Dharma Gardens

At a talk sponsored by area Granges, a local nursery owner was asked about our last expected frost date.  She answered with a somewhat-standard reply for hereabouts: “Memorial Day weekend…”  She cautioned that she couldn’t be certain because she didn’t remember when the full moon was, and that it was common practice in the greenhouse industry to adjust the last frost date as you are much more likely to get a frost the two nights surrounding the full moon.  While I was skeptical (what could the phase of the moon have to do with temperatures, night time or otherwise?), her matter-of-fact/common-wisdom delivery intrigued me, and soon won me over.

When I got home, the first thing I did was look up the May/June full moon: this year it is in the wee hours of the morning on June 7th.  So, by her metric, there is an increased risk of a late frost either on Sunday or Monday night.  That was certainly within local custom: most folks don’t plant out their tomatoes until the second week in June.  Next, I Googled “full moon frost.”  I quickly found that this was a reasonably widely shared rule of thumb.  However, it was also widely considered to be more lore than fact by the scientific community.  While weather sites debunked it only in general terms, they were emphatic that there is no conceivable cause and effect.  Several posited that one was much more likely to notice a full moon on a clear night, and that since clear nights can lead to frosts (no clouds to trap daytime heat) it is easy to understand the association .

Although this mirrored my own initial reaction, I found myself abandoning those articles almost immediately.  There was something I found appealing in the full-moon-frost folk lore that transcended logic and science.  I do not take gardening to be an entirely, or even mostly, scientific endeavor.  Even on the benign end of the scale, it seems that an overly logical approach denies the magic and mystery which amazes me every day in my garden.  I am not even inclined to have my soil tested — I would much rather pay attention to how my crops are doing, to listen to my garden, and nurture the various beds accordingly.

So, although my mind knows that the full moon is unlikely to encourage a frost, I plan to consider it in my schedule — at least on the side of caution.  I will not use an early full moon as a green light to plant out my tomatoes and peppers sooner than normal.  But it still makes sense in my heart to respect the lore and exercise some patience in years like this when at least the timing would be right for a full moon frost to catch me and my seedlings whom I lovingly raised by surprise.

For those who prefer the scientific method to old-timer wisdom, I found an impressively well-researched and reasoned piece on the subject: Full Moon You Say? Frost You Say?.  It makes perfect intellectual sense.  But, for now, I choose to garden by heart.

-John

It seems that there is often at least some mitigating factor to most misfortunes.  Even if they are woefully inadequate to balance adversity, such gifts should not be disregarded.  Indeed: the darker the night, the more valuable is even a single ray of light.  While I worry that the current economic downturn will be with us for a matter of years rather than weeks or months, and that my business might end up amongst its countless casualties, there appears to be more than one silver lining even to this dark and threatening cloud.

Our eldest son — who has been living in our home with his girlfriend since he graduated from college last May — commented to me recently that he might like to return yet again after grad school and renovate an unused portion of our rambling farmhouse in which to raise his family.  Even if this is but a fleeting pipe dream of his, it seems that multi-generational families are on the rebound.  I find this to be a profoundly beautiful and healthy phenomenon for society as a whole.

And that is not the only upside to the ailing economy: tough times have encouraged countless families to consider growing at least some of their own food.  The consequences of this movement promises to reshape our society in an equally profound manner from healthier diets and lifestyles to an increased awareness of whether the costs of a corporate approach to food are worth the convenience.

As someone who has been moving towards growing a majority of my food, and to eating out of my garden year ’round, I would like to offer some encouragement and a few suggestions to the budding Recession Gardener.

Firstly: I would like to welcome you to a millennia-old tradition whose rewards I find second only to family.  Growing your own food is a unique opportunity towards a better lifestyle: offering exercise, a healthier diet, and quality time to nourish the soul .  I trust you will discover that the joys will easily offset the hassles and disappointments.

In terms of advice:

1) Set reasonable goals for the first few years.  Don’t rush in headlong and spoil what can otherwise develop into an enduring lifestyle.

2) Plan ahead and try to keep your options open.  When designing your garden, be mindful that you may want to expand it in future years.

3) Start with easy crops.  Treat yourself to those that you and your family particularly enjoy.  These are not mutually exclusive goals, and you will likely find that those favorites are even better fresh from your own garden.  Tomatoes, lettuce, carrots, snap peas and herbs are all popular and easy to grow; there are many others as well.

4) Approach gardening from the direction that most suits you.  Just because your neighbor only grows organic heirloom vegetables doesn’t mean that the conveniences offered by hybrids and chemical fertilizers might not be a better introduction for you.  (I do warn against pesticides and herbicides in a vegetable garden.)

5) Disappointments are inevitable.  It is important to learn from them and move on.  If you can fix a problem in the following year, so much the better.  If not, perhaps it is better not to struggle with a particular crop until you have a new solution to try.

6) Share and enjoy.  Swap crops with a neighbor, or offer them samples from your garden.  It is a wonderful feeling to share your bounty; and who knows: you just might cultivate yet another new gardener.

It is heartening to see high-profile vegetable gardens being dug under the auspices of Michelle Obama and Maria Shriver.  They are great symbols and shining examples to us all.  But ultimately that is all they are: symbols and examples.  By contrast, each new home garden is a genuine wonder to behold, and far more important in our daily lives.

I hope that you can find ways to cultivate some good from each misfortune life hands you.  Yes: a storm is brewing, and it looks to be an ugly one.  We can’t stop the rain, so we should welcome each opportunity for growth it affords us.  Don’t worry.  Grow happy.

-John

Behold the lowly parsnip.  When it is not being ignored by contemporary farmers, it is more likely to be raised for bovine or porcine fodder than to end up on a dinner plate.  While I will cede no ground in championing the humane treatment of livestock, this strikes me as excessive humanity and a cruel denial to our own palates.  I confess that I have only recently come to appreciate this cousin of the ubiquitous carrot; and like most converts, I have become somewhat of a zealot.

Last year was the first time I have grown them in my garden.  So, it was perhaps to be expected  that I experienced simultaneous waves of trepidation and anticipation this morning when I discovered my parsnip bed had finally thawed enough to permit my first post-winter harvest.

I pulled three of one variety from the bed to find them rather small, and with some brown spots which I assume to be canker.  Score two for the trepidation.  I scrubbed, then sauteed them in butter for an unconventional Morning Tea.  Alas, my humble words are woefully inadequate to describe the exquisite repast

Now, I am no gourmet — far from it.  My preferences run to the bold, even blazing.   My daily diet is subsumed with unreasonable quantities of garlic, hot peppers, and ginger.  And yet this simple meal of parsnips and butter vaulted effortlessly over my entire roster of favorite dishes.  The complex and nuanced flavors surpassed anything I have ever tasted from my garden.  And despite their cosmetic deficiencies, these parsnips were far superior to any I have purchased.

Last year I grew two varieties:

Exhibition Long Parsnip – “Extra long variety for the exhibitor, flavour and cooking quality is excellent.”  This variety is certainly an homage to the British fetish of competitive vegetable growing, but as their description suggests, it also excels on the plate.  I purchased my seed from Robinson’s Mammoth Vegetable Seed in the U.K.  They are to be recommended even to stateside gardeners despite the extra hassles of ordering seed from overseas.  (They are famous for an onion they claim can be grown to 22″ in circumference, weighing in at 6 lbs.!, but I digress…)

Gladiator Parsnip – “You’ll be impressed from the start with Gladiator’s quick germination and vigorous early growth. The vitamin-rich, cream colored roots have a clean parsnipy sweetness that makes it the most flavor-packed parsnip we’ve had the pleasure to eat. The smooth tapered roots reach 7 inches when they’re ready for the kitchen. Try Gladiator in stews or grated in salads. Seed is from England.”  Reported to be the first hybrid parsnip (not usually a plus in my ledger), these beauties have rounded shoulder — more the profile of a carrot — and are, as advertised, delicious.  My seed was from Territorial Seed in Washington state.

I will be growing both again this year from the original seed, despite parsnips’ notoriety for germination rates that start out mediocre at best, and plummet from there.  It is generally recommended that one does not plant year-old seed, so I read up on the matter on British web sites.  (In my book, the Brits are the first and final word on all things parsnip — my own Brit and Scot roots dictate that someday I will have to combine parsnips and leeks into a single dish.)

The rage in the UK appears to be starting parsnips in the tubes from toilet paper (or, as they would have it: loo paper) rolls.  Apparently, this allows them to be raised indoors until they have three sets of leaves, and then transplanted out to the garden without the traditional ill-effects of malformed and forked roots. I clearly have so much to learn about growing parsnips just in the garden that this is beyond my pay grade (besides, I had not anticipated the need to stockpile toilet paper rolls for the past nine months).

More useful, was reading that many British aficionados sprout their parsnip seed on damp kitchen paper in the airing cupboard (translated stateside: between sheets of wet paper towels in a warm location).  It is important to transfer them soon after sprouting either directly to the garden, or to the proverbial loo roll filled with compost.  This should allow me to grow at least a few of these two delicious varieties even though the seed is well past prime.  I also have fresh seed from two open-pollinated varieties: Guernsey, and The Student to ensure next year’s bounty.

Parsnips are also serving as my first attempt to save seed from a biennial.  Last year I planted several each of Exhibition and Gladiator in my over-wintering bed.  Perhaps this is an overly brash experiment given that one is a hybrid and also that they are almost certain to cross.  Who knows what misshapen progeny they will yield?  But I am open to the possibilities as well as the liabilities.

So deep is my love for the lowly parsnip.

- John

Greetings and Welcome.  My name is John William Scott: William to my birth family and in my youth, and John W. now — having forsaken a perfectly good middle name and  claimed instead the most bland moniker that western civilization has to offer.

I aim to live a simpler life, casting a shorter shadow and leaving lighter footprints — not just for my environs or our planet but as ultimately as a gift to myself.  This is a personal choice and while I do not expect anyone else to share these goals, I hope to journal my path in this blog.

As I close out my fifth decade (I turn 50 in May) and the waning economy squeezes my business, I am fortunate that the world of consumption no longer captivates me.  It is not that I have taken a  vow of austerity to avoid the gadgets, media, and marketing that dominate modern life.  Instead, I have found that they have each naturally lost their luster.  I do not preach that materialism and commercialism are intrinsically evil; or  that you too must — or even should — forsake them.  We each have our own priorities and joys in life.  That individuality is an integral part of the beauty of human life.

It has been a momentous, even if gradual, personal epiphany that the fulfillment of my own desires (materialistic and otherwise) does not lead me to joy or even happiness.  Indeed, the void that follows is more enduring than any  fleeting sense of relief and attainment.  That in turn has inspired me to appreciate and cultivate simple pleasures.  I have never been happier.

My vegetable garden is the hub of my re-invented life, and will be the focus of many of my posts.  It continues to provide me with countless valuable lessons in growing my own food and useful metaphors for life.  I expect to also touch on  kindred themes including the localvore movement and perhaps simplicity itself.  Undoubtedly, other categories will suggest themselves and priorities will shift (I have a tendency to meander) so I will do my best to organize my posts so that each reader can easily separate their own grains from the chaff.

Namaste…

-John