Muck Gardening

Muck-that’s right, I said it. MUCK! That's the best word to describe what the lower 40 of my yard/garden is right now. It is raining AGAIN. Never, in all my years of gardening in the South, would I have ever even dreamed of dreading to see rain in the forecast toward the end of July. Usually the ground is cracking about now. Makes my head hurt from just the mere twisting of my thought process to incorporate NOT wanting to see rain in July-almost August actually. But yes, it is true. I was saddened to open the back door to let my dogs out for their evening “constitutional” shall I say, and see rainfall.

I am not one who doesn't like rain. In fact, it makes me happy. I love rain. Not just because it makes my life easier by being able to skip dragging heavy hoses all over the place in 90 degree summer days, and feeling guilty I am using up my well water. I do love what rainfall does to my flowers, plants, vegetables and grass. Everything grows and greens up beautifully after a good rain. A water hose just can’t do what nature can.

I also love rain for the smell of it, the feel of it. It is never a dismal day to me. I like to walk in the rain when others run from it. I ponder over how people stand at storefront exits waiting until it lets up before they feel they can make it 30 feet to their car in the parking lot. Huddling together at the exit, they strike up the standard, “I shoulda brought my umbrella, it’s really coming down” conversation starters. OK, I don’t fault the over 65 crowd. They should wait for a let-up. Don’t want an elderly person slipping in a puddle and falling in the parking lot and breaking a hip. AARP, settle down. But I could run out there and do a Gene Kelly dance and my best “Singin' in the Rain” impression and be delighted with myself-that is if I could sing, or dance as if no one is watching. Sadly I cannot.

But I CAN be out in the garden hearing thunder’s low growl in the distance, ignore the warnings, and remain steadfast in my pursuit of ridding my garden of just a few more weeds. As I begin to hear the rain hitting the tree line as it approaches, I await with anticipation for those first big fat cool drops to hit my back as I am bent over a stubborn dandelion root. (When I hear a loud crack of thunder, however, I do pick up the pace to retreat indoors, I am not that careless.)

So, with my affinity for rain and all it gives, one would assume I would be happy with this inordinate amount of rain. However it has been raining so much it feels like soon they will be measuring cumulatively in feet, and not inches of rainfall. It befits the, “too much of a good thing…” adage. Consequently, it has turned my garden into the aforementioned MUCK. Yucky muck. I have never seen anything like it.  I used to do rain dances in the summer. I now sing, “Rain rain, go away…” from my childhood. Sometimes the rain dances worked.

 I gave up planting seeds after three sets were washed away by deluges. My straight row of basil seeds washed into forming a little clump. Our rocky base under our amended soil doesn't perk like normal soil, so we have puddles. Literally puddles are all through the yard and garden. I wear my galoshes and my feet get swallowed up and stuck. My zinnias and cucumbers are getting powdery mildew, my tomatoes are drowning, my corn has fallen over, (and became deer food), and my artichoke plants are turning black. I dug holes here and there by some plants to wick away the water and with a strike of my shovel, water poured out of the soil and I have a series of mini ponds. In desperation, I left weeds to grow so they could help soak up some of the water. I added shredded newspaper to my mini ponds and added dirt back into them.  We have gotten our tractor stuck in the mud. Rain, rain, go away for just a week, please!

Mosquitoes love this, I am certain. I know because I have seen them dancing around me like joyous garden fairies. They love me, and I don’t fit the categories of what mosquitoes are drawn to. Though why would they look elsewhere for a tastier meal when I am available daily for them to feast upon if I forget to take my mosquito fan? If you don’t have ice cream, might you settle for yogurt if it’s right there in the fridge?

I read mosquitoes can breed in a tablespoon of standing water. So if anyone has a great tip on an organic way to stop my “muck” from turning into a breeding ground for them, please let me know! Something I could add to the puddles perhaps? Lemon balm, eye of newt…I need something. Otherwise, the term “muck” might change by a letter, and I am not one to utter such things.

What’s Your Zone and Where’s Your Sun?

Two important questions to ask yourself when starting any new planting bed are:  1. What’s your zone? 2. Where’s your sun? No, I’m not referring to bad pick up lines relating to the Zodiac. Though these would be great conversation starters at any garden group function you might be attending out of state.

It is essential to know what zone you live in, in order to know when to plant what, and what grows best in your area. Finding your zone is easy to Google up. There are maps that are lined out where each zone is across the United States. Here in the Charlotte, NC area, we are  Zone 7. This info will also help you determine what will overwinter outside. Some plants that will grow throughout the year in Florida will die here, as it gets too cold and the plants will freeze.  I don’t know when it came about, but noticed over the past few years, they have split up zones even more, and I am now specifically located in 7 B. With that info in hand, you can find out when to plant what.  In zone 7, you have to plant cool weather crops early. For instance, cilantro, lettuce, broccoli and peas better be planted by now. Cilantro bolts quickly (goes to seed) in hot weather, and lettuce will become too bitter to eat once our hot as Hades weather hits.  Dare not leave that beauty of a Mandevilla to continue wrapping its’ flowered vines around your deck railing when freezing temps start or you will not see it next year. At least not alive, anyway.

Secondly, before deciding on where to start a garden, you have to know where your sun is, and for how long. Some plants need full sun to grow best, some need shade, and there’s a huge array in between. Dappled sun, part sun, part shade, morning sun and afternoon shade. Look at your yard throughout the day and graph it out on paper. Keep in mind the sun is higher in the sky in the summer and lower in the winter. Now is a good time to take a look throughout the day and mark where there is sun, since the trees are now green once again. If you look in the winter, of course you will have much more sun documented with all the deciduous trees having lost their leaves. But once they have returned to filling out their bare branches with leaves, you will see how quickly sun can disappear. Tomatoes and peppers need a good 8 hours of sun for best production. Sure, you will get some tomatoes and peppers for your pasta sauce on less than 6 hours, but not what you will get with 8 or more hours. And don’t dare plant your beauty of an ostrich fern in sun, or else you will cook it and it won’t taste like chicken.

So, once you find out what zone you are in, and how much sun you have where, you can decide where to plant that vegetable garden, that woodland shade garden, and everything in between.

And as an Aquarian, I must add a #3. The water factor. You can’t plant tomatoes in a bog, no matter how sunny it may be. And don’t bother planting a papyrus in a bone dry desert area, or you will be highly disappointed. Once you have picked your new garden spot, grab a shovel. What’s that? Hard red clay? I hear you. That’s why all the tips of our shovels are broken off. That and rock and shale and…So I say to that, “AMEN-D.”

The Festive Five

Most people have heard of the “Freshman Fifteen”, those unwanted pounds packed on in your first year of college. But what about what I dub, “The Festive Five”? The pesky five pounds put on in just a few months of party-going during the holidays. Those delicious pumpkin and pecan pies offered up or worse yet, made by one's own hand, quickly render your favorite jeans unwearable. Or at the very least unable to don without jumping up and down for some extra propulsion, or flipping practically upside down on your bed for gravity assistance, as you try to convince yourself they must have shrunk in the dryer. Come January 1, there's the obligatory resolution: To lose the Festive Five.  An annual tradition, along with putting out cookies and milk for Santa. You see where that got him. Sound familiar?

But January and February, cold months here in the South, are not conducive to outdoor exercise for weight loss. So here we are in March, coming out of winter hibernation, still packing the winter insulation, and feeling disappointed in oneself. Still wearing those five pounds. Even after you cut out the pies and Christmas cookies! No longer devouring the mountain of sour cream enhanced whipped potatoes or cornbread stuffing. No tiers of petits fours or imbibing in the spiked (or just spiced), eggnog. The only thing remaining is the last cookie no one wants to eat. Oh, and the muffin top you encounter around the top of your Levi's waistband. They are both stale and old, and no one wants either.

What to do? Now that it's (barely still) March, trade “dig in” at the dinner table with dig in some dirt and create a healthy backyard veggie garden. Sure, treadmills have their place. But does that activity produce healthy peas and beans for you and your family? Exercise and healthy produce packaged into one fabulous endeavor. That’s a recipe for success. Brush the cobwebs off of your shovel. Ignore the chocolate Easter bunnies. And if several years of Festive Five have accumulated, and you are now at Festive Forty or Fifty, no worries. Take it one broccoli plant at a time. You will be able to once again not only fit into those jeans, but fasten them without the use of a rubber band, AND be able to bend down without fear. Go ahead and get your denim dirty planting some loose leaf lettuce seeds! It will all come out in the wash.

Join me and let's get growing.

What brought me here-A preface of sorts

I always loved to write. When I would receive my creative writing papers back in school with those beautifully penned comments, “Great Work” or “Fantastic,” sometimes even underlined for emphasis, I would be thrilled. Yet no teacher fostered my love of writing beyond those blurbs written on my hammered out efforts to express myself on my mother’s old manual typewriter. Don't let me overstate. I also received my share of little red marks speckled about like chicken pox noting grammatical errors. So please excuse any you may find here.

For some reason (practicality in my blood perhaps), I never thought about writing as a career choice. I suppose I didn't want to become a cliché. A starving (literary) artist working at the local diner. So life proceeded, and I never doled out a slice of my pie-of-life for writing.

About a decade later, I saw a writer's workshop listed in the newspaper. They were to meet once a week for several weeks. It struck a chord in me. Reawakened the longing to express myself on paper. Just a few blocks from my home, they would be meeting at one of my favorite places- the library. Any surface excuse not to go would really have the underlying cause: Too chicken. So with fears in check, I thought it would be great to push myself forward, and signed on immediately with my husband's encouragement.

Ah, how brave I was when it was a month away. For when the day came, I went with nervous hesitation as I am, what I would envision many writers to be, quite the introvert. Will I have to stand in the middle of the class, baring my inner self and do a reading of my work? Will I still get glowing comments on my papers? Or instead, receive as little Ralphie in A Christmas Story did- my version of, “You'll shoot your eye out” type feedback? Life is a crapshoot. I rolled the dice.

There were about a dozen of us. Fellow pen and ink wannabe's together in a tiny room, sitting around two long tables pushed together. They were, I observed, mostly dressed in stereotypical artsy garb of the time with fanciful scarves, chunky necklaces, head wraps and leggings. Outwardly, it appeared the desire to write may be all I had in common with the group. Still, I hoped to connect with our mutual interest.

We were given five minutes to write out our answer to, “Who am I?” as an icebreaker. I proudly began writing I am a wife and mother...blah blah, practice Occupational Therapy, (we are so defined by our career choice, aren't we?), blah blah, love dogs and gardening, and more blah. I might as well have been writing my eulogy.

As they began around the room reading what they wrote, panic set in. They were saying they were essentially, “...orbs bouncing around the universe...” types. Oh no! How can I change mine before they call my name and stare at me and tell me to loosen my restraint and open up to said universe? I was nothing like them. I didn't realize that's what they meant. Is this the second part and I missed the first workshop? Quite a few did seem to know each other… While my mind was scrambling to think about who I am in a metaphorical sense, I heard my name through the static in my head.

I prefaced my reading with an apology, sheepishly stating I misunderstood what they wanted. The instructor was quick to interrupt and reassure me. Oh, there was nothing they wanted, except to hear my voice. They all nodded in unison. It seemed they were all together and in the know. I was the lone wolf here. Or was I the lone lamb among what I perceived to be the wolves?

After reading, I looked up to see blank stares and worse yet, tilted heads with patronizing grins. The clanging of multiple bangles on a woman's wrist as she moved her arm was all I remember hearing, harkening it to the sound of an animal ready to attack! Was that a growl? I do believe I saw, “Oh, poor darling, she has a long way to go,” written in bubbles over their heads. They could just as easily been an actual pack of wolves, tearing at my self confidence.  I wondered if I left running and screaming, would I get my forty bucks refunded?

Since that writing workshop, another couple of decades have gone by. Can I be that old? I realize I don’t have the great American novel in me. But I still have a desire to write, so it's about time I start before my vision goes, or arthritic fingers inhibit my progress at the laptop. I am too factual for fiction. There will be no gelatinous orbs milling about in my universe. Alas, no Margaret Mitchell will be found here either.

I will be writing about what I know and love: My passion of all things horticultural. I carved out a huge hunk of the life pie to gardening over the decades since that workshop. I hope my writings will find their way through the overdone complex series of tubes to people who have this love in common with me. Hopefully we can learn from each other. If you have to use a nail brush to scrub the dirt out from under your nails, you are speaking my language. I’d love to hear from you.