2007 July | You Grow Girl

July 9, 2007

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Fingering the Pea Vines

The Scene: The sun is about to disappear entirely and my rooftop is now mostly illuminated by the painfully bright and orange security light next door. I am still outside moving pots around and pinching back basil flowers. My neighbor steps outside.

Me: I have been gardening for 7 or 8 hours straight. It started with a trip for some container soil and then over to the community garden to swap out a tomato for a tomatillo plant leading to hours of this, that, and the next. I can’t stop. I am unstoppable. Nothing’s gonna stop me now. Please make me stop.

Neighbor: Pete Flower Sunshine (not his real name but one of those local weather news garden experts with a cheesy nickname that I can’t recall at this time) says it’s gonna be a scorcher this weekend and that you should not do any gardening. “Do NOT garden!”, he says. “Stay inside and relax!”, he says. “Whatever you do, do not garden!”

Me: Well, I should have had enough by now. I don’t want to be gardening in 40 degree temperatures. Tomorrow I can be found laying around with a wet towel on my head.

End scene.

The following morning I decide to watch an episode of Recreating Eden, a fantastic half-hour documentary show about gardeners and gardening that you should watch if you haven’t already. I am barely into the program before I find myself overcome with the urge to get outside and “finger some peas” [cough]. I MUST garden. No matter what I must get outside and garden. And so, just barely holding on until the end of the show, I rush downstairs to the street garden armed with worm castings, sea kelp, pruners, and assorted tools with the intention of doing just a little ‘light’ cleanup. Two hours later Davin and I are both extra sore, sweaty and covered in dirt having spent the entire time in full sun digging up a patch of daylilies that were recently crushed by yet another jerk looking for somewhere to urinate. In all fairness it was probably about 5-10 degrees cooler than the reported killer heatwave. But really, I have GOT to start planning my gardening activities and stop taking on large chores spontaneously. The garden looks just fine but I’m sure transplanting in those conditions was not easy on the plants. Do as I say, not as I do.

All-in-all I probably gardened for a total of 12-15 hours (I’m probably being generous here) over the course of 3 days. I could not stop. I had a lot to work out in my mind and a lot to procrastinate. Gardening is great for both. I didn’t come out with any solutions but I do feel satisfied with the massive list of activities that were accomplished and much less panicked about the things that were worrying me.

*In a recent Toronto Star article, writer Sonia Day noted that I was “fingering a pea vine” a phrase that sounds just a little bit dirty and one that I plan to use as a euphemism for gardening from now on.

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July 7, 2007

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Veggie Gardening: The Next Big Thing

Quite simply, the Next Big Thing is going to be veggies. Lots and lots of veggies. Heirloom tomatoes, offbeat salad greens and stuff like that. All organically grown, of course. By us. – from Toronto Star “Urban Gardeners Are Growing Local” (July 7, 2007.)

Many of us have known it all along by I am excited and encouraged by how much the media is catching onto the fact that gardeners are growing food. Yes, with the seemingly limitless plant choices available to us in this day and age gardeners are choosing to grow vegetable crops. And as crazy as it sounds some of us actually value edible plants for their beauty, tucking them into perennial beds and artistically designing entire gardens around and with them. The days of sticking our noses up at veggie gardening is a snooty, short-sighted, old-school concept that most of us are more than happy to be rid of once and for all.

I’ve never been interested in announcing trends because my fear is that once you announce something as a fad its shelf-life decreases — I am much more interested in real, long-term change. However veggie gardening and urban agriculture aren’t just passing flavors-of-the-week but lifestyle choices many gardeners have been quietly going about their business with for a long time and I think I speak for many of us when I say that we are more than happy to see its popularity rise exponentially.

“Sales of vegetable seeds soared last year, outstripping those of flowers for the first time since the 1950s.” – from Toronto Star Article

Awesome! And incidentally the post WW2 era just happens to mark a cultural shift towards looking at food gardening as a low class activity. Could it be that we are FINALLY kicking that 50′s era conservatism to the curb?

Thanks to Sonia Day for this fantastic article.

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July 5, 2007

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Starling Co-Parenting

About a week or two ago all of the baby starlings that live in our eavesdrop fell out of the nest — the nest that was built on the severed and torn parts of many of my tomato plants including the ‘Zapotec Pink Pleated’ and the ‘Patio Orange’, two plants that are forever malformed by the trauma — landing in a succession of hard thumps onto the potting table and turning our lives into a minor farcical comedy staring John Lithgow or Chevy Chase as a bumbling family guy forced to take on the ill-prepared responsibility of caring for a tiny, demanding creature (or creatures). Wacky hijinks ensue. Except that we’re pretty much mostly prepared since around here a baby starling or three seem to fall out of the nest every single year. We’ve been through this routine before.

We immediately made a makeshift nest using a cardboard box and dried plant matter. Lucky for us the parent starlings figured out the situation quickly and have been feeding the babies regularly. Despite their attentiveness two babies have since died. The first was probably injured in the fall and died soon after. The second was smaller than the third and less active. The surviving bird seems healthy and has grown from a nestling that looked like this to one that looks like this. We’ve had to bring the box indoors on a few nights that were too cold, have had to keep the cat inside (she hates us for it), and have found it necessary to stay off the deck ourselves to allow the parents freedom to feed. If we are out there when they come by with food they screech and yell at us to get lost. I like the baby bird but I look forward to the day when it is ready to fly the nest and we can have our deck back.

If you find a starling nestling this site has good instructions on how to care for the baby. Starlings actually leave the nest at the fledgling stage and live on the ground for a couple of days learning to catch food and fly. If you find a baby on the ground it might not be orphaned but in its fledgling stage so it’s important to understand the difference.

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July 4, 2007

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Lemon Mint: Neither Lemony or Minty Yet Still Pretty Darn Good

Monarda citriodora

Speaking of mint, check out the unique and gorgeous flowers on the ‘Lemon Mint’ plant. I purchased this particular variety as an impulse buy in early spring when herbs were 3 or 4 for $10 and I couldn’t steer my bike in the general area around known garden shops without popping in for “just a peek” and then finding myself tentatively and rather unsafely riding home with a basket full of something-or-other.

All of that just to say that I really had no idea what I was getting myself into when I bought this plant except that I was working on an expanding collection of mints and I’m constantly on the lookout for a lemony herb that can rival the fresh lemon zip of Lemon Verbena. I can tell you right now that despite the name ‘Lemon Mint’ doesn’t even make it into the parking lot of the stadium that holds the ring where possible contenders would go head-to-head with the mighty Lemon Verbena. It might make it onto the highway that leads to the parking lot of the stadium or maybe the fallow field next to the parking lot of the stadium but that’s only because I’m feeling generous.

But I digress.

So it turns out that the plant commonly referred to as ‘Lemon Mint’ is in fact a type of beebalm, Monarda citriodora to be exact. I noticed that it looked kinda odd (square, tought stems) and rather un-mentha-mint-like when I purchased it but REALLY started to notice a problem when the first flowers bloomed. This is another fine example of why common names are misleading. Monarda citriodora is in fact a member of the mint family but is not what you picture in your mind when you think mint. It is also commonly called: Lemon bee balm, horsemint, lemon bergamot, plains horsemint. This non-mint mint cousin prefers a sunny location but doesn’t mind a little bit of shade which is why it hasn’t keeled over from its current position in the shadiest spot of my community plot tucked in alongside the ‘Ginger’ and ‘Mojito’ mints.

Now that I know the true nature of this plant I plan to move it to a slightly sunnier position in the garden. As far as use goes the plant is most commonly brewed up as a tea or added to salads. The mint name is misleading since it does not have a refreshing minty taste (or much of a lemon taste for that matter) but has a much stronger, muskier, thyme/oregano flavor better suited to savory meals than summery beverages. I picked the flowers shown in the photo above several days ago and they have been thriving in a vase in my kitchen since without showing signs of wilt or petal drop.

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July 3, 2007

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An Abundance of Mints

Mints

There are roughly five mint varieties in this bouquet including clockwise from top right: Chocolate mint, Pear mint, Ginger mint, Lemon Mint (with the crazy flowers), and Mojito mint (not seen).

Mint has got to be the most abundant herb in the garden and as this year’s mint harvest picks up speed I’ve been trying to find ways to use up last year’s dried stock. Today I mixed up a batch of Claudia’s Mint Lemonade but added my own zip with a dash of dried lemon verbena and a tiny pinch of dried stevia to sweeten.

Both were brewed in a tea pot (a new Bee House pot purchased at Soko Hardware in San Francisco) along with the mint and added to the lemon juice once cool. I threw in some fresh orange mint clippings and two orange slices before putting the pitcher in the fridge to chill. I’m not a lemonade fan but my spouse Davin says that the addition of mint tea to the lemonade dilutes some of the tartness of the lemons (without adding much sweetener) and makes for a more refreshing, thirst-quenching drink.

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