(Very) amateur gardening and foraging

I have many friends who are amazing – and often professional – gardeners and foragers. I am not one of them. But at the end of a long (and fairly frustrating) week of desk work, it felt lovely on this hot, Friday evening to take a walk around my property. 

Before I get back to work for a couple more hours, I would like to share my photos with you.

Embryonic zukes. I'm hoping for a deluge
(this is the first year a zucchini plant has lived to maturity in my garden).

My first few raspberries!

Kale and other greens.

My main garden area is a chaotic, haphazard mess with treacherous
footing. It hardly feels like it interrupts the woods at all and I love it!

Flowers planted – or soon to be planted – in my scattered
hugelkultur beds and my "septic meadow".

The black walnut tree (a gift from my folks) that I planted the first year I owned this land.
It's doing well, but I think I'm going to move it next spring as it is fairly close to my
well and I don't want any juglone in my water supply...

Old dump (one of several).

Sweet little oaklings are shooting up in the sunshine
available since so many big trees uprooted this winter. 

I marked the spot where I found some chanterelles with a flag of green tape.

Indian Pipes – a chanterelle companion/marker.

One small chanterelle, with requisite slug.

Weird little standing stone beauty spot.

I wonder if there are chanterelles hidden under those downed trees?

Salinger leads the way onward.

I only have three acres, but I am endlessly amazed by the variety
of the terrain. The brook that forms the boundary line at the
back of The Crooked Wood is surrounded by a grassy wetland.
The footing here is treacherous and always puts me in mind
of the Marshes of Morva in Lloyd Alexander's Prydain. Someday,
when I have time, I plan to build some corduroy paths through
this area so I can explore it without losing my boots.

The most open skies in The Crooked Wood.
With signature crookedness, of course.

Crooked fallen tree beauty spot.

Crackerjacks, I think these are called. The berries taste like wintergreen;
I don't like wintergreen. At all. They are very cheerful-looking though. 

In my earlier post about gardening this year, I pondered whether I would have the budget to invest in some nut trees, and shortly after I wrote that post, some friends announced that they had some leftovers from a big order they had placed that they were selling at excellent prices.

I bought six – two hazelnuts, two heartnuts, one Persian Walnut and one Ultra-Northern Pecan. I thought I lost three of them in the late frost that hit in June – all of the leaves on the Walnut and one of the heartnuts turned black and shrivelled up and the pecan tree was just a stick.

Amazingly, they bounced back and all six are currently alive and well.

The Persian Walnut, thriving. 

The Ultra-Northern Pecan. Just a stick for the longest time,
the leaves on this tree still seem small and tentative, almost
as if they are saying "Is it okay to come out yet?" It's 36 degrees
with the humidex, baby, and it's not going to get any warmer
(At least, I hope not).

When I was digging the holes to plant the nut trees – all six of them in one day after a winter of desk work, which was a bit of trial by fire – I described the process as "piling in with a pickaxe to uncover rocks – and air". Quite literally, the was very often NO SOIL in the places where I hoped to put my trees. So, I cleared out the rocks and had to bring buckets of soil and compost to make the holes habitable.

Here is a picture of one of the many trees that uprooted on my land this winter,
illustrating that trees living with their roots in rocks and air are
very likely to tip over if the wind blows hard enough. 

Looking up the hill at the cabin. 

Approaching the back door. In time, this chaotic
tangle of dead wood will be transformed into a garden.
In time. Probably lots and lots of time.

Thanks for coming along with me on this little tour. If you garden or forage, I wish you a bountiful summer! 

Scent memory – hot conifers

It's been really warm on the south shore of Nova Scotia for the past week or so. Mid-to-high twenties with humidex warnings – something we are not used to at all.

I drove home late this evening after playing some songs at a show in Mahone Bay. I got out at the top of my driveway to pick up the stupid flyers that someone throws there every Wednesday and I was hit with the smell of The Crooked Wood at the end of a hot day. Hot pine and spruce trees, hot fir and hemlock.

That smell never fails to take me to a very specific place and time: 1981, the Sierra Nevada mountains, California.

I was ten years old and my dad was driving me and my sister from Toronto to San Diego and back again. Why? Partly because my dad loves car trips and partly to see some cousins and my dad's grandmother (aka, my great-grandmother, "California Nana" as we called her).

We met up with one of my dad's first cousins with his wife and kids in King's Canyon National Park and spent a few days camping there. Talk about hot conifers! Ninety-some-odd degrees Fahrenheit and sunny during the days in the midst of a forest of giant sequoia and redwood trees. I don't think I'd ever smelled that smell before. Growing up in Toronto, there simply weren't enough trees and while summer trips to Harbourville, Nova Scotia had provided lots of exposure to evergreen trees, they weren't ever hot – they seemed almost perpetually fogged in, their scent easily drowned out by the smell of the salt, sea air.

I think it's safe to say that I fell in love with the smell of hot evergreen trees during those few days in King's Canyon National Park. I never smell them now without feeling something about how it felt to be 10 years old. I was on the cusp of so much change, but I wasn't changed yet. I felt I was exactly who I was, and who I had so far felt myself to be in life. That smell is locked deep in my psyche, somewhere innocent and fun-loving, a place that houses a deep sense of peace and love and selfhood.

I hope everyone has a smell like that – whether it's grandma's cookies or the smell of baseball gloves or rain on dry pavement – something that takes them back to a time that felt essential and clear, that grants a window, or better still, a door back to that state of being, to a state of grace.

  

Slug Challenge Kick-off 2018

The first seeds have been planted. This means that my yearly challenge has been issued to the slugs who are the de facto overlords of The Crooked Wood.

I think this is year two (?) for my flat-topped hugelkultur bed. 

I bought a bigger bottle of Abundance liquid fertilizer at Seedy Saturday this year, but last year's empty is still in my garden. I think this photo demonstrates how picturesque it can be to be messy and a total chaos muppet.

I hear slugs hate sand, so I gave this bed of bok choy and other greens a good sprinkling...

Salinger enjoys gardening. And, of course, he is quite good about staying off the planting beds –
at least when anyone is watching. Now, if only I could help him acquire a taste for hunting slugs – but ugh.

Some of the open-sourced seeds I got from the lovely folks at Seedy Saturday this year
(held in Dayspring at the Municipal Activity and Recreation Complex, aka the MARC, back in February).

The garlic I planted in the fall is several inches above the ground, so that's encouraging. I am planning to build many more hugelkultur beds in the next couple of weeks – some for veggies, some for flowers and herbs, some located along my driveway and others on the land that was cleared around the new cabin. 

I am also harbouring some nut tree fantasies. I haven't decided yet if those are in my budget for this year, but I expect you know the saying: "The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now."

Construction: Weeks 13-17

If I thought weeks 9-12 were challenging, they had nothing on weeks 13-17. 

I can't even.

Here are some photos:

My clumsily but adequately installed slab insulation skirt (adequate was the engineer's word for it) 

With added Geotextile

Obstacle course. Crude but (hopefully) effective solutions.

December 17, 2017

The gravel pile.

Keep your powder (I mean, gravel) dry.

My beautiful furnace. I can't even say how magically, deliciously warm my house is.

Covering the skirt with gravel

Mudding and taping

Hieroglyphics (I loved all the bits of random math and cryptic messages I found on the walls of my home)

Making progress.

Coming along

Storm warning morning: January 4, 2018

This is the top of a tree that fell from a height of about 40 or 50 feet, fortunately onto the bare piece of ground next to my well – where it will aid the reforestation the process. The power lines are just about 20 feet to the left. 

The thaw after the storm let me move a lot more gravel

Sunny skies after the storm

Up on staging, priming the walls

Painting in the bathroom

Fresh and clean

Dusty and paint-spattered – and satisfied and tired – at the end of a long day.

Another thaw and this is all that's left of the gravel pile – I shoveled in my T-shirt sleeves in +15 Celsius weather on January 12, 2018. 

It was too soggy to manoeuvre around the house, so I spread the gravel on the driveway, where it was just as badly needed. 

This colour was called "Unforgettable" by the paint company. Which is, let's face it, a pretty forgettable name. My friend who was helping me paint that day (Thank you!) won the renaming contest with "I'm Lichen It" (my suggestion of "Chartresque" received an honourable mention).

I had my first ever exciting interior decorating idea for the bathroom. Here is the first stage – one and a third walls painted grey...

I don't think there is any way I can put together a literal narrative of this segment of the project, so here are some (mostly short) poems which attempt to capture something of these past five ineffable weeks:

Power outages

No back-up heat

Only questions

What–?

When–?

How soon–?

How long–?

If–?

Will it–?

Storm-stayed

Forest-caught wind

Throat-caught heart

House

rock solid

in the howling

night

Wreckage

I heard the SNAP

at two in the morning

Dawn cracks on

torn and twisted

sisters 

One top dropped

from fifty feet or more

Onto the bare ground

next to my new well

The first step 

in the reforestation project

Altercation

Frustration met with anger

Anger met with fear

Straight back to the old times

the bad times

the worst times

Always with me

Even 

After 

All 

These 

Years

Shoveling

The bite of the

blade

into the big pile

of Class A

The shuddering of

each landing

against the bottom of 

the wheelbarrow

My newfound

favourite meditation

Crunch

Clang

Roll

Dump

Spread 

Sweat

Repeat

Painting

Unforgettable

London Road

Milk Mustache

Pink A Boo

Lemon Ripple

Pink A Boo

Was a mistake

I swear

I handed in the wrong card

At the paint counter

Waiting

With luck

It will be done

next week

or

at least

before Christmas

No luck

Perhaps January first

Definitely January third

Or not

Tired

You'd think

it would get easier

After learning

so much

Figuring out

so much 

The confidence

of accomplishment

Look!

It's done!

A building

Warm against the cold

Solid against the wind

But it is not done yet

More interlocking tasks

Remain

More deadlines 

Remain 

to be hit or missed

tasks to be scheduled 

and/or re-scheduled

hit and miss

And I am tired.

Physically tired:

From painting

lugging

shoveling

sanding

vacuuming

disassembling

storm-watching

losing sleep

from surprises

and adjustments

Mentally tired: 

from learning

from failing 

and succeeding

from surprises

and adjustments

Emotionally tired:

from feeling

worrying

spinning

running on empty

trying to ask for help

managing disappointments

and surprises

and adjustments

I have sometimes thought that 

surprises

are the most delightful thing

about having a human brain

And I still think that

sometimes

But I have learned that

surprises are more fun for me

when I am playing tennis

than they are when I am 

trying to build a place to live

In real-life terms

surprises can be

exhausting

And so

instead of feeling

like this is getting easier

I'm battling fatigue

and an overwhelming desire 

for this to be over

done

complete

I promise myself that

I will 

NOT DO 

ANYTHING ELSE

to this place for several years

at least

except for gardening

And maybe 

just a little

recreational

gravel-shoveling