wasteland & garden

“In a wasteland, people are fulfilling purposes that are not properly theirs but have been put upon them as inescapable laws.”

Joseph Campbell

Years ago—more than a quarter of a century ago—I walked into a classroom at the University of Montana on a sunny September morning. I was there not to study but for the first time ever to teach a class.

Last week I walked out of a classroom in Littleton, Colorado, closing the door on a long and fulfilling academic year that involved guiding a couple hundred students toward knowledge, potential, empowerment. I did my very best, and am pleased to say it again: this is good work and I am privileged to do it.

Any good teacher of adults knows the work is mainly to motivate people, and once they are motivated, to open the gate into a garden of ideas—and I must insist that is not a strained metaphor at all.

Will anyone deny the world can at times resemble a wasteland, at least by Campbell's definition, above? Which of us can claim to be entirely free of serving purposes other than those we know to be most authentic, most independent and gratifying? I see it in the eyes of many of my students, year after year—that their efforts to learn and improve their lives is an assertive response to the recognition of living in the wasteland. Those who are aware of the deal, who understand themselves and their circumstance fairly clearly, those are the ones I can help. The others, not so much. They need more time to stumble and sweat in the wasteland, to be made humble and motivated so they're ready to strive.

Writing saturates my classes—artistic, informative, rhetorical. I teach by teasing out and developing metacognitive activity in my classroom. That is to say, I teach my students to think about thinking, or in our case, to think about writing. I ask them to make one of the great leaps so necessary to writing well: examine not just what you write but how you write it, its effects beyond rather than within you, the originator. Expression in language is not the goal, it is the raw material with which a writer begins his or her real work. Refinement of that material requires metacognitive skill, the ability to see the text as a master gardener sees a garden—the potential, the problems, and the occasionally surprising brilliance.

And I'll carry the comparison further. As a gardener, I must finally make some deals with myself about what can and cannot be done with the ground entrusted to me. I can't make the entire wasteland bloom. I can't make anything bloom at all if I don't learn to read things well—the health of the soil, the way the weather really works, the best location for a particular plant. Plants do not do what you tell them to do; rather, they do what they will, but only after you do what they tell you to do. By getting down on my knees, by getting dirt under my nails and the smell of the greenery in my nose, I can begin to assemble a true sense of what's possible.

Every learner has to make those acknowledgements, too. Learning is not and never will be about a grade on a transcript. Real, usable knowledge is about absorbing information, developing skills and abilities, and being effectively metacognitive. For writers, it's moving from illusion through confusion to clarity. To put it another way, the most successful students I have often start out falsely confident in their writing, only to reach an epiphany that it's going to take a lifetime to actually master the art. Once there, they can begin the real work.

Look, you can see it here: those tendrils are thin as pins, at once delicate and tough, unfailingly persistent. Just take a minute and look again—see how they've found purchase on the bamboo support, wrapped round it, used it to climb. This is a greenhouse vine, a balsam apple. Like a student in my classroom, it needs a protected start. I know that given the right conditions, I can transplant this vine in a few weeks and it will grow profusely—taller and broader than me, heavy with fruit, remarkably beautiful in August light.

I like this work—teaching and gardening—and not a single day passes that I don't see these activities as interconnected, echoing each other in shape and substance. The good news for me is that I'm on a turning wheel, and I've just clicked over from the academic year to several months where my main activity will be with green things. Spring is spilling into summer, and I get a necessary break from teaching so I can rest and recharge. Who knows, I may even coax blooms out of the bricks, a garden from a wasteland.

early season delights

Flavor can be elusive. Many is the time I've ordered a green salad at a restaurant only to be disappointed by wilted or bland greens and veggies that are mere variations on spongy and weak tasting. I've even filled a basket with organic salad fixings at the market, only to get home and find them the same, leaving me to wonder how many days had passed since they were harvested, days during which both the taste and nutritive value have leached away.

Clearly, that is not the case with the array of early season items above, picked just moments before this photo was taken, rinsed and assembled into a simple salad whose flavors popped in the mouth. Clockwise from left (add the word "fresh" before each item that follows): chives, flat-leaf parsley, mixed baby greens, radishes, cilantro, and ruby mustard greens.

It's been a strange spring on the Front Range of Colorado. Winter was mild here, as elsewhere in so much of the U.S., and finished by leaving drought conditions and early spring surges of heat. Last year we had significant rain, which gave early plantings a boost; this year, perennials have struggled in the parching heat and wind, even though the blossoms on the forsythia were stunning. As we turn to May, I'm hoping for at least the occasional drenching rain—hoping but not expecting it.

Our last frost usually occurs within the next ten days and just this morning, a very light rime lay on the grass at dawn, courtesy of the skies clearing late yesterday, allowing heat to escape. It's going to be a tricky call in coming days: plant delicate things early for the boost in growing days or hold back a while longer and be safe? Having a greenhouse allows me to take the latter course and not lose much but for those who have rushed forward with planting, this could be a difficult season.

Fortunately, early season greens thrive in the cool high plains weather of April. We've been making forays into the herb patch, sometimes pre-dawn, to snag herbs to add to the oh-so-fresh eggs from our six chickens, all laying like pros these days. Even as the chives go to seed the cilantro is coming in fast, alongside healthy contributors like French tarragon, Italian parsley, and lemon thyme.

Intense, pungent, savory—it's a good day when these fresh flavors grace a dish. Winter, the season of flavors preserved and dried, is giving way to a run of weeks stretching into October, where we'll draw directly from the source, losing none of the textures, tastes, vitamins, and minerals of our produce. A salad garden is one of the easiest things to grow for a beginning gardener or a person with little space with which to work. An area just a couple feet square can yield a bounty of greens like those above, all before the first of May. You don't need a lot to make it happen—just a bit of work to prepare the soil in a patch (or even a large container or two) that gets sun for a good portion of the day.

For more seasoned gardeners, especially those working an established garden, there is the knowledge that while one cultivates these early season delights, there is the promise others everywhere, as in this tiny peach just breaking out of its blossom coat, intent on swelling full of peach flavor and sweetness for a midsummer harvest. 

Epicure's welcome

Stranger, here you will do well to tarry; here our highest good is pleasure. The caretaker of that abode, a kindly host, will be ready for you; he will welcome you with bread, and serve you water also in abundance, with these words: Have you not been well entertained? This garden does not whet your appetite; but quenches it.

—axiom engraved above Epicure’s garden

rhubarb healing

Cutting fresh rhubarb stalks just after dawn on an April morning is a simple pleasure—for all the senses. There was a chill in the air when I went out yesterday, courtesy of a warm and cloudless spring day that gave way to night and dropping temperatures, cold enough to lay a skin of ice on the water in the steel garden bucket. I took my Chinese knife, the one with the razor-sharp, curved blade perfect for the task at hand—to snap off the stems from the two main plants and then trim two pounds of stalks of their broad leaves.

Just the act of trimming was a sensuous treat. Sweet and tangy, fresh rhubarb delights the senses, similar to the way a citrus scent rises when you peel an orange. There's something remarkable about the aroma of cut rhubarb that I love. I've heard people say they don't like rhubarb and I just don't understand.

Now, for perspective: this all began 22 years ago when I and my family moved into a rented house on Colorado's Front Range. I was starting a new teaching job and we needed a place to stay for a while, until we could buy a house in what was then a very affordable market south of Denver. I had done some gardening in different places I'd lived—New York, California, Montana—but I had a lot to learn about the particular patterns of gardens in this region. One thing I did not understand at all then was that if you want to know what to grow in a new garden, your best bet is to look around at other gardens right near you—literally. Neighborhoods are microclimates, and as I would later learn, even a patch of yard has its own "nanoclimates."

I was intent on putting in a salad garden that first year and saw an existing but overgrown bed out by our back fence, so I did what seemed right at the time: starting way too early in the season, I cleared the patch. This meant prising grass roots out of the bed, and then digging deeply to turn over the soil, which to my surprise was decent stuff—rich, friable, and full of earthworms. But I also found something else: a half-dozen large, woody, orange-colored roots, roughly the size of footballs. I had no idea what they were, and presuming these were undesirables, I dug them out and disposed of them. Idiot move.

Those were a row of well established rhubarb plants, and had I left them be, they soon would have yielded a plethora of delicious stalks, among the first things any Front Range gardener gets to enjoy in early spring. Too late, I realized my mistake. A small root mass had survived my destructive shovel and sent up a few troubled stalks and when I saw it was rhubarb and checked out the roots, I knew what I'd done. This was reinforced when my neighbor's patch, adjacent to mine and left utterly neglected, gave rise to a row of huge, glossy rhubarb leaves on stalks tinted that telltale crimson on bright green.

We moved shortly afterwards and I set to work putting in what would be the garden I still keep. Among my first goals was to make recompense by putting in a few rhubarb plants. My attempts were not successful. At one point I managed to get some going from seed, which is challenging enough, but I'd picked the wrong location and my multi-year effort to coax them to robust health finally failed. I was cursed. Eventually, I gave up on the idea.

But a few years ago, I came upon some very nice rhubarb starts at a local nursery and having learned from experience, I found a good garden location for them. They were leggy and weak looking that first year but did make it through the winter. However, the yield was not good in that second year, and I had not expected it would be. I was patient, and that patience has finally paid off.

This year's early spring has brought the rhubarb bursting through the soil. I've been watching carefully, out among a garden still mostly bare soil at this point. So it was that this week, I determined that there were enough heavy stalks on the plants to make for a good harvest.

Another bit of learning came my way during this time that is so obvious, I have to wonder why it took so long to arrive. Some of our favorite food combinations exist as they do because the different produce needed ripens concurrently. Of course. For example, gardens typically deliver delicious rhubarb and plump strawberries at about the same time.

In my region, this timing is not exact. Rhubarb is ready April-May and my strawberry patch fruits best May-June. But I usually find good, early-season strawberries available at the market, so I can live with that. All that's needed for a fantastic pie is on hand and the recipe is simple enough—sliced rhubarb, sliced strawberries, sugar and spices, and a homemade crust. I love the way these basic things look in early preparation—each main component bursting with flavor, color, and texture that will not truly yield its magic until combined the right way. I rolled out the crusts, mixed the fruit, and chilled it all for a couple hours—enough time for juices to gather—and then assembled the pies while the oven preheated.

If you're looking at this post, and are seized with the desire to do as I have done, promise yourself that you will not use a bland, pre-processed pie crust. Ever. Again. Find a good, basic crust recipe and take the time, which isn't much. A good strawberry-rhubarb pie deserves that much, and as some will attest, the right crust can be the star, not the supporting cast, in this endeavor.

The rest is easy—a short run at high temp to get the crust established, then 80 minutes at a reduced temp to let the flavors blend, set the juices to thicken and bubble, and the crust to turn golden. Can I just say the whole house smelled like heaven?

This pie had work to do. I heard this week from a good friend that there was trouble on her horizon and like anyone might, I was fighting the feeling of being helpless to do anything about it. And it dawned on me that I could deliver this pie to her door, still warm, on a Saturday afternoon, and that would be the right kind of healing.

Eventually, she and I will sit down and talk through the difficult news. But for now, the pie has made a point. Trouble is a given in this world. A good strawberry rhubarb pie is not a given, which makes it a powerful affirmation of life. A dollop of good vanilla ice cream on top turns this into a meal unto itself. If you manage to save some for the morning, you can start out your day with another slice, alongside a cup of steaming coffee—and if that doesn't make the day blossom for you, what could?

So today's garden-to-kitchen episode was more than two decades in the making. If I go back to my mistake in uprooting those rhubarb plants, and carry forward through the false starts and eventual success with establishing new plants in my garden, I can see today's culmination as worth all the effort. I hope all that goes into the flavors, and also into the healing.

snowmelt, seeds, and sun

Ten days. During that time, I was distracted—and I say it like that because work is a distraction from real life, unless you're one of the unfortunate ones who see it the other way round. In the midst of a working day, I often find myself thinking about my garden, fully aware that's where I'm most fully alive this time of year.

While I was looking away, the salad garden seeds I planted ten days ago broke through the soil. Think time lapse photography . . . ground bulging, light and dark passing over, a seam splitting in the soil to reveal bent seedlings laboring up, popping through into more light and dark, extending tender leaves.

Unseasonable warmth has washed over the Front Range of the Rockies for two weeks, and while that also means drought conditions, a tended patch of garden can be coaxed to life. A gardener in this part of the globe never knows what will be coming, though in the 22 years I've gardened here, I do know to expect surprises. Up ahead lie possibilities of scorching early heat, heavy rains in May, hailstorms small and large, hard frosts, snow, or all of the above.

Constructing a small greenhouse is something I should have done a long time ago, but I finally managed it, precisely a year ago this week. There was a learning curve—I'm still on it—but I did find out through trial and error that I have to open it up, door, vent, and window, every morning; I have to close it down in the evening, and run a small space heater that allows me to keep the night temps at about 60 degrees. If I'm diligent about this—and I plan to be—seeds will germinate and grow very well in this space.

Careful, sequential transplanting into larger and larger pots over the next eight weeks will allow me to select the healthiest seedlings and work on establishing their root systems. They'll be pampered, and they'll respond by putting on prodigious growth. Eventually, when conditions are right for each plant, I've move them out into the garden.

This is in part a story about investment. Some money is involved, but the real investment comes in the form of time and energy, resources and knowledge. I've spent most of my adult life learning about growing things, and while this has mainly led me to understand how little I really know, I have managed to master fundamentals. I invest all of that again on these spring days and the payoff comes rolling in, now through October, and on into the autumn and winter months when we eat fresh and preserved garden produce at our table every week.

Planning and organizing seeds gives me a great deal of pleasure precisely because it represents this investment. There was a time when I was shooting in the dark, not really aware of how to grow things right, ignorant of everything from microclimates to seed saving. Now, I have a much greater sense of when and how to do things correctly, and while I'm always experimenting, I make fewer mistakes and generally get better, more reliable results.

This year we got relatively little snow in the Denver area. Still, I put out a basic catchment system to collect snowmelt and have been rewarded with about 20 gallons. I could use any water to initially irrigate my seed starts but I took special enjoyment in using the melted snow to kick things off.

There's no chlorine in this water. That should help gentle the seeds out of their coats and into growth. My plan is to put in a more elaborate catchment system eventually so that at the start of spring I'll have much more water to work with, and can hope to collect still more from the rare rainfall we get here. Another idea I've been toying with is installing a basic solar system to charge a bank of batteries, for use to power the heater in the greenhouse and also for running basic electrical tools in the garage and shed.

In short, I live in an old suburb—post-WWII war housing constructed south of Denver to house the families that sprung up at the start of the Baby Boom generation. We came forty years later and raised our kids here, and now a whole new batch of families have taken up residence. Our house is surrounded on three sides by people raising young children, and their laughter and cries filled the neighborhood today as I was planting. That's a garden, too.

I wish more people would turn their yards into gardens. It's good for the kids, good for the gardener & family, and everyone benefits from the reduced reliance on the food machinery that fills our supermarkets. We keep chickens here and work the 900 square feet of soil that gives us plenty of fine food. This ought to be the future. Maybe it will be.