Early Summer Bounty

Quick as a cricket, summer is here and things are looking up. We've had rain almost every day in June. The garden is an exuberant mess. Amish snap peas are delicious; Tom Thumb peas a bit dry and not very sweet. Herbs are walloppingly large; borage is trying to take over the world.

Springtime Blues

Alas, spring sickness has descended and the primary victims are my seedlings. Due to watering neglect, basil, dahlia, kale, and most of the peppers have kicked the bucket. Ray of hope transcends from daffodils and cherry blossoms that perform with no contributions of mine. The lovage is already quite tall. A rose has passed on, leaving space to move the oregano away from the currants. Constant remodeling.

Having a garden places one on the endless wheel of greenery. Weeding, watering, transplanting - it's not over till the frost hits. Moping around the house, I neglect it all. It's not really work until I'm too tired to do it.

Bunnies of the World, Unite

My neighborhood is basically a warren. There is a part of our backyard nicknamed "Rabbit Superhighway," identifiable by the trail of turds that passes beneath the raspberries, which for some reason are a favorite winter snack of the local leporids. Some friends are exterminators, others protectors. I read Watership Down at too tender an age to lift a finger against a bunny, but I must admit that I'm not pleased when they help themselves to spring's sweet snacks: tulip shoots, baby lettuce, and new compass plant.

Image from freewildlifepictures.com

Countdown

1 week until my cool season veggies sprout on the warm patio.

3 weeks until the farmers' market opens.

5 weeks until my tomato and pepper seedlings go in the ground.

0 weeks until I get cool stuff from my CSA.

That's right, Easy Bean Farm is sending out awesomeness right now. Granted, the awesomeness is not edible, but I love the emails and pics Farmer Mark emails every week. I get to see him working on his tractor and cheering on the leek seedlings. Farmer Mark is cool.

It's a good thing, because we are wrapping up a major warm snap that signaled my springtime impatience to burst forth like dandelions in the patio cracks. Like bunnies in my lettuce container. Like the inevitable succession of baby animals that lodge themselves in our egress window well and await rescue. We've had a baby rabbit, a baby albino squirrel, and a baby bird. It's one of our signs of spring, like my husband scraping last year's caked-on meat from the grill, or feelings of embarrassment at the neighbors' still-displayed reindeer lawn ornaments.

Starting Seeds

Nothing stops the flutter and surge in my heart when seeds I've planted sprout. There's something so irrepressible about germination, and when I have planted the seeds myself, the process somehow means so much more.

Not that I am a guru of the greenhouse. On the contrary, my seed starting methods are a mish-mash of shortcuts and avoidances. I'm not fond of thinning seedlings, and I don't like to transplant such delicate creatures. So I pop two or three seeds in each of the compartments of the container I will use until the plants go in the ground. If extras sprout, I leave them to it more often than not. The flats bask under two flood lamps in the room over our garage.

This year's first sprouter was kale, quickly followed by onion, basil, and dahlia. Gorgeous!

Self-Esteem

In the spring when I am faced with the consequences of autumnal garden neglect, it's hard to feel good about my skills. Perennials droop with soft rotten stalks; sage pushes out green along uneven stems. Floppy fronds of mint criss-cross the patio. Seeds from the two Eastern hornbeams in back threaten to overtake every bed with an army of tiny trees. I find it best to start small, start manageably, and to start nearest the windows. So I tackle the herb garden first.

Raking reveals that sage, thyme, lavendar, mint, chives, and oregano have all made it through. Jury's out on the rosemary.

Roses and raspberries border the herbs, so I get to work on their thorny branches. Soon I can say, "Raspberries are caned, roses pruned," and feel my self-esteem start to regenerate like the red buds of the renegade peony that just showed up back there one spring.

Seed Catalog Review: Seed Savers Exchange

Every summer in the middle of the summer, when you can't remember any more what it feels like to be cold, an audience gathers on a grassy hill. Limestone bluffs guard rows of asparagus and hollyhock. Kids wander between coolers and lawn chairs.

The annual Greg Brown concert is the only time I've been to Seed Savers Exchange farm in northern Iowa, and it was close to ten years ago, but my cells remember the flavor of the place. Maybe this is why I buy almost all of my seeds, and all my potatoes and garlic, from Seed Savers. Maybe it's because it's the only seed catalog I get that's for a non-profit organization, founded in 1975 with the premise that folks should pool their precious heirloom seeds. Seed Savers strikes the same chord in my heart as The Penny Song, a ritual in the kindergarten room at my Unitarian church; imagine eight cherubic faces chanting, "Love is something if you give it away, you end up having more." Heirloom seeds are something if you give them away, you end up having more.

I'm not a member, so I don't get access to the 20,733 varieties of veggies, flowers, and fruits traded by the in crowd. I don't have any family heirloom seeds and don't know much about saving seeds, so it seems silly to join. And yet, Seed Savers is mine and I belong to them. Every spring I order too many varieties of basil. Summers I swoon into the embrace of Nyagous tomatoes. In the fall, I celebrate when my miniature bell peppers succeed. Winters I eat potatoes grown from their potatoes. Where else could I order The Joy of Rhubarb, essays by Wendell Barry, and huckleberry seeds all in one go?

Oregano

Oregano is really a weed, but it has moxie. Determination. Persuasiveness. Oregano is a tasty weed. In June, exasperated, I beat it away from my currant bushes. In March, though, when rosemary is a faded dream and parsley sleeps in seed packets, oregano's hopeful and irrepressible advance against the snowdrift's retreat is a delicious miracle. Long live oregano, bold champion of the herb bed.

Snowmelt

The smell, more than anything else, gets to me - it should be disgusting, wet dirt and rotten leaves. But late winter smells clean and effervescent, as the air, frozen for so many months, breaks free in a bubbly rush. I bend down every time I pass a glimmer of green. Is that a new leaf? Or a remnant of autumn, surviving the cold under the snow's thick blanket?

Lying in bed, I hear in the night and in the early morning the CRACK-thud! of mammoth icicles plunging from roof to the soggy ground. Thump, thump, thump. The baby doesn't wake, but the whole world is waking. My tiny thyme has lived through another winter and tentatively extends a stem. The rosebush blushes green beneath its thorns. Hurrah!

Whoa, Nelly

I can get ahead of myself. Often this problem is a byproduct of reading too quickly. My husband expresses dismay when I accidentally allow him to observe the rate at which I consume literature. When she sees what's going on, my mother also complains. This is not my fault. I read as much as I could as a child - I remember the day when I realized I'd read every book I wanted to in our neighborhood library - and now I read fast. That's how it is. I don't really understand why other people find the need to object to this innocent characteristic, when I'm the one who is constantly running short of reading material.

Lately I've been reading Fresh Food from Small Spaces: The Square Inch Gardener's Guide to Year-Round Growing, Fermenting, and Sprouting by R. J. Ruppenthal. It's dynamite. It makes me want to skip through the catalogs like a Pollyanna in pigtails, filling my virtual shopping basket with Victorian Bell Cloches (Territorial Seed Company), Braising Green Seeds (Seeds of Change), self-watering containers (Gardener's Supply Company), trellises . . . how about a greenhouse? Maybe I should keep bees! Chickens! Mushroom logs!

Whoa, Nelly. I don't even like mushrooms.

Ruppenthal, who turns out to be a professor at Evergreen College, has a very friendly writing voice. He makes it all seem so possible. He delineates which plants grow under various light conditions and what to do after you've been growing stuff in a container for a year and it's time to plant again. Actual, concrete conceptions of how I could actually grow food here are starting to coalesce out of my brain-mist. The trick will be to focus on a few simple things I can add each year. This year, I'm thinking: rhubarb, kale, peas, beans. That's not too complicated, right?

Planting Onions

I planted onion seeds today. It was an act of faith. Faith in the seeds: when I tried starting onions from seeds two years ago, the seeds didn't do much for me. (This time, I will keep them in cooler temperatures and moister soil.) Faith in my mother's commitment to her garden: they are going into her garden, not mine, as onions need big-time space that I just don't have. Faith that a tiny, poky black pyramid will transform into something delicious to eat. It's been a busy, crabby week (teething baby, no sleep). When I walked outside to put away my trowel, smelling the late-afternoon not-quite-frozen golden air, I felt, at last, at peace.

Recipe for Bison Meatloaf

This mid-winter meal can be made almost entirely with ingredients available locally in Minnesota this time of year. Why bison? 97% of North American bison live on ranches. The species would be in serious trouble if no one ate their meat. Also, bison meat is lower in fat than chicken or beef, but high in iron and protein. I adapted this recipe from one used my by brilliant gourmet friend Julie, who says she got hers from "Julia or Martha or one of those people." When Julie emailed me her recipe, her note read, "Obviously, you can't screw this up," so naturally I am always a little nervous that I will screw it up and prove myself to be a complete incompetent in the kitchen.

Bison Meatloaf
2 cups finely chopped onion
1 Tbsp finely minced garlic
1 stalk of celery, finely diced
1 carrot, finely diced
2 Tbsp butter
2 tsp Worcestershire sauce
1/3 cup canned diced tomatoes
2 pounds ground bison
1 cup bread crumbs
2 large eggs, beaten
2 Tbsp dried parsley
2 tsp salt

Saute onion, garlic, celery, and carrot in butter. Let cool. Stir in remaining ingredients. Form into two logs and bake on a cookie sheet at 350° F for 1 hour. Awesome with baked Yukon gold potatoes and garnet yams.

Garden Supply Catalog Review: Gardener's Supply Company

Ah, the glamor of a well-turned-out garden. Gardener's Supply Company carries tool after tool for maximizing growing space. Last year I finally splurged on their tomato ladders, designed to increase yield per square foot. They were easy to install, easy to maintain, and easy to pull up in the fall. Gardener's Supply also carries tons of season-extending equipment, composters, Bogs (neoprene gardening boots, delicious), pre-made raised beds, and every kind of container you can imagine. If you have money in your coffers, Gardener's Supply provides ample opportunity to turn it into high veggie yields. If you don't have much rattling in that piggy bank, you can still enjoy their free online Kitchen Garden Planner for rectangular beds. Fun!

Eating Local, Mid-February, Minnesota

No modern homestead is an island, especially not my almost-farm, so I have no qualms about searching out fabulous food from other growers. Ultimate inspiration on this front can be found in Alisa Smith and J.B. Mackinnon's book, Plenty: One Man, One Woman, and a Raucous Year of Eating Locally. This week I found at my co-op, in addition to the usual local cheese, eggs, flour, and bison, bright and flavorful Minnesota carrots from Featherstone Farm. The Whole Foods down my street offered up a rare treat: Minnesota-grown tulips. Best of all, I dug out two cans of blueberries we picked 18 months ago at Rush River Produce, 59 miles from home, and made a blueberry pie to welcome my mother for her visit. I used the recipe for berry pie using canned fruit in the 1975 edition of Joy of Cooking by Rombauer and Becker. The pie was baked by 3:00; waiting until after dinner to dive in took serious self-restraint. "The meaning of life," I couldn't help chanting in the early evening, "is pie." Yum.

Spring Is Coming

I knew it this morning when I woke up. I heard the robins singing, and because my 7-month-old slept in (6:45!) the sun was up with me. I could hear Spring gathering up her mud boots and umbrella in the next room, preparing to bustle in and shoo Winter out the back door. I floated through the morning, unperturbed when my car got stuck in our alley's ice hole, whistling as I carried baby and 19-pound cat around the block and into our house to call the tow truck. Eventually, reality set in - February 22 is a month early, even for the clinically delusional - but I still know, from the not-quite-frozen smell of the air when I open the front door to pick up the newspaper, that Spring is coming in all her glory and she will unfurl my seeds soon.

Seed Catalog Review: Territorial Seed Company

Territorial's peaceful catalog is nothing if not thorough. Like Seeds of Change, Territorial includes growing guides for all of their seeds. Their selection of fruit seeds and plants canvasses uniquely tempting options, including fig, pomegranate, kiwi, and hops. They also sell rhubarb seeds - most companies just carry the crowns. I've never started rhubarb from seed, but am considering trying; if it works out, it's definitely the more economical option. Their cherry tomato collection is enticing, and they carry some gorgeous popcorn. I broke down and bought seeds for Cosmidium burridgeanum, or Phillipine, an affordable alternative to the pricey but delectable chocolate cosmos. Territorial's Pot and Patio Lettuce produced so much out of one container last summer that we were giving bags of it away - and this when I was 8 months pregnant and eating like mad!

Besides the cornucopia of plants and fungi tested in their Oregon research facility, London Spring Farms, Territorial sells the gadgets you never knew you needed: asparagus knife and steamer, bean frencher, pea sheller, garlic twist. Perhaps the most lovable aspect of this unassuming company is their commitment to send one free packet of Nantes Carrot seeds, with every order. The attractive paper envelope is a simple but classy single-color paper number that reads, "The seed is provided FREE so that you may donate fresh carrots to a food bank, soup kitchen, or neighbor in need." Territorial's "We can do it!" grassroots Recession Era response is in part inspired by Eleanor Roosevelt's 1943 Victory Garden, and their catalog boasts a bucket of 30 seed packets for creating your own Victory Garden; it's "the perfect starter collection for self-reliant gardening." Territorial's not flashy; they're the serviceable worn-in jeans of the seed catalog world, cashmere-soft from years of reliability. A beautiful luxury if your values are in the right place.

Seed Catalog Review: Seeds of Change

Although Seeds of Change advertises primarily as a 100% organic seed retailer, their catalog offers a lot more. Full of how-to articles, including one on "Space-Challenged Gardening," it's also a sort of pro-Earth gardening manual. In addition to information on seed starting, soil building, ecology, and agronomy, or how to grow, most of their seeds, the catalog offers seeds for veggies, salad mixes, cover crops, herbs, and flowers . . . plus rhubarb crowns, strawberry plants, and apple trees. They carry a lot of tools, including a pretty nice precision seeder and a pop-up greenhouse. I've ordered seeds from them for several years, and have never been disappointed. Their Dragon Carrot, Strawflower, and Curiosity Nigella have performed particularly well for me. I do wish that they'd return to paper seed envelopes (they switched to plastic last year); a minor detail. Seeds of Change is the real deal when it comes to outfitting the greenest of gardeners.

Seed Catalog Review: Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds

When this work of art arrived in my mailbox this winter, I sat down to soak it up immediately. I'd never heard of this Ozarks-based family seed company, but I am sure glad they found me. Their company, Rare Seeds, appears to be virtuous in every way, shunning genetically modified seeds, encouraging seed collection, mailing free seeds to Afghanistan, letting their little girl play among the pumpkins. The overall flavor is a cross of down-home wholesomeness with the sort of international explorer naturalism popular in the 19th century. Jere Gettle started the company in 1998 at the age of 17; now he's a world-traveling, Oprah-recognized maverick. For $12 a year you can get the related magazine, The Heirloom Gardener. Hmmmm. . . now, what should I order? Mother of Pearl poppy, Chinese Violet Jasper tomato, or Australian Butter pumpkin?

Top 10 Edible Container Plants

10. Parsley. Not really the most exciting plant in my backyard, but an enthusiastic grower that will strive to take over any container. Perhaps parsley is best grown in a limited space like mint and oregano, two other herbs that strive for world domination. I wish my rosemary were so motivated. Little known fact: parsley is high in iron, pulling its weight as a nutritious garnish.

9. Blue jade corn. Seed Savers carries this tiny blue corn which grew fantastically in my patio containers last summer. The only reason I didn't give blue jade a higher rating is that I've never tasted it - the squirrels ate it all up before I had a chance to harvest it. It was so fun, though, to watch the ears mature.

8. Arugula. Exciting, spicy, almost exotic, very Italian, and a good grower in spring and fall. Arugula gets a little intense as the days wax warm. My friend Mary Beth makes an amazing arugula and bacon quiche (also good with turkey bacon) in which Gruyére cheese balances out the arugula's sharpness. The recipe is available at epicurious.com.

7. Tom Thumb snap pea. A sweet pea that's bred for spaces only Tom Thumb would call roomy. I didn't have fantastic yields last summer, but I got the seeds late due to a back-order. Plans are underway for a more aggressive planting schedule this spring, and I have the seeds in hand already. They do tend to sell out, so order early.

6. Basil. Oh, so delicious. Good with sliced tomatoes, good as leaves in a salad, good as pesto out of the freezer in January. This year I plan to plant up at least two big containers of sweet Genovese basil from Seed Savers. So much pleasure from so little effort, since basil seeds can be sown directly.

5. Patio Princess tomatoes from Burpee. Albeit hybrids, these gals really did produce in cramped quarters. The plants get big, with heavy little cherry tomatoes. Hybrids kind of give me the willies, but they really are delicious. Burpee has seeds or plants.

4. Miniature sweet peppers, red and yellow. There's a chocolate one, too, but I haven't tried it. These little numbers from Seed Savers are worth starting indoors. They are the only pepper that ever performed for me, and they did so in shady containers at the back of my patio. Tiny, delightful bursts of vitamin C.

3. Nasturtiums. Direct sow, hardy, spicy, and colorful, these edible flowers earn their place through entertainment value alone. If under-watered, they can get leggy, but bounce back if trimmed mightily. Their colors are motley and but every nasturtium I've tried, from cheap-o Target seeds to heirloom wonders, performed similarly.

2. Lettuce. Territorial Seeds has a "Pot and Patio Lettuce Blend" that kept our family in salads for months last spring. Containers can get hot, though, so don't get mad at your lettuce if it bolts earlier than ground-planted lettuce and is too bitter to eat. Try sowing another crop in the fall once the weather cools down.

1. Swiss Chard. I like Five Color Silverbeet from Seeds Savers. It's hardy, starts early, and works hard. I've been planting this one since I first got my hands on a balcony with an iota of sunlight. The stems are all different colors and it's great sautéed with onions and sausage, served over rice; or in a minestrone stew with tofu and garbanzo beans. Totally freezable if you get too much. First prize for direct sow capabilities, prettiness, and easy care.

Things To Do

Soil. This is a hard lesson for me. I avoid dirt. I can't help but think, "Ewwwwww," but it's got to happen. Perhaps I should pick up some rubber gloves.

Infrastructure. We have a tree tangled in power lines, scraggly old lilacs, ripped ground cloth that flutters in the wind, scattered landscape rocks from who knows when . . . time to clean up. We also could do with a new back fence - the one we have now is full of holes - used as peek-a-boo windows by the neighbor's friendly dog - and leans forward and back like a three-year-old imitating Elvis.

Eventually, when the city's American Basswood that shades our front yard kicks the bucket - an inevitability, as it is split down the middle with rot - our little shady hill dotted with thirsty columbines and struggling hostas will finally have its place in the sun. When we terrace our little front hill and move the front perennials to a border garden across the front sidewalk, we'll have a respectable free space ready for food.

The Premise

In 2007, my boyfriend was finally ready to commit. How did I know? We had just started house hunting and accidentally chanced upon a house that he loved. "I think we should buy it," he said. When I saw him write the check for earnest money, I knew he was ready. Finally! The man I loved wanted to start a life with me! The house was great - not too big (the smallest one on a very nice block), not too broken (or so we thought), charming, 1920's. Three stories, counting the finished basement, a small footprint and just enough square footage that we'd have no excuse to upsize if we had kids. There's only one down side: the garden is tiny. Most of the back yard is consumed by the garage, the studio on top of the garage, and a brick patio. The lot is narrow and overbuilt. It feels like a house in New York, not a small midwestern city. But it seemed a small thing to overlook, even though I had been stubbornly container gardening throughout my apartment and condo days . . .

In the spring of 2008, I read "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle" by Barbara Kingsolver, mostly at the kitchen table. The book is an account of Barbara's family's resolve to eat only local food for one year, growing as much as it themselves as possible. I alternately recited passages aloud to my now-husband and silently clutched twined palms to my breast. Yes! This is why I had been sowing Swiss chard seeds in patio pots across the city. Yes! This is why I had learned to make and can jam. It was meant to be: I was meant to follow in Barbara's footsteps and live off the land, my own land, the land of local friendly farmers, to put up rows of gleaming jars of tomatoes, to dig through the deep freeze all winter long. I was ready to become Marilla Cuthbert with plum preserves at the ready.

My mother had just purchased a 44-acre farm 70 minutes outside of the city. I zealously planted, mapped, and planted that spring. I did not stop or think or research. I drove back and forth to Mom's new acreage, never counting the gas I was guzzling, and dug and planted and sweated and grinned. We put 100 heirloom pepper plants in the garden and the next morning Mom called: a rabbit bit every last pepper at the ground. They were all dead. We put 100 heirloom tomatoes in the garden, failed to stake them, and suffered through a September of rotten stinkbombs. We put rows and rows of heirloom potatoes in the garden and didn't weed - the potatoes flat out disappeared. We didn't till or compost or irrigate, although eventually we did get a 7-foot, chicken-wire-reinforced fence up.

So a commuter garden is not for me. I hate to drive, and inevitably neglected everything I put in Mom's ground. I think it has to be here, in the city, in my tiny lot. I think I have to move my perennials and that gorgeous flagstone path my husband gave me for my birthday two years ago. But this time I'm going slow and steady. I hope you're ready for a long and gradual story.