Zinnias pictured in the Home page

I visited this farmer in rural Pawling and he had grown (on a complete whim) a small field of Zinnias.  No intention of selling them but rather enjoying them all summer long and they were stunning.

John

I am re-reading The Wild Braid - a poet reflects on a century in the garden.

Stanley Kunitz (see poem below) had a long and fruitful career becoming poet laureate at 96.  In The Wild Braid e muses on the role gardening had in his life and how it shaped him personally and as an artist.

A really lovely book and well worth seeking.

John

The Snakes of September
Stanley Kunitz 1905-2006

All summer I heard them
rustling in the shrubbery,
outracing me from tier
to tier in my garden,
a whisper among the viburnums,
a signal flashed from the hedgerow,
a shadow pulsing
in the barberry thicket.
Now that the nights are chill
and the annuals spent,
I should have thought them gone,
in a torpor of blood
slipped to the nether world
before the sickle frost.
Not so. In the deceptive balm
of noon, as if defiant of the curse
that spoiled another garden,
these two appear on show
through a narrow slit
in the dense green brocade
of a north-country spruce,
dangling head-down, entwined
in a brazen love-knot.
I put out my hand and stroke
the fine, dry grit of their skins.
After all,
we are partners in this land,
co-signers of a covenant.
At my touch the wild
braid of creation
trembles.

Digging a Pizza Slice of earth

I put in a small winter Potager for my dear friend Martha Rose Shulman.  Its a pizza slice of earth between two sections of her building where she lives.  it is amazing how much you can grow in a small patch of earth if you amend the soil correctly and get a good depth and tilth going.

We planted fava beans "Broad Windsor" English peas "Little Marvel" and "Green Arrow", sweetpeas "Royal Family", various lettuces, mizuna, radish "French Blush", "Correnta" spinach, violas , cilantro, chard "Bright Lights", and Legion of Honour red poppies.

Gardening in  Southern CA is the best.

John

Gardening as a meditation.

I often think of my late mother Maura Austin Lyons (1923 - 1994) when I am knee high in weeds in a garden digging them out.  She would wander in from the garden and announce as she walked through the kitchen door "I was thinking in the garden..." and proceed to tell us something that she remembered, an idea she had, a solution to a problem or simply something she had neglected to say in an earlier conversation.  I now find myself doing the same thing and realize that we do our best thinking and creative problem solving while in a meditative state in our garden plots.

Lathyrus odoratus 'Cupani' from my garden Spring 2008

Eddies farm Pawling NY

I went to vist my friends Sally and Karl in Pawling last August.  One evening we went on a hayride to their friend Eddies farm.  Someday I might live in Pawling...you can see why.

Los Angeles Arboretum

I had one of those magical days that sort of happened by accident.  I went to the Arboretum to meet Tim Phillips, the acting CEO to chat about the Los Angeles Garden Show next year and met someone who I was introduced to online who is the artist in residence.  Leigh Adams is a breath of fresh air.  She took me to a few of her hide outs and special installations that are a delight.  The snake path that winds its way through the Australian Garden is lovely as is the garden itself.  The weather was divine and after lunch I stayed 2 more hours looking at the herb garden, rose garden and the horse stables which were amazing.

Visit the Arboretum.  Its a wonderful place and easy to get to.  Take the 210 past Pasadena and a right exit off Baldwin, and within a 1 /4 mile you are there.

http://www.arboretum.org/

John

In the garden. by Emily Dickinson

My favourite poet..... bar none.

In the garden. By Emily Dickinson

A bird came down the walk:
He did not know I saw;
He bit an angle-worm in halves
And ate the fellow, raw.

And then he drank a dew
From a convenient grass,
And then hopped sidewise to the wall
To let a beetle pass.

He glanced with rapid eyes
That hurried all abroad, --
They looked like frightened beads, I thought;
He stirred his velvet head

Like one in danger; cautious,
I offered him a crumb,
And he unrolled his feathers
And rowed him softer home

Than oars divide the ocean,
Too silver for a seam,
Or butterflies, off banks of noon,
Leap, plashless, as they swim.

Mulch

Ah... the word mulch is music to the gardeners ear..especially here in Southern CA where we are endlessly fighting the heat , santa ana winds and  a growing season that is 24/7/365 etc etc.  The latter is important to remember.  In other temperate climates gardens get a chance to rest under the snow for a few months but here we have a climate that allows for year round gardening.  Because of this the fine art of mulching needs to be perfected and applied.  Mulching is the application of a deep organic matter (compost, leaves, hay/straw, pine needles, wood chips) that serves many purposes: (1) Directly protects the surface of the soil from the harsh elements (2) Helps regulate water absorption (3) Breaks down over time and adds much needed soil conditioning to the heavy clay soils we have in Southern CA.  

Today I covered most of my front yard in Pine Needles rescued from a friends house that needs a bi-annual clean up, resulting in 25 large garbage bags full...bliss!  The remainder goes into the compost pile which at this stage is 5 ft high and hot as Hades, the pine needles will break down faster this way.  Another option is to leave them in the bag after moistening them.  Leave aside for 2 years behind a garden shed or whatever.  In 2 years you will end up with a wonderful complex substance known as leaf mold that will (when dusted onto your soil) add millions of very beneficial microbes to your soil.

John

Cicoria Catalogna a Foglie Rastagliante

A Bosnian friend was in Italy last year and raved about a salad called Puntarelle a la Romana that she had there.  I wrote to my sister (who lives in Genova) to find out what kind of Cicoria they use and today she sent me seeds.  I will plant this afternoon and let you know how they do.  Italians eat many varieties of Cicoria and this will be an interesting experience in trying to replicate this recipe for my friend Mira.

http://www.agraria.org/coltivazionierbacee/cicoria_catalogna.JPG

Bye for now

John

Winning the "war on weeds.."

Yes I know..one never "wins" a war but I thought given the year that is in it with politicians yapping endlessly about winning wars  I may as well use the coinage too.  Today was a client work free day, not by design but rather by lack of demand for my services.  So I decided to continue my endless watering and digging out of my front yard (former lawn) and get the last of the Bermuda grass out.  I hand water so the soil was bone dry in parts and rock hard despite endless applications of compost in the past year.  I watered for hours on end and then began digging through the yard methodically coaxing the long rhizomes out from under established plants.  An exercise in patience and quite meditative if you will.

My neighbours walk by and are very amused at how energetically I attack the garden.  Shovels wielded with vim and vigour.  It harkens back to my years on the family farm where you were expected to "keep the back down" and "make a face on yer work"...rural Irish expressions that possibly  get lost in the telling.

The end result is a clean front yard with the perennials flowers and shrubs perking up as a result of the watering and getting ready to put on growth for a Spring flower display.  In between I have planted my winter crops..a few brocolli here and some lettuce there.  No rhyme nor reason to the design but whimsy, whimsy whimsy.  The veggies really complement the colour and texture in a flower bed and at the end of the season I allow some veggies to go to seed to add a bit of drama to the landscape.  Carrots and cilantro produce really lovely flower and seed heads.

I planted the island near the street in agaves, sedums and various succulents rescued from gardens down through the year.

Now time to drink some Irish tea and watch a few political shows I tivo daily to keep me apprised of the state of things.

John

First Posting by the Woven Garden Man

Hello

The title is by Ralph Waldo Emerson.  Thanks Ralph.

This is a first for me so lets keep it short for now.

I will post some of my comings and goings day to day and occasional rants on things earth related.

I feel passionately about the need for everyone to till a piece of earth, grow some food, flowers be it in a pot on a windowsill or in a garden if they have the space for one.  The quality and content of the soil itself is another passion.

More anon.

John