Seeds from my mother's garden, for you

The last thing I did, on leaving my parents' property, was fill little paper cups with seeds: opium poppy, nigella, calendula, and dill - four of the flowers that self-seeded wildly and, during a certain part of each summer, made my mother's garden the enchantment that it was. The poppies are the stars - hundreds of them, in every incarnation: single, double, frilled and fringed... grape-colored, wine-colored, vermillion, lilac... and cupcake! There are some that look just like pink cupcakes.

I put together packets of the seeds for friends, and have a few left over to offer here. If you would like one, please leave a comment or email me (zoe[at]fastdoggardening.com). I would be so delighted to know Mom's seeds are sprouting hither and thither across the country next spring.

After the acreage next door to my parents' land was bulldozed to make way for the natural gas industry - horse pastures, swamp, and woods, ripped up, flipped over, and ground in - my mom carried that year's poppy seedheads across the new moonscape and strew them along the edge. I didn't know she'd done it until the next July, when there they were, visible from the road - a stubborn streak of soft, strong, beautiful poppies across a wasteland of ugly, ruined earth. I think it was her way of protesting, saying Not Here, Not This.

I'm sure I'm not the only one who noticed. Our community is small, and people know and respect my mom. They know her garden, and her politics. They know, like I do, that if there was ever anyone capable of saying Fuck You with flowers, it's her. She did it with artistry, and showed what she stood for - not just what she was against - at the same time.

And so... These seeds I want to give you - they are special, because they are the seeds of dissent. Gardening feeds our spirits and our bellies, both, and it is, at this point in history, an act of rebellion. Tending garden gives a person passion, satisfaction, peace, and awe - experiences the consumer culture can't offer... It is a wholly constructive endeavor, and yet it rejects so much bullshit at the same time.

The photo at the top of the page was taken by my dad, Michael Poster, in Mom's garden.

Growing luffa sponges

This is Luffa ægyptiaca, giver of sponges for scrubbing with. After a long summer of tracking garden dirt inside, not cleaning under my fingernails, and allowing the overfull laundry basket to sprout horns and hooves and crouch in a corner of the bathroom like an ogre... it's time to clean house.

Cleaning house is boring, unless you have your very own luffa sponge that you grew all by yourself, and then it's kind of fun, at least for a little while.

Luffas need a long season to produce, which we don't have in northeastern Pennsylvania, but I did get one sponge off my vine, and that's all I need. Like I said - I'm kind of a crappy housekeeper.

I start my luffa seeds (available from Fedco) indoors under grow lights, and set plants out after danger of frost, when the soil has warmed. They need as much jump on the season as you can give them. Luffas like to scramble, so the clothesline is a good place for them, especially if you don't intend to do laundry. They send out tendrils every which way, and hightail it wherever they are headed.

Our vine produced one early fruit, which I left to mature and dry, and then cut after frost. If the fruit is totally brown and dry when you cut it, you just peel the skin right off - all that's left inside is the dry sponge and the black seeds.

We had one short, late dry spell this year. In a season as wet as this one was overall, a dry spell is really stressful on annuals that don't have their roots down deep and are accustomed to guzzling as much water as they please. The luffa vine panicked and set fruit - lots - all of a sudden. But the season wasn't long enough to mature this young fruit. Hence the single sponge.

I think I will cut it in half or thirds, depending on how many things I decide to scrub... two, or three?

October harvest

My prowess as a winter gardener is shamed this year. I planted our cold weather crops too late and had poor germination, then a little crusade of slugs marched forth and decapitated all the lettuce and most of the kale. So my cold frame is only half full of two-inch tall kale and arugula... Not the lush 3 x 5 salad pasture I had hoped for. Luckily the self-seeders know when to germinate all on their own, and scattered about the garden are deep green patches of arugula, sorrel, and our own very own leafy, wild, mixed-breed brassicas. I won't be able to protect them from the snow and freeze, but at least for the fall, we have salad.

The nasturtiums in the bowl are 'Peach Melba'.

Fennel

The other Sunday Matt and I ate at our friends' restaurant, AV, for late afternoon brunch-y bistro-y supper. On our vegetable plate was a little heap of divine roasted fennel, which reminded me that I planted fennel this year, and where do you suppose it is now?

I hadn't thinned it enough to make nice robust bulbs, but when I yanked it up, it was still tender and sweet, so I chopped the bottoms, tossed them with olive oil and salt, and roasted them. All that was left the next morning was the mermaid hair, wilting on the kitchen table.

Callicarpa dichotoma 'Early Amethyst'

When I stand on the back porch having my coffee and admiring my Callicarpa dichotoma 'Early Amethyst' each morning, all I can think of is the line in the X-Ray Spex song that goes

freddy tried to strangle me
with my plastic popper beads
but I hit him back
with my pet rat

Becoming handy

When we bought our little house on Fig Street six years ago, we had a lot of work ahead of us. We had no idea what we were doing, but lucky enough the easy part comes first: you start ripping shit out.

Over the years we've made frequent trips to the lumberyard, hardware store, electric and plumbing supplies. The men who work (or are shopping) in these places are important sources of information. Here in the valley, you ask them a question, and you get a question in return.

Well that depends... Are ya's handy?

We've always nodded our heads, because we want to know the right method, not the duct-tape'll-do-it method.

And so, this past month while I was loading shingles into the dumpster post-DIY-roofing-job, I thought to myself: Well I'll be damned, I think we've earned it. We can nod our heads yes now, and really mean it - we're handy. We might not know the tradesman-approved way to do a thing, but after gutting this house and putting it back together better than it was before, what we've learned is how to solve a puzzle with our brains, our backs, the brains and backs of our family and friends, a small budget, and a whole lot of crappy old used building materials.

I think this stands us in in good stead for our next construction project, which we hope will be building a house from scratch.

Backyard party

We returned this week from a little vacation to Matt's hometown, Duluth, Minnesota. His dad and step mom threw a party for us and all the family and friends who couldn't make it to our Pennsylvania wedding in June.

I didn't get any pictures of the fantastic northwoods fare that Kathie, Dave and their friends prepared and spread out on the buffet table, but I can tell you some of the highlights: fishcakes made with fresh Lake Superior whitefish, wild rice with venison, mashed rutabagas and carrots, smoked salmon and whitefish, lefse (crepe-like potato pancakes), Swedish meatballs...

I did get a few pictures of the backyard, where tables were set out amongst Dave's diminutive, elevated forest of bonsai. A flower arranger friend crafted the sweetest little autumnal mason-jar bouquets to decorate around.