a man and his hoe

every day is a good day

Category: How Things Grow

  • Summer in May


    Summer arrived yesterday, a day of warmth and sunshine that a month ago seemed a hopeless, fanciful dream, something never to be. But here it was. From the first light, a sky without a cloud. Lilacs in bloom. The sweet smell of wisteria in the breeze. The soil warm enough to plant corn and beans. Some mornings, the nudge we feel waking us up is heaven.

    One of the corn varieties I planted today was described as “well bred and soulful”. Someone who is assigned the task of writing seed descriptions is a hopeless romantic.




    The overwintering kale has gone to bloom. I was about to cut it down to make way for another vegetable bed when the buzzing of a hundred bees stopped me. I’ll work around the kale until the flowers have dropped and some of the plants have gone to seed. In this garden, the bees rule.



  • Magenta awakes


    While weeding and planting in the garden this weekend, I was assured to see magenta spreen sprouts. It has an impressive name, Chenopodium giganteum, and giganteum these tiny sprouts are, though they have the tiniest of seeds, smaller than cabbage seeds, finer than poppy seeds, and yet, somehow, these tiny, tiny, tiny seeds, sleep through the winter, survive without being eaten, (maybe being tiny, tiny, tiny helps, “Not worth a nibble,” the passing bugs say) wake up, and put on a dazzling display of pink, purple, magenta and green.

    Over the summer they will grow much taller than I am, and in the fall send their tiny, tiny, tiny seeds raining down onto the warm earth, where they will snuggle in for another long, winter’s sleep, and wake up the following May.

    I like magenta spreen because it is a plant I don’t have to plant. A no-fuss plant, it grows and grows, sending out new shoots no matter how many times you harvest its lovely leaves.

  • No Mercy


    White, puffy clouds against blue skies are such a gift. They make gardening serene, so peaceful, except for the slugs. For them, blue skies are a portend of a time of no mercy, no place to hide. With my trusty weed puller in hand, I stab at deep rooted weeds like buttercup, and pull. Their deep roots rip out of the ground with a satisfying ripping sound. And any slugs I encounter get no mercy. See a slug, kill a slug. Gardening can be so ruthless.


    The pretty ladybug crawling up my sleeve shows no mercy either. It thinks nothing of eating prey alive. It will stab a poor, helpless aphid, and suck the life out of it.


    The payoff for showing no mercy, thick, juicy stalks of rhubarb, hellebore blossoms, kale flower buds for supper, blooming rosemary, and velvety tulips.




  • He Can’t Blame the Chickens


    Now that the flower gardens are fenced off from the chickens, when a deep gash appears in a flower bed, my husband can’t blame the chickens anymore. We all know who the culprits are.



    Daily life has a feeling of being back to normal now that there is a steady supple of greens from the gardens. A bunch of lovage for heavenly potato soup. Fava greens, garlic shoots, and kale for a warm curry.



    And one of the apple trees is in full bloom. Their big, white flowers brighten up even the rainiest of days.

  • After Earth Day


    It’s the morning after Earth Day and I am lucky to be able to step out of the house and in a few steps be in the woods. I could live in the city and wake up to look out the window at a wall, and have to walk a long way to get to a little speck of green, and only have time to do so on weekends and days off from a job sitting in a cubicle far from a window with my face glued to a computer screen from dusk to dawn. Instead I get to wake up to the songs of countless birds courting. Surround yourself with green, and the birds will find you.





    The elderberry have sent up their flower spikes. In a few months, the spikes will be ablaze with red berries which the birds will devour. In the forest, bleeding hearts are in full bloom. The variety that grows here is Dicentra formosa. Reading about it, I read that it was supposedly “discovered” by the Scottish surgeon and naturalist Archibald Menzies who was with Captain George Vancouver on his four and a half year voyage around the world. You read a statement like that and it sounds as if the people living here never noticed this jewel of a plant blooming at their footsteps.



    The trilliums are at the height of their bloom too. The forest floor just steps from the house is carpeted with them, so I was surprised to read that in many places it is illegal to pick them as some species are endangered. I have a fond memory of waking up in the morning while camping in the Olympic Mountains to see a fawn nibbling on trillium. Trillium have no true leaves. The three green leaves from which their flowers sprout are actually three large bracts.




    Russell and Kumo-hime 雲姫 are on their way into the forest to feast on bugs and nibble at the bleeding hearts and trillium. Freed from the constraints of the law, they can nibble at trillium without worrying about going to jail.

    Months ago, I considered making a bountiful meal out of Russell. As a young rooster, he was a bit of a pest. But I saved him on account of his unusual comb. I’m glad I did. He’s turned out to be the best watch rooster of the tribe. He spots incoming hawks and eagles with a distinctive trumpet call I can hear from a long way off, giving all the other chickens the chance to scurry to safety, and letting me run to shoo the hawks and eagles away. I’ve found that clapping my hands is a very effective way at getting the hawks to fly away.