a man and his hoe

every day is a good day

Category: How Things Grow

  • A Sliver of a Root

    mossonrock

    A garden can be as small as a tuft of moss on a rock. Moss are remarkable plants. They have no roots, but have a thin, root-like structure only one cell thick. This is how they stick to rocks and grow.

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    In the vegetable garden lies a zucchini from last summer. I let it lie to see what happens to it. At some point it should disintegrate and the seeds in it sprout, or so I am assuming that will happen. This is the wonder of having a garden. You can do all the scientific experiments you want.

    firewood

    In the woods lie many fallen trees and branches, knocked over by this winter’s storms. It’s amazing how much wood a small forest produces.

  • Spring in January

    springinjanuarya

    Ha! Hardly. It’s still cold, but spring is just around the corner, the daffodils pushing out of the frozen soil are counting on it. The deep freeze that started on New Year’s Eve still has the ground as hard as cement, but that isn’t holding back the daffodil shoots. A sunny day with above freezing temperatures in the afternoon draws Hazel and the other hens all the way around the pond to look for good things to eat in the sunny brush. After tonight, freezing temperatures will be a thing of the past for a spell. That should thaw the frozen soil and bring things to life.

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  • The Color Brown

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    It’s a brown, brown world in the forest. The dried leaves above are actually frozen in an invisible sheet of ice. Walking on them is like walking on thick glass. There is no crunch of dried leaves, just silence. The ice is so thick and hard, it doesn’t give.

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    In the vegetable garden, the artichoke blossoms have turned to an ashen brown. I’ve left them because I’ve read that insects overwinter in places like these.

    Maple samara lie still in the snow, their wings slowly decaying. In places they gather by the handful, like dead butterflies. A single tree produces tens of thousands of samara, each with two seeds. Of these, just a handful ever become a tree. It seems like a wasteful process, but it works. Maple trees have been around for over a hundred million years.

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    winterbrownh

    A snow print from a boot looks like a cartoon character. Art happens when you least expect it.

  • Snow Vegetables

    snowvegetablesa

    As a little boy, I never dreamed I’d be picking vegetables out of a garden covered with shimmering, powdery snow. But beneath this bitter cold snow, greens abound. Cabbages, kales, and other hearty greens stay fresh under a blanket of snow.

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    It only takes a few minutes to fill a basket with enough greens for a hearty, winter lunch.

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    On the way back to the kitchen, it’s impossible to ignore the beauty of grass frozen in a river of glassy ice, or the snow crystals on black ice. You don’t see such beauty in the aisles of a supermarket. Unexpected beauty is the reward for growing your own vegetables, that and not having to go through a checkout and bagging your produce, and not worrying about anyone yelling at you if you nibble the produce as you pick them.

    A few days ago, I read an article at NPR’s website titled Staying Fit Isn’t a New Year’s Resolution for These Hunter-Gatherers. It was about the Hadza, a group of hunter-gatherers in Northern Tanzania. They spend most of their time active outdoors, and this comment struck me:

    A Hadza kid has never spent a day inside because there is no inside.

    Wow, imagine a life where you are never indoors.

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  • Out of a Winter Garden

    wintergardena

    Today’s rain has washed most of the snow and ice away. Surprise, underneath the cold snow, the winter vegetables stayed as fresh as ever. The sprouting onions are as fresh as spring time green onions. There’s no need to truck in produce from far away California and Mexico.

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    wintergardenc

    Nothing beats having just-picked fresh greens for a winter meal.