Into the Garden

I grew up surrounded by seas on wildflowers. I remember the wonder of looking out at open fields dotted in gold, cream, and violet, knowing that vast space was mine to explore. I would wander for hours barefoot in my fancy dresses, hair wild as the wind, and return home grass and soil-stained but hands brimming with wilting wildflowers. Lupines the deep violet of twilight were always my favorite. Or delicate orange fiddleneck that I loved because it curved like the head of my own little violin. Flowers were my sweet first-friends who spoke a language that just made sense to butterflies, bees and messy-haired little girls like me. I dreamed of finding a key to the door of a secret garden.

All of my earliest memories include plants. My young parents, who moved to northern California from New York several years before I was born, raised me with a deep respect for the natural world, teaching me as they too learned about organic gardening and homesteading. My family lived in a small house in the middle of an 18-acre property locally dubbed, “The Art Farm,” where artists of varying mediums rented studio space in the three long rows of connected, barn-type buildings. There were various other buildings hosting an interesting assortment of tenants and animals: painters; wood carvers; marble sculptors; carpenters; metal fabricators; and one considerably famous luthier; as well as a flock of sheep, several goats, dozens of chickens, and at one point two emu that laid glorious black eggs. There were tadpoles and frogs in the little pond and an orchard at the very back of the property with plums, pears, and apples. I could explore and climb trees to my heart’s content or paddle around in the small pond in a faded, rust-colored canoe. I would crawl through a towering jungle of tomatoes on my hands and knees, smelling the rich mineral earth, selecting the ripest fruit, and revel in the explosion of acidic sweetness in that first bite of tomato still warm from the sun. Even as a child I knew how special and impermanent this place was, and although it has been over 25 years since we moved- the property long since sold and developed, the sweet, old orchard paved- I can still remember almost every single plant and tree.

So, it should come as no surprise to anyone that when we went for a walk-through of our first home we intended to purchase as adults, I hardly noticed the house and focused almost entirely on what I would be acquiring in terms of the garden. Luckily, this worked in our favor, as the couple we bought the house from were kindred spirits who shared my plant-adoring sentiments, and who had spent the entirety of their tenancy in the house improving the garden. Along with the keys came a multi-page, single-spaced, typed document detailing how they cared for each plant in the established landscape. Seven years later I still refer to it from time to time, because it honestly took me more than a year to become fully acquainted with my property and all of the plants on it. A good friend suggested I let everything bloom in its own time for the first year just to see what was there, and it was some of the best advice I received as a new owner.

Today my garden is a collection of locational vignettes, each with its own synergy. One of my favorite parts of the garden is an area dedicated entirely to pollinators that I pack full of herbs and flowers: lemon verbena, lemon balm, lavender, catnip, calendula, spearmint, sage, zinnia, columbine, nasturtium, buddleia. Ruby-throated hummingbirds, sky-blue scrub jays, honey bees, painted lady and swallowtail butterflies dip in between the blossoms, my garden’s most welcome visitors. Besides the raised beds and over thirty-five rose bushes, there are several fruit trees on our property, including a large fig tree, a Bleeding-Heart plum, a pear tree, a peach tree (planted by me), an orange tree, and an apple tree. I do my best to harvest, share, and preserve as much as possible and in 2020, when everything felt so uncertain, I took that job extremely seriously. We made almost every meal at home that year, using items from our garden in almost every meal. I grew tomatoes, two types of garlic, shallots (my fave), peppers, several types of squash, basil, chives, beans, kale, carrots, onions, and more. It feels like there is never enough time or space to plant everything I imagine at the beginning of the planting season, but over the years I have fine-tuned my selection to focus on plants I know I can grow well and use without wasting.

Sustainability is a major area of concern for me, as I am always looking for ways to reduce and offset our family’s water use and carbon footprint. As much as I love composting, I would prefer not to dispose of any items I spent time, energy, and resources growing and there is only a brief window of time in which one must either use or preserve certain produce items. Plants are on their own schedule and many of them tend to give you everything all at once, for better or worse. Pears for very specific example. Once preserved, there is an even smaller window of possibilities for uses of said pear. Frozen pears are not a versatile ingredient, unless one is enthusiastically inclined toward smoothies or sauce, and one’s family is only willing to eat so many pear-themed baked goods. So, while I can’t do much about the bumper crops from the fruit trees and grapevines, I find it very helpful to map out my plan for the garden beds each season, using the Maria Thun Biodynamic Almanac my mom buys for me each year to strategize specific and optimum planting dates and times, based on the phases of the moon. More on that later…

This year the garlic and shallots are well under way, having been planted in November, and I am most likely going to plant at least another 4’X8’ bed of each, just to see if it will work to stagger the harvest. But I also have SO many seeds to start, and each of those will require dedicated real estate. On top of all of that, my new project is a succulent bed, populated with all the beautiful succulents I’ve collected and kept in pots on the patio for years, unwilling to commit them to the permanence of the earth. How silly of me, because they are thriving and most would be easy to remove or transplant if necessary. Even the lemon balm, ever tenacious and opportunistic, is pleased with this new development, and has begun filling in the rocky spaces between the echeveria and aloe, creating a very lovely aesthetic, even as it tries to choke out the plants I prefer. But as many herbalists will insist, the herbal medicine you need will be attracted to you and grow in your garden. Whether I believe that or not, I have always really liked that idea. And lemon balm is a great nerve tonic so maybe there’s something I should be picking up here…Either way, if there is one thing I know, it is that I will never stop learning about and working with the plants I am fortunate enough grow in my garden.

 And I would definitely recommend a succulent + rock garden for anyone in a dry climate as it is a drought-tolerant landscaping option and very easy to maintain, with or without the overly-enthusiastic lemon balm.