OOPS! What happened?
Barefoot and picking beans in the summer garden
To be honest I was worried about this when I started this project. I didn’t want to hit writer’s block, but I found myself essentially flattened against a stone wall, unable to peel myself off to even try to put together a sentence worth typing out.
The Good Work didn’t stop. No, that kept going. The spring activities and tasks, the wild harvests, the garden prep. The garden is better than it has ever been this year thanks to some unusually warm weather and an unusually prepared gardener. Our tea jars are full of various weeds to sip on this winter and we’ve been making all the sourdough everything. We’ve taken a few trips over these months and still managed to keep things in order. The root cellar is slowly filling up and we have a bouquet of beautiful flowers in each room in our house. I’ve even started the habit of sleeping with a posy of sweat peas and honeysuckle next to my bed (divine). All that to say…I’ve been doing the Good Work. I’ve lived up to that part of my promise.
But I haven’t been able to tell you about it and I’m not sure why. Without divulging too much of my soul or my problems (because they’re really not important in the grand scheme of the world and I judge myself very harshly for succumbing to them), I’ll tell you that I haven’t been in the best place mentally. I miss my home — even though I couldn’t tell you where or what that is actually. I miss feeling at home. I miss my friends, my language and the way people express themselves in it. I miss my driver’s license (epic saga that has not yet resolved and keeps me totally and utterly dependent on everyone around me and I hate it more than I can put into words). I miss my optimism for life and the world, but I’m at the age now where I have to sort of face reality and dreaming has become a lot harder. If I had to guess, I think the melancholy and longing just got to be a bit too much and every time I tried to sit down to write, I felt that my words exuded exactly that: melancholy and longing. With all the angst and darkness sneaking around and finding openings into all of our lives, I just didn’t feel like adding to it.
Either that or I just got lazy and undisciplined.
On the contrary, in the garden I stayed energetic and disciplined. I think this is the first year I’ve ever had a full selection of homegrown seedlings for the fall/winter garden. We are going to be swimming in kale and cabbage if all goes well. I actually stayed true to my plan for the garden, with a few creative additions, but this year’s vision has materialized quite well.
Here’s a quick update.
Things that have done really well:
Chard. I’ve never grown chard like this in my life. The leaves are massive, the stalks crunchy but tender. The sound that the chard makes when you brush up against a leaf is so satisfying. I have a new favorite way to enjoy it that I’ll share soon, hopefully.
Lettuce. We got so tired of lettuce by the end of June and were very happy to see the remaining heads bolting. Favorites this year were little gem and red little gem. We harvested full heads of all kinds of lettuce, and still couldn’t get through it all.
Raspberries. The freezer is full and I’m already looking forward to my traditional berry crisp to mark and celebrate the first snowfall.
Onions. The multisown method from Charles continues to work really well for me.
Artichokes. This always surprises me at almost 900 meters altitude, but we’ve been enjoying steamed artichokes with olive oil and vinegar for weeks.
Things that haven’t done so well:
Garlic. I planted garlic last fall with a hope and a prayer that the allium fly/maggot/whatever it is that took out 70% of last year’s crop would just disappear, but it struck again and we lost the majority of our garlic. For some reason, it has left the onions alone this year, but I’ll be buying garlic from the store once I use the few bunches I have hanging.
Eggplant. I can’t get eggplant right. I blame the altitude, but then I wonder why my peppers do so well. Any tips anyone?
Strawberries. Can’t blame anything other than my laziness. I need to weed the strawberry patch more, lay down hay, and take better care of everything if I want some real harvests there.
Wild harvests:
Elderflower. 10 Liters of syrup for the year. We make lemonade with it.
All the weeds for tea. Nettles, clover, dandelion, primrose, etc.
Wild blueberries. My MIL is the real pro at this and gets the credit for filling our freezers but I did manage to contribute 1.5 kilos in 2 hours! I could barely walk the next day, however.
Favorite surprises so far:
Sweet peas. I’ve never grown them before and there’s no turning back now. They make the loveliest posies and I am now obsessed.
Saskatoon berries. (!!!!) We’ve had an unproductive tree for years and this year it finally threw out the most delicious little berries (full of amazing antioxidants, btw).
That’s it for now. I very much hope you’ll hear from me soon. I’m still trying to decide if I should tell you all the stories from the last 5 months now, or just move forward. Any preferences?
