Succulent sprout

The leaves removed from an overgrown, almost tree-like echevaria a couple weeks ago have started to sprout. I’ve done almost nothing to help them along, besides keeping the soul moist.

New Succulents without Names

Another $1 purchase from a couple of weeks ago. Jack isn’t sure what to make of it. I don’t know what it is.

Painted succulents

I’m back. And I have a new plan. Picture posts with a maximum of three sentences once a week. Recipes and plant care tips when I learn something exciting.

I’m making an exception to the rule of three sentences this time.

Spray painted leaves = no photosynthesis. Spray painted succulents = plant abuse.

Sad rescued aloe with much spray paint removed, acquired today for $1.

Mountain Farming

A couple months ago, when I could hardly stand to think about another 5 years of university, a job posting showed up on my Facebook newsfeed. And on a whim, I applied, thinking that this job might be a great way to find out if the farmer’s life is a life for me.

Next thing I knew I was on a train. I slept through the trek across the prairies, and woke up just in time to watch all the trees go by on our way through the mountains.

I got to stretch my legs in Jasper. Nice, after 15 hours on a train.

The train stopped in the middle of the bridge over lake something-something (I was sleepy, and it was hard to remember all the lakes we passed). The guy fishing on a board must have had incredible balance.

Now I’ve been in the mountains for a week, living in a renovated bus and pulling weeds.

In the evenings and early mornings I eat wild strawberries and try to get to know the wildflowers.

This morning I helped two spiders out of the bus – one before breakfast, one right after. At night I listen to the wind tear around the stove-pipe and rattle the doors.

Every morning I eat a big bowl of oats with nuts and seeds and fresh strawberries on top. And then I pull weeds, and top-dress plants, and pick strawberries, and pick rocks. I’m not sure yet, but the farmer’s life might be the life for me.

Blue-eyed Grass, and being on the right path

When I first moved into the house I am in now, I found blue-eyed grass, and I knew right then that I was exactly where I needed to be.

This spring and start of summer has been a whirlwind of change. I gave up the job that I loved (and still love) working in communal community gardens in an (almost) food-desert, to go work on a little organic vegetable farm in BC for the summer. I joined the Co-op program at my university, so I’m in and out of the job I’m at before I head out to BC, interviewing and interviewing and interviewing for positions in the fall. I’m neglecting the blog. Sorry, loyal readers.

Yesterday I found this in a neglected bed at the university, right after my first interview for a Co-op placement. Today, I met one of the potential replacements for the position that I am vacating. She’d met my mom at a workshop a few month before, and chatted with her about healing gardens. My mom had suggested I get in touch with her about perhaps building one where I work now, in the position she’s being considered for. She’s super passionate about gardens and youth. I’m sure the other potential candidate is just as great.

All this time I’d been wondering what possessed me to up and accept a position a thousand miles away, when I had a dream job here. Now I know. There’s great energy in the air, and it’s my time to fly. There are others to do the work, in their own way, with their own gifts.

I’ll get back to pictures of plants and recipes soon.

Life Unfurled

It’s funny how our lives are reflected in nature sometimes. I’ve been tired, cranky and withdrawn for a few months. As much as I kept hoping that the ferns would pop up, they didn’t come. The little bumps that I knew were fronds in the making refused to unfurl. Yesterday I finished all my coursework for the year, and switched from school me to garden planning me. And there they were.

There were a few other plants coming into bloom too, so you get pictures of those too. Except rhubarb. It doesn’t bloom. So you get pictures of crinkly leaves and grass that needs to be pulled.

I’m ready for a more open season in life.

Tulips

I’m tempted to apply an Instagram filter, and caption the photo with something like #red #blackcenters #tulip #spring #grow #pretty #sobright #etc…

Anyways, tulips for your viewing pleasure. And for my digital garden notes: “today the tulips bloomed, and I thought about turning the compost.”

Happy Wednesday all.

Grow Write Guild Post #4: Happy Mother’s Day to My Mentors

Dear Grannie,

You always had something from the garden on the table when we came out to the farm for the weekend, and you always had some work for us in the gardens. It was you who paid me a measly $3 dollars/hour to pull weeds and harvest seeds in your native species plots (I was six, that was a fortune, and quite frankly, I’m sure I didn’t deserve a penny more, given the pace I worked at).

It now comes naturally to name and adore a wildflower or a species of grass discovered along a gravel road or in the prairie plantings at the museum and the university. Now I find myself enraptured in work when it involves growing things, and madly plotting a business that just might help to change the world, one garden at a time.

Of course, I can’t ignore the influence of my mom – but it was you who raised her to take so much joy in plants and nature.  It was you who raised her to pass that on to me. After a few years of city life she moved us out to a little town, because she believed that every child should grow up on a farm. She dragged me out to the garden to pull weeds for free all summer long.  She set me up with a view of the horizon, a scrub brush, a mountain of carrots, a few cardboard boxes, and a couple bales of peat on a late summer day and then drove off, confident that I could pack all the carrots for the winter.

She wandered the prairie with me, pointing out wildflowers and sedges.

She fed us pigweed, stinging nettles, and lamb’s quarters.

“It’s yummy, kids. Try some.”

*black stares*

“Hide it in a sandwich, like this.”

She took me out to watch the creek flood in the spring, and we hopped from crossing to crossing, driving through the water where it was spilling over the road. At one crossing we watched a couple quads drive through – well, one made it, and the other stalled when his air-intake filled with water, halfway across. At the last crossing we came to the water looked a little high, but we decided to give it a go. In we went in her little truck. The water kept rising, but stopping to put the truck in reverse wasn’t really an option. We would surely be swept off the slick concrete if we stopped. We watched in horror as the water started to roll up over the hood. For a few seconds, the truck seemed to slip downstream a little, and we wondered if we were about to go swimming.  Just in time, the tires gripped, the hood emerged from the creek again, and we drove out laughing and hoping we hadn’t hurt the truck.  We did.  It never ran quite right after that trip.

It still is my mother who receives my texts and phone calls when I can’t remember the name of a plant.

It was a grounding in growing plants that prepared me for a video, and then a workshop, and then a community garden job where my faith in humanity was restored; where I learned that you can change the world in a garden.  Because of you, I’m going to grow a garden.  Because of you, I’m going to do everything in my power to make edible landscapes a part of our cities, a staple in our backyards, and a part of a movement to change the world.

I found blue-eyed grass in my backyard (Sisyrinchium montanum) two years ago.  I never would have recognized it without the raising you both gave me. Such a tiny, discrete flower could not have brought me such peace. At that moment, I knew I was exactly where I needed to be: in a weedy back-yard desperately in need of some love.

Your garden-loving granddaughter,

Ruth

Saturday Inspiration: Cargo bikes, Atwood & Gibson, and urban fruit foraging

Things that made me happy this week:

From the internets:

• This beautiful short video (and detailed instructions) on the making of sauerkraut. I’m going to start on this as soon as I can find a few jars, and 5 pounds of cabbage:  http://kitchenvignettes.blogspot.ca/2012/09/ruby-sauerkraut.html
• Margaret Atwood and Graeme Gibson are coming to tour the PFRA pastures, and they’ll be speaking at a fundraising dinner that you could go to! (If you live anywhere near Regina, and you’re free in the evening on June 27th): http://pfrapastureposts.wordpress.com/2013/04/24/atwood-and-gibson-visit/
• Cargo bikes! This one’s my favourite: http://www.wicycle.com/box%20bike.php
• “The Story of Change”, from the makers of “The Story of Stuff”: http://www.storyofstuff.org/movies-all/story-of-change/
• Eating well when you’re living the slow life: http://milkwood.net/2013/05/09/the-central-role-of-the-pikelet-in-slow-living/
• And last, a local (organized) urban fruit foraging organization with a great success story.  They picked my tree last year! http://fruit-for-thought-regina.blogspot.ca/p/about.html

From the garden:

First Food from the Garden

Well, first garnish.

Thinned basil seedlings over my standard salad – greens, apple, cheese, and honey mustard dressing. The flavours went together surprisingly well. Or maybe I was just so excited to be eating something that I grew that I pretended the flavours went together well.

First Garden Salad

Ingredients:

• 2 handfuls of greens
• 1/2 an apple, chopped (with a few chunks missing)
• 2 slices of cheese, chopped
• 3 spoonfuls of lime juice for apple-chunk-dunking, and too-thick-dressing-thinning
• 1 spoonful of this dressing (I made mine with mustard powder, which is why it needed thinning, and the resulting dressing was very citrusy)
• Basil sprout snippings

Directions:

1. Layer in a pretty bowl.
2. Wander outside and take pictures of first garden salad, because it’s finally warm enough to go outside without socks!
3. Eat salad.