growing dendrites

from a thoughtful friend’s blog

http://interdependentscience.blogspot.com/2011/04/networks-of-correspondence.html

the resilient gardener

I’ve been reading Carol Deppe’s book, The Resilient Gardener, and enjoying her humor and practical experience. Carol has gardened for many years, and done extensive plant breeding, too. Currently she is running a market garden and selling seed varieties that she has developed.

During the decade that she cared for her aging mother at home, her gardening went through periods of neglect when caregiving had to be at the forefront. From that, Carol rethought many of her gardening strategies, and worked to evolve gardening styles and practices that were less labor intensive, and more forgiving of gardener absence.

I will be using a lot of her ideas as I plan my own garden this year. For the first time, I am going to plant corn in my garden. I’ve always associated corn with the wonderful feasts of sweet corn available in season, but never have I seriously considered corn as a major food in my diet. Carol has opened my eyes to how important corn has been as a North American staple crop. She is passionate about reviving strains of heirloom varieties that are hardy, productive, nutritious and tasty. Good taste is a very important criteria in Carol’s evaluation of seed lines, so I’m going to rely on her suggestions for my own seed choices.

One corn variety she recommends is Abenaki, a flint-type corn that was grown by Native Americans in Vermont. It yields ears of solid gold and solid red colors, and Carol says it makes delicious polenta and cornbread. According to gardener anecdote, this corn variety was the only one that produced a crop in 1816, the infamous “year without a summer” when a volcanic eruption on the far side of the globe caused summer freezes in New Enland. Unlike modern corn varieties, Abenaki and many other heirlooms require more labor-intensive harvesting. They can’t be combined, and traditionally have been harvested by hand. So, they’ve been ignored by the gene-tinkerers, thank goodness. (Corn is pollinated by wind, and heirloom varieties can be contaminated by wind-borne GM pollen. Carol explains how to evaluate the harvest to find and eliminate GM interlopers. It’s pretty easy with flint corn varieties.)

I’m also going to plant some edamame-type soybeans. There’s a fellow in nearby Norwich who runs a homesteading school. He has single-handedly saved many valuable local apple varieties, and also tested many vegetables and bean seed types to determine ones that are most successful in this area. I got my soybean seeds from him, as well as some daikon and chicory.

My comfrey plantings last year were very successful. Comfrey is an exuberant grower, and with its deep roots, extracts many valuable minerals and concentrates them in its leaves, along with nitrogen. It is useful as a medicinal plant, extensively used in organic practice as a green mulch, and serves as a great tonic forage for ruminants. My goats and sheep run to me and gobble down comfrey cuttings like children gorging on candy. And the honey bees and bumblebees love it for its flowers, too.  I’m going to dig up and divide my larger comfrey clumps this spring, planting the divisions along my garden borders, and near the barn.

 

home is where the hearth is

My big upgrade this year was the purchase of a soapstone wood burning stove.  It’s a Hearthstone stove, the Mansfield model, assembled by hand in New Hampshire.

The outer frame is of cast iron, which holds the pieces of soapstone in place. This stone has incredible heat retention properties – around twice as much heat holding capacity as cast iron.  If I make a roaring fire in the morning, the stove is still hot to the touch in the evening, holding a nice bed of coals to make a fresh fire. This has really transformed my experience of winter life in the cabin.

My friend Steve helped me reposition the hearth and chimney arrangement so the stove heats the whole cabin more effectively. He had salvaged the slate piece under the stove from an old barn, and offered it to me as the hearthstone for the new stove. He also fashioned the wooden frame around the hearth, using rough-cut lumber from an elm tree on my property.

I heat water and cook food on this stove, and bask in the warmth while I sit in my rocking chair. I also have a new, visceral appreciation for the honored central position of the heart / hearth in the home design of most traditional cultures.

spring tonic

Someone I love suggested that I might try journaling.

So I am starting.

When I was young, I spent time with one of our neighbors.  He was a gifted gardener, and I enjoyed helping him work with his plants and trees. He had run a landscaping business until disabled by a back injury. He was a quiet fellow, who smoked a pipe with a fragrant tobacco while he puttered around the yard. I liked watching the wisps of smoke hang in the cool morning air under the trees.

Early one spring, he cut a piece of the growing tip of a birch tree, peeled back the bark, and suggested I taste the moist green wood. I still remember the taste of that sweet birch.