Ah, Rottery

I love to look at my garden in the winter, not because it is beautiful (a garden can be at its best in winter; mine is not) but because it is so bare and so ruined and will be once more so soft and so sweet.” ---Henry Mitchell, One Man's Garden



My garden is in rich, rotten ruins.


I have been reading A Trail Through Leaves: The Journal As A Path To Place by Hanna Hinchman. In it I am discovering some amazing words; “rottery” is one of them. “There’s no such word,” I’m told by my husband. “Of couse there is,” I say. I Google it. The British tabloids seem to favor the word to describe the deeds of a scoundrel, a dastardly act. But rottery in the garden...we're thinking of something else entirely. A type of decrepitude, yes, but more benign; decay with a purpose, part of a larger plan. This morning I went to examine the rottery in my garden, and found it in abundance.
Rosa "Perfect Moment" is still blooming earnestly.
But beneath its branches I find rottery. All roses must rest or they'll bloom themselves to death, I've heard. Leaves, dark, spotty, slimey have fallen to cover the bird bath. One rose blossom lies in repose on its soaked bed. One of the bird bath's concrete birds lies undone, fallen, forgotten, foul.

Deeper into the garden, I tromp a path covered in fallen tree leaves, sodden and wet from recent rain. Steam rises from the dense blanket as the morning warms.

It is unseemly to be still picking tomatoes in January. They ripen unsuccessfully indoors; most of them crack and mold and turn to mush on the kitchen counters. A few we'll eat; we'll make fried green tomatoes. The rest will go to the green waste can, where they will moulder in peace.

*************************
Okay, it is later in the day. My frugal nature rose up, and wouldn't let me throw away all of those perfectly good green tomatoes, so I made a version of Easy Green Tomato Chutney. I chopped up about 5 pounds or more of the tomatoes, added 2 cups of golden raisins, 1 very large chopped onion, 3 cups of light brown sugar, firmly packed, 1 ½ cups vinegar, a lavish amount of Cajun Creole seasoning (the real recipe calls for 2 tablespoons mixed pickling spices, but I didn’t have any, and my mix had many of the same ingredients), 2 teaspoons chili powder, 2 tablespoons chopped crystallized ginger, and 2 cups of chopped apples (I had some dried ones in the pantry). I brought it all to boil and simmered it for a long while. We had it for dinner with salmon fillets and brussel sprouts – yum – and I put a few containers in the freezer to keep…

Dink

Katie, my sweet stepdaughter, has had many nicknames growing up. Dink. Noodle. Katie B. On Saturday, she’ll be Katie B. no more, taking a new last name as she marries Erik. Of course, her father Cliff and I are looking back as we look forward. A frame with pictures of Katie in our various gardens needs adjustment and dusting before our guests arrive, and I sigh with nostalgia. I guess no parent approaches the wedding day of a child without asking, “How did she grow up so fast?”

Below is Katie in full dinkness at age 2 1/2, with Farewell-to-Spring (Clarkia).

Hello-to-Joy. Always.

Bonk

Sife has climbed to the top of the aged tree and apples hail down on us, bonk, bonk. My nephew Jack and niece Allegra are here this weekend, and we have plans for apple pie, apple cobbler, applesauce. We begin filling a red plastic tub with fruit. The higher the level of apples becomes, the more grandiose becomes 11-year-old Jack’s plans for the bounty. “We can take them to the city and sell the pies. We can sell the applesauce.” His mind is full of simple equations, simple conversions. Apples equal money; money becomes Pokemon cards.

The apple tree, ignored, abandoned, was

spared this year when the tree guy came to do some cutting and clearing. Cliff and I were undecided about what to do with it. Tree Guy said, “It’s kind of poetic.” Who can cut down a poem? The apple tree rewarded us amply. So I, in turn, must give it haiku:

Old man apple tree
Drops fruit with young abandon.
Gather warily.

Just Peachy

I'm always melancholy when I return from a visit with my ailing mother, so I go to the garden for solace and cheer. My favorite garden colors - peach, apricot, soft oranges - are still present in the roses. Royal Sunset dependably climbs its rustic support, redwood branches wired together, surrounding a bird feeder I made of California license plates (unfortunately, we never remember to fill that feeder). Just Joey is taking a rest, but Polka is still blooming, clambering enegetically through the tea tree.

I am spending way too much money on the garden, but I think today perhaps some retail therapy is needed. I won't buy jewelry or clothing - I'll buy bulbs (actually, corms) of Watsonia 'Early Dawn' from Willow Creek Gardens
http://www.willowcreekgardens.com/

Tomorrow I'll feel guilty about my
extravagant spending, perhaps, but today
I need a treat.

Traveling Tomatoes

Friday morning I harvested some of our heirloom tomatoes. Husband Cliff and I put them in a box and drove from Santa Cruz south to North Hills, California, to give them to my elderly mother while we visit her. My dear departed father absolutely loved a good tomato -- toward the end of his life he dreamed of them. He also loved the poet Keats, so on his 85th birthday I parodied one of his poems and called it Ode to Dad's Tomato Dream:


He dreams of
A thick, red, ripe tomato slice on

A bagel thickly smeared with cream cheese

A sprinkle of kosher salt.

Aaahhhh....

With whom can he share the wonder of his slumber's fruit

Whence in the very temple of Delight

His strenuous tongue

Burst Joy's tomato against his palate fine?

(apologies to Keats)

The poem (with photo of my father) still hangs on my mother's refrigerator. The tomatoes we brought, in honor of my father, were part of this morning's breakfast. Cliff sliced an Orange Russian 117. Mmmm...yes, tomatoes are indeed a fruit, so sweet.

Like memories.

Milkweed Reverie

I have been watching Golden Milkweed this season. A new infatuation with gold-colored blooms led me to gasp with joy at the nursery when I came upon two of these milkweeds. I emptied my coinpurse and made them mine. I’ve never had much luck growing milkweeds, but these have kept me happy and rapt all summer and fall. Golden milkweed attracted gold aphids; how come nobody warned me about these? I hosed them, I sprayed them. Then I accepted then. I learned to recognize the tiny white eggs on skinny stalks beneath the milkweed leaves, amongst the aphids, as the eggs of the green lacewing. I learned to trust the lacewings. Eat 'em up, lacewings, you go, you grow, be fruitful and multiply. I now watch the aphids with detached interest. In the meantime, pods formed on the plant. Distracted, I barely noticed, until they dried and burst. The big reveal: gossamer peppered with rich brown seeds in enthusiastic rows, ready to fly in random formations far and wide. I grasped as much of the milkweed silk as I could in my hands, some of the fluff and slippery seeds whisping away. I felt rich. It is fine stuff, elegant and abundant. I can glut myself in its downy tenderness. The seeds promise more, more, more...

"The milkweed pods are breaking,

And the bits of silken down

Float off upon the autumn breeze

Across the meadows brown."

--Cecil Cavendish, The Milkweed

Still Life With Hose

Who knew that I needed a purple hose? There is a part of my garden I call the Purple Party, layered with Night Owl and Burgundy Iceberg roses, a wine-colored mugwort, passion flower, salvias. I'm wasn't that crazy about purple, but it has insinuated itself into my garden. And now that I have a purple hose, I can't figure out how I lived without it. I picked some Japanese eggplant and one red yard-long asparagus bean, and this still life could not be passed up.