a man and his hoe

every day is a good day

Category: How Things Grow

In the Woods Today

Recent rains have made the woods cool and damp. The smell of decomposing leaves, twigs, and branches on the forest floor is so fresh. Any day is a good day for a walk through the woods. It takes just a few steps out of the house to be in the woods. It’s easy to take such luxury for granted.

Many years ago, I lived in a desert country for a time. The mountains and valleys were barren. Not a speck of green to the horizon and beyond. I’d close my eyes and dream of green. I met a local person who saw photographs of lush, green mountains of distant countries, and he told me that he thought the photographs weren’t real. Only knowing desert mountains, he thought that someone had painted the green on the photographs. It wasn’t until he traveled and saw the forested mountains for himself that he realized there are places in the world that are so green.

Stepping out of the woods, I see that the blueberries are forming. This is how blueberries look like before they turn blue. Another month and they will be as blue as the sky.

June 17, 2014
The Power of Tiny Things

Life is the story of the power of tiny things. Each of us started as tiny, infinitesimal specs. And yet we are now giants, roaming the earth, millions of times larger than when we first started. It’s the same with beans. Small, beautiful seeds, beans rise out of the earth, pushing aside heavy dirt and brush as they make their ascent toward the sun. They are among the champions of growth and energy, growing taller every day.

With these tiny arugula seeds, I hold in my palm the makings of a hundred salads. There is enough energy in each seed to create an entire salad. With these seeds and just five weeks or so, and I can invite a small army of friends over for a small feast.

Want to be amazed? Grow your own food … even if you just have space for a few pots on a window sill.

June 16, 2014
What Ripening Shallots Look Like

The shallots are almost done. Their long, slender leaves are starting to lie down.

Now I lay me down to sleep,
I pray the Lord my soul to keep,
If I shall die before I wake,
I pray the Lord my soul to take.

Their bulbs are firming, and I’m already picking them to eat. The great thing about growing your own produce is that you can eat it at all stages of life. Shallots are such amazing plants. Put one bulb in the garden, and three to six months later gather five or six. You can’t do that with your money in a bank. Not only that, along the way, they fill your garden with great beauty. Periodically, you can snip their leaves to use in salads or sauces. Even when they fall down and dry out as they ripen, they retain their beauty.

Nature is not stingy. It will take one bulb or one seed and in a short time reward you with tens, hundreds, thousands or more.

June 15, 2014
Nature’s Thought of It Already and Gives It Freely

The tomatoes in the hoop house are tall enough to need supports. I could have gone down to a store and purchased some supports, but nature’s thought of it already, and isn’t charging me a penny. The bamboo are sending up tall shoots and so are the alders. Both of them make excellent tomato supports. Cut them to the length you need, and leave some of the side branches on. These side branches which stick upward, make excellent hooks to support the tomato leaves.

At the end of the season, the supports can be added to the compost or cut up for kindling. Next year, nature will supply a fresh supply of supports so there is no need to try and save them through the winter.

The wonderful thing about nature is that it is prolific. Thank god, it doesn’t have the mindset of the corporations which rule us, otherwise it would be demanding payment every time we take in a breath of air. Before it rained, it would want some coin before it let the raindrops fall. We’d have to pay it for every bee visit. Nature’s way is to give and give and give. Imagine how much we’d have to pay if the likes of AT&T or Comcast owned the sun, or Monsato owned the wind.

June 15, 2014
Out of the Garden Today – June 14, 2014

Every evening, going into the garden is pure delight. Onions, shallots, carrots, mustard and lettuce greens will make a delicious soup tonight. Today, the New York Times had an article Threat Grows From Liver Illness Tied to Obesity today about the growing incidences of fatty liver.

In the past two decades, the prevalence of the disease, known as nonalcoholic fatty liver, has more than doubled in teenagers and adolescents, and climbed at a similar rate in adults. Studies based on federal surveys and diagnostic testing have found that it occurs in about 10 percent of children and at least 20 percent of adults in the United States, eclipsing the rate of any other chronic liver condition.

A more progressive form of nonalcoholic fatty liver is called nonalcoholic steatohepatitis, or NASH. It is estimated that 2 to 3 percent of people in the US, some five million, have NASH. Many of these people will eventually need liver transplants. In 2001, 1 percent of liver transplants were due to NASH, but by 2009 NASH patients accounted for 9 percent of liver transplants.

The increase in NASH is due to poor diets and lack of exercise. Thirty years ago, the condition was so rare, there wasn’t even a name for it.

Some point out that access to fresh vegetables and fruit is limited in many communities, forcing residents to rely on fast and junk food. Yet you can grow a lot of fresh vegetables in a small space. Even a ten by ten foot plot can provide enough greens for a daily salad for a family. Travel through any city and you will find plenty of unused lots which could be used as community gardens to provide fresh produce for the neighborhoods.

City parks could be redesigned to include vegetable gardens and fruit orchards to be used by local residents. These spaces would not only provide delicious, healthy food, they would also provide exercise opportunities and could be used to teach children where food comes from, how it grows, and how important a clean environment is for everyone.

June 14, 2014