jeff vacuumed a lot and pushed back against the blackberries.

We began to rest again; we began the slow process of waking up.

That spot of pink in the back is a random hyacinth from before my time that I swear I am going to move every year. She has a cousin in the yard - where? I want to put them near each other. 

Indoor harvests help. I remember also digging green garlic from the mud, cutting side shoots from weathered broccoli, double washing dirty wild arugula, parsley, thyme. And several strong rounds of radishes, there in late March.

Oh! And self seeded corn salad! A lot of that to look forward to, maybe. 

By late March the dark tulips were already up, despite the snow. Can you believe it?

I grieved the garden that was here for years. That process helped me know how to grieve my job when I lost it in late March. How to grieve the connections we grow against all odds in the context of the construct we call school. How to grieve my independence and the direction I was building in my work. I had a full summer planned. A lot of learning, a lot of outside time. There was a big push of energy behind it, a lot of things converging. As I felt the imaginary floor fall out, I landed on the ground. 

I watched the peas push their coiled heads from the earth and cried from gratitude. 

Summer 2020, a short report

the garden got fully queer, this year

intuitive, self-reflective, erotic, fractal, co-creative

i don't know what will happen tomorrow

more than ever ever, i wake in awe that there is space to breathe and heal

this is not a 'productive' garden

the cats haunt the roses and try to eat bees

this is not a time for hand wringing

look upon the beauty of the world before it is gone

pregnant people came to this garden this summer to resonate with each other, six feet apart

we brought out a bag of clay and some tools and set up a place to touch another form of earth

who will create ritual if not us?

if our mother keeps living, day to day, what does it matter if we do not rest in her glorious softness?

it is not a privilege to pause, it is a prayer

reciprocity begins in witnessing