Beltane is for the Faeries!

A simple afternoon of creativity this Beltane Day, and all for the Faeries!  Oh and maybe for the little kids and the kids at heart that walk by too!

Happy Beltane everyone!

Nightmares, Dirt and Poetry

Woke up before daylight crying so hard I was hyperventilating.  Another nightmare. I held my breath and counted to ten slowly, both to stop the hyperventilation and get myself under control.  I had to keep counting my breath over and over as a wave of the emotions from the nightmare would sweep over me.  Breath.  Observe the emotions, the pain -but don’t react.  Keep breathing.  Finally calm again yet not wanting to go back to sleep.  Exhaustion finally won and I drifted back off curled up close to Mark who had drifted off again as well, his hand still resting on my back where he had gently rubbed as I tried to regain composure.

I dream again.  This time, though, I am lucid.  I know I am dreaming.  I am sitting in a bed, my husband next to me, when I see a large dog standing in the doorway.  I point it out to Mark but he can’t see it.  He still can’t see it as it starts moving towards me, aggressively.  I realize it must not be a real dog and I sweep my hand through the air where it has come at me.  I announce that the dog is in the astral and I get angry.  I jump up, my heart in my throat as I yell a chanting rhyme at the dog and chase it.  It runs before me, but reluctantly.  I keep chanting.  Banishing it with words and actions till I chase it out the front door.  But before it gets off the porch it grows larger.  It reaches down and angrily grabs the last dwindling basil plant out of it’s planter.  Shredding it.  Then morphs into some hideous creature before disappearing.  I still know I am dreaming and I stand there in my dream, pondering.  I feel I know what I need to know and so I start to try and wake up, it’s hard.  Then I’m awake and back in bed next to my husband, but things don’t seem quite right, and it is like I am moving through quicksand.  I realize I am still asleep and I start yelling, “I want to wake up.  I want to wake up.  Over and over. I finally do.  For real this time.  But I take a moment to be sure.  I sit up, absolutely certain I will not allow myself to drift off again.  Enough is enough.

Despite the horrors of the morning, our energy is good.  A little tired but looking forward to the day.  We read about various ways that the holiday of Imbolc  or Candlemas or any of it’s other names over the centuries is celebrated.  We talk about how we might like to celebrate this balancing point between winter and spring.  We have some good ideas, some of which I may share in another post.

We take off to run some errands and end up at a nursery where I fall in love with a Daphne bush and these bright pink primroses with lacy white edges.  Mark wants to make these my early Valentines gift this year and I won’t argue.  I’ve missed the Daphne I had for years that I finally planted in the ground in Olympia and had to leave behind.  I’ve wanted another ever since, and finally, this year, instead of cut flowers I get a whole small shrub of them to bloom over and over each year – at this balancing point between winter and spring, where I am needing a little more spring and a lot less winter.  We gather up our treasures and as we drive through the city the car is filled with the scent of daphne.

Today included a walk through the Arboretum in the rain.  We visited the Rowan trees and the big sister Maples next to the Rowan grove.  We walk through the woods, seeing the Magnolia trees fat with blossom getting ready to burst in the coming months.  The rhododendrons as well and the Indian Plum about to burst.  I can’t help myself – I gently kiss the tip of the nearly open blossoms, grateful for what they tell my winter weary spirit.  We walk past fragrant blooming Witch Hazel with Helebores flowering at their feet.  I hug a cedar tree or two, breathing in the fragrance of their bark.  We visit the Oak Grove where we sat and meditated among the trees last year with a group of Druids.  Each visiting the trees we sat with.  As I stand before my oak tree, cheerfully wishing it a happily approaching spring I clearly get the sense that Trees are not impatient for Spring.  ”Fine then”, I say, “Enjoy the rest of your winter.”  Humbled by this bit of wisdom, yet still, myself, impatient for Spring.  I am not a tree.

We eventually make it home and I wrestle the Daphne out of its plastic pot, placing it into the planter I have for it and nestling the primroses around its feet. I have dirt under my finger nails and in my hair, where I kept trying to push it back out of my face with soil encrusted fingers.  I bury my nose in the Daphne again and grin, ear to ear.  Satisfied I go back inside and to dinner.

After dinner we read poetry to each other.  Three books sitting on the table to choose from.  Mary Oliver, Robert Frost and Shel Silverstein.  We move back and forth between the books.  Moved deeply by Oliver, pondering at Frost and laughing hysterically with Silverstein.  The eclectic nature of the poems being read making the evening that much more unique and fun.  Then I notice my sketch journal sitting on the table as well, so I pick it up and read a few poems from it and then a few entires from the past couple years.  I see the sketch I did of Mark wheeling me through the p-patch under a full moon in a wheel barrow and we laugh at the memory.  We marvel at how much it snowed in 2009 and at the eclectic nature of three Haiku poems I wrote that winter.  The lightheartedness of a couple captured moments and then the blatant truth of the last one on the page.  It capturing the reality of that time for us in so few words.  We’re glad we aren’t in that place anymore.  We’re glad that we can move from nightmares to dirt to poetry all in one day.

Here are the three poems from that page in my sketch journal.

Bagel and cream cheese
Cat pushes closer
My bagel, Thank you!

Open Haiku book
Cat wanting attention
Close Haiku book

The homeless man asks for money
I shake my head
I may be homeless tomorrow

Summer, So Far

A beautiful Solstice ritual with local druids started off my summer in what could not have been a better way.  OK, perhaps less mosquito bites would have improved it slightly.  Dratted little buggers!  The ritual was a simple yet deeply meaningful one and was followed up in true druid fashion with great food, drink and entertainment.  There were stories, poems, song and even a silly joke or two.  A great time had by both Mark and me among great company.  The main tree we were under was quite thoroughly decorated!

The next summer highlight would have to be the continued growth of our garden and some of the bounty we’ve been enjoying from it.

And these are just the things I thought to take pictures of.  We’ve been eating  lots and lots of greens, new potatoes, scallions, carrots, beets, squash and peas.  I just picked our first tomato last night, a yellow Taxi Variety that we have in a planter near our front porch.  We’re looking forward to eating it tonight!  Both the p-patch and the home planters and raised bed are doing well – quite productive.  And it’s about time to start planting greens and beets and such for the later part of the season!  And get the basil transplanted – finally.

We’ve also been enjoying some of the local bounty that we aren’t growing ourselves.  We went and did u-pick strawberries and got 20 jars are strawberry jam made up along with a delicious strawberry rhubarb crisp that is long gone.  We also got raspberries and made up 16 jars of raspberry jam.  The latest was a 13 pound box of apricots that got canned up, made into apricot pie and a handful thrown in the freezer for later apricot delights.  Unfortunately I don’t have any pictures of these due to the camera dieing on us.  But trust me, all the colorful jars look lovely!

We’ve had a good many enjoyable evening strolls along Alki, despite the crowds, and several picnics in local parks with one wonderful summer swim in Lake Washington down at Seward Park.  While we were swimming both a Bald Eagle and an Osprey flew over us, not to far above the water.  They were having a bit of a territorial spat.  The Osprey decided to not argue with the Eagle.  Smart Osprey!

We also had a great paddle at the arboretum on Lake Washington with plenty of birding by yours truly.  The  ducklings were probably the biggest treasure of the paddle, though!

Another highlight was joining my mother-in-law and my sister-in-law for the Vashon Garden Tour.  There was a lot of oohing and ahhing and drooling and coveting and dreaming.  I took over 150 pictures that day and a healthy selection of them deserve their own post, but here you can see that we three girls just couldn’t help but smile after a day of garden delights!

Yes, summer has been good to us so far.  The sad thing, though, is that I may not be able to record the rest of the summer quite as well as I would like, due to our camera dieing on us.  Replacing it may not be in the cards all to soon.  I’ll just have to use words in the mean time and do my best.

Happy Summer!

Maurie, Maurie…How Does Your Garden Grow?

It’s been a while since I mentioned our Lincoln P-patch plot.  I wrote about it back in February.  We didn’t start work on it until this last weekend.  And what work there was to do!  It had gotten pretty weedy since the above picture was taken in February, but it will give you an idea as to how much change really happened over the weekend.


I wanted a design that would be really comfortable to work in, one where I could plop my ample tush down in a path and comfortably work in the beds.  Wide paths aren’t that common in p-patch plots because we only get a little bit of land (ours is 10X11 or so) and people want to use all that space for plants.  I have a war with myself over this every time I design a new p-patch.  But I know the way I garden.  I like to be comfortable, not cramped and that can make a huge difference in how much time I end up wanting to spend at the garden.  So with Mark’s encouragement we designed a garden plot with ample path space and a layout to be able to let some of my artsy nature have room to play.

We also had a serious slope to deal with and it was essential to build up the garden space, level it out and makes sure that we did a design that would not allow our soil and seeds to wash away down the hill.  We ended up putting 12 inch tall boards in on the west and north sides to help with that issue and then went with raised beds with in that, to help even more.

There are four triangular beds one for each of the four directions, something I like because of the tie to some Native American beliefs and lore.  Each direction is also connected to one of the elements, earth, air, fire and water.  I can have fun with that by incorporating colors and little artistic touches to represent each.  This was done in more formal herbal gardens in times past and really the garden plot does have an herb garden look to it, though very few herbs will be grown in it – I am trying to find spots at home to put my herbs where they will be more handy.  On the East side we put a bamboo trellis up to discourage the dogs that run down the path above the garden from running straight into a garden bed.  When we saw that we would have some taller bamboo support poles on either side we thought it would be fun to put a string of colorful prayer flags between them.  Mark picked out the larger sized flags from the garden center and we ended up stringing them along three sides of the garden.  East, South and West.  It makes the garden really colorful and pleasant, and yes, unique!  Here are some pictures of the process:

After those pictures were taken we got to planting some starts.  Golden beets edge the perimeter of the south bed (in the above picture that’s the one to the right).  Red scallions edge the west bed.  Broccoli fills the center of the north bed and the edges have two different lettuce starts along them.  The east bed has Russian Banana Fingerling potatoes and a few left over scallions.  I have some shelling pea starts that will go along the trellis.  The rest will be left for some summer crops to be put in after the May Tilth Plant Sale.  I have two spots where I plan on putting flowers either in planters or by creating more raised bed spots at the ends of the paths on the NW and SW corners.  We still have to figure out what we are going to do for the paths.

We have an 8X4 raised bed in our backyard where it gets at least half a days sunshine or a bit more and we will have more food plants in there.  I have pictures of that process but I’ll save that for another time and another post.  It’s sunny outside and I think I may just head over to the garden and get those peas in while the weather is cooperating!

Happy Spring and Gardening to everyone!

New Neigborhood New P-Patch

Our move to West Seattle last fall found us an inconvenient distance from our  P-Patch at Interbay and needing to switch to someplace closer to home. So when we got our new plot assignment we removed our perennials from our Interbay garden, mulched it with a heavy layer of leaves and said our goodbyes. We left a 200 square foot p-patch with access to a greenhouse. Those are the two things I will miss the most about Interbay. As for the garden as a whole and the garden community we never really felt at home there. Not like we did when we were part of a smaller P-Patch, Queen Pea, the first time we lived in Seattle. There is something to say for large P-Patches and the things they can get done. But when it comes to making connections and feeling more a part of a community Mark and I prefer the smaller settings of P-Patches like Queen Pea and our new home – Lincoln P-Patch. There’s more of a chance of finding a niche for yourself in the community aspects of keeping up a P-Patch and it is far easier to start recognizing faces and even remembering names when there are fewer gardeners to get to know. That is what we are looking forward to with the move to Lincoln P-Patch. And the location. Lincoln P-Patch is right across from Lincoln Park, one of my favorite parks in West Seattle and one I never think I get to spend enough time in. Hopefully that will change since I’ll have already travelled the few miles to the garden I might as well spend some time wandering the various habitats of Lincoln Park. Which is exactly what I did yesterday.

In the afternoon, during a break in the rain, I drove on over to Lincoln P-patch and spent over a half hour wandering the garden, taking pictures, familiarizing myself with the common areas and repeatedly walking back to my own little plot of soil to stand over it and ponder its future.

It is a smaller plot, about 10X11 and built into the side of a hill. Above it is a natural area and Solstice Park.

It’s on the west slope of a hill so afternoon sun shouldn’t be a problem, although I wonder if the temperatures get very hot due to wind exposure. I’ll find out this summer. There are only two other plots in our section, one on either side of ours. Just above our plot is a nice bench that I think will find Mark and I resting, snacking and pondering quite a bit through the garden year.

When finally I had my fill of garden dreaming I was ready to take advantage of being conveniently close to Lincoln Park. I wandered through the forest as mist started to come through the trees and a gentle rain began again. I breathed in the fresh green air, listened to birds chatter, watched squirrels rummage through leaves and dash up trees and kept out of the way of joggers. I considering when I could come back for my own jog through the muddy network of forested trails that is the upper part of Lincoln Park. In the mean time I enjoyed a moderate paced walk and when the trail took me along the bluff I looked out at the waters of Puget Sound and told myself that it was too late in the day to head down to the shoreline part of Lincoln Park. It would have to wait for another day.

So I have hope. For our new garden, for the community it will bring and for the increased frequency of trips to one of West Seattle’s many treasures – Lincoln Park

P-Patch Update

The other evening we picked over 2 pounds of peas in one picking, as well as four large heads of lettuce! There is so much lettuce we can’t possibly eat it all before it bolts and I am hoping to get some of it to a local food bank before that happens. The zucchini’s and tomatoes are blossoming and the parsley is going crazy. The beans are up and the cucumber transplants are settling in. Which reminds me – I need to plant dill! The potatoes are flowering and looking incredibly healthy and we nibble on a few strawberries each time we’re there, of course the slugs are nibbling on them when we aren’t there. Sadly we seem to have an infestation of club root disease and the brassicas have done very poorly. I am hoping it won’t effect the mustards, because I can’t imagine my winter without fresh mizuna trimmed from under a cold frame. The peppers are the saddest little things I have ever seen. Even in the cruddiest of summers I have managed to get a few peppers of my pepper plants – but these ones seem to have never recovered form mid-Mays cold nastiness. I don’t know if they will ever turn around. I gave them a little organic fertilizer and I talk to them nicely each time I see them – but I think they would rather have a mini sauna to live in – unfortunately I don’t have the resources to give them what they want. I only hope they turn around eventually.

The garden really is doing very well over all and I am looking forward to that first zucchini like you wouldn’t believe!

Interbay P-Patch – Here I Come!

I am excited to announce that there will be some garden writing this year.

On Thursday we received a community garden plot assignment – something we were thinking would not happen for another year or two. What a pleasant surprise. Hm. That is not quite putting it right. If I am to be entirely honest I will have to mention that I was jumping up and down clapping my hands like a little kid, giggling and grinning, and exclaiming my joy. I was giddy. I am giddy.

After March 7th I’ll get to start playing in my little patch of dirt at the Interbay P-Patch here in Seattle. The timing was great. The few precious flowers and herbs I dug up from my house in Olympia won’t need to find a temporary home in my mother-in-laws yard (though she was kind enough to allow that).

For now I dream. I’ll imagine all the wonderful things I can put into my plot. I’ll look forward to making it mine. I’ll look forward to the community I will make with those I’ll be gardening along side of. Now my head is full of summer flowers and huge salads made from the bounty of my little patch of dirt here in Seattle.