October 5, 2009

            I was so stunned at how easy it is to get a blog up and running that when it came time to actually say something, I was more or less struck dumb. You may later wish this had remained the case—maybe we all will. At the time, though, it seemed like doing an end run around agents, editors, permission-givers, the very guards at the door of Publishing. Shazam: I am Out There. In more ways than one, I’m told.

            So. This is to be a journal of our attempt to reclaim the family farm, save the land from development into condos and strip malls, make a bit of money toward Vermont property taxes (sixth highest in the nation), raise some fiber bearing sheep and goats who can eat some of the robust weeds that are beginning to fill the pastures. We have been living here a few years already, absorbed with the usual tasks of raising a family, working, etc. Extra time has been absorbed in fixing the roof, cleaning out sheds and barns, insulating the living room  (which used to be a shed) ceiling, getting the truck fixed, going from oil heat to wood, all the while eyeing the pastures as they have begun to grow up. I’ve wondered what animals would be the best for the landscape, and how to protect them from the many predators hungrily milling around the woods looking for the odd lambkin to nibble.

 

            Today was compost day. I have a few vegetable beds that I’ve laid out according to the Lasagna Gardening method of Patricia Lanza. Otherwise known as layered gardening, you don’t till the dirt. Nor do you have to weed. I love Patricia Lanza. Instead you lay down newspapers or cardboard, apply layers of organic matter, alternating with peat moss, spoiled hay, compost, manure, grass clippings. I’m not sure what can be sustainably substituted for peat—aren’t the bogs being depleted to grow our zinnias?

Anyway, I had good luck this summer, even though I didn’t get my autumn ‘08 layering chores done until July ‘09. I grew so-called Aztec corn with multicolored kernels, which isn’t very sweet and may be better for grinding than eating off the cob. I grew purple beans, which we ate raw with dip more often than cooked, peas in pods—always consumed raw here, strawberries, lemon cucumbers grown over the skeleton of an upended lawn chair, shallots, garlic, onions, broccoli, zucchini,  a bed of very productive red potatoes, spaghetti squash, delicata squash, problematic tomatoes, and one huge, lopsided French pumpkin.

In the kitchen garden near the house, I grew basil, lettuces, very challenged Lacinato kale, chard, cilantro, parsley, tomatillos that towered but didn’t really fruit,

However discouraging it was to watch weeds get a head start over my vegetables in June and July (afraid of running out of mulch hay, I didn’t mulch as often as Patricia recommends), by late August, with the beans cantering up their trellises, the corn looking strong and very non-weedy, even the tomatoes taking a few minutes a day to stop shivering and grow, things looked pretty good. Pea pods were still coming. I was beginning to find squashes running in among the rosa rugosa.  The zucchinis were producing at a decent, if not overwhelming clip. Does this sound like a fairly casual garden?

 It is.

I will never get a weeding award.  Are there such things? Just as I will never get a typing award, or one for the most query letters sent out to harried editors. Maybe layered gardening is like blogging. You cut to the chase. A good deal of the character-building drudgery goes out the window, to be replaced by other character building obstacles to your immediate gratification.

Such as compost.

 

            I was out there this morning, as the clouds gathered over the mountains to the west, digging away at the pile, trying to find the lovely compost that was supposed to happen even in the laziest unturned pile. I jabbed in the pitchfork and pulled out stringy, half decomposed weeds, a few mussel shells (I have a great recipe for smoked mussels, by the way*), more than a few Chiquita banana stickers, even some plastic plant markers. I found my potted verbena from this summer, doing better upside down in the compost heap in October than it did on my patio in August.

Where was the wonderful compost? I dug further down, where I found some very nice stuff, but not light. In fact, it bore a distinct resemblance to my clay soil. Perhaps I was going too deep. I really needed compost to finish off the pea patch I was layering again for next spring.  I dug around the edges of the pile, finding some decent shovelfuls of compost that wasn’t too stringy, nor too obviously the soil beneath my compost heap. Finally I filled the wheelbarrow with compost-stuff, all the while wondering if those compost turners, the giant cylinders with the near effortless cranks that are promised to produce compost in a month, really work.

Distributing the compost across the most recent layer of peat moss, I noticed some dog business beside the bed.  I took one load onto the shovel and neatly catapulted it over the fence into the pasture. Of the second load, two pieces went into the pasture and the third hit my bluebird house with a loud thwap! And stuck.

Is this some kind of omen?

Too bad if it is. I cleaned it off, finished distributing the compost, put away the tools as the rain started coming down in earnest.

 

 

*You dump them, cleaned, into a really hot skillet, cover them up and cook until all their liquid has evaporated. Three minutes, maybe? Peeking is fine. Then serve with melted butter. That’s it. They are smoky, salty, sweet, utterly delicious.