Late Season Marigolds
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Knowing Your Garden (and svadyaya)
This will be my 20th season in my garden. I know that my back garden — where I grow my herbs, flowers, and vegetables — is easily 4-5 weeks earlier than the gardens of my friends’ in Potomac and Silver Spring and the outer suburbs. It is even almost that much earlier than my front garden. I have a brilliantly sunny, south-facing, protected back garden with a brick patio that is against an unpainted brick house and a densely shaded, north-facing front garden. Not only is the back garden sheltered from the wind by the house on one side and the fence on three sides, but the bricks retain enough heat to change the temperature by a a couple of degrees. I have a special micro-climate. My climbing rosebush (pictured in the header) is already in leaf.
What does this mean? While my friends in the suburbs or those with east/west facing houses are starting seedlings for kale and spinach indoors, I can put seeds into outdoor containers in the next week or two without compunction. The seedlings I would need to start (if I don’t instead choose to purchase them from the organic farmers at the market) are peppers and tomatoes for planting in mid-April. If I start with strong 8″-12″ plants in mid to late-April (depending on the 15-day forecast), I can have and have had for at least 10 of the past 20 years, cherry tomatoes in May and peppers in early June. My greens, obviously, bolt earlier. I’ve figured out that certain varieties of chard do better in these conditions, and that spinach and lettuce do better sheltered by the fence where they get afternoon shade, so that I can have them farther into the season.
This kind of knowing by combining general book and teaching knowledge with personal observation of my little space, is much like the yoga practice of svadyaya (self-knowledge), which is the fourth niyama of Patanjali’s yoga sutras. Svadyaya is literally study of the self through the scriptures. Implicit in that is the guidance of a teacher or guru. Ultimately, though, self-knowledge or awareness must be experiential. We make the effort to study and we listen to our teacher, but then we practice. We soften and open to who we (or our garden) truly are — another way of practicing and experiencing the Anusara principle of opening to grace — and then in the context of the teachings, accept who we are. As gardeners, that means accepting what zone we are in, how much shade, water, space, and sun we have. As yogins, it means accepting our strengths and our limitations. We can shift our zone by treating certain plants as indoor/outdoor or as annuals rather than perennials; we can enhance our water flow by storing it in rain barrels, but that is merely expanding the edge rather than making a complete change. We can expand the edge of our practice, but still need to accept the bodies with which we were born.
Native Seed Search
One of the delights of my trip to Tucson, was visiting the Native Seed Search’s shop. Native Seed Search works to gather, safeguard, and distribute native and adapted seeds to farming and gardening communities, and to educate farmers and gardeners about the uses of those seeds. When I go to Tucson, I make sure to visit the shop (so much more fun than shopping on-line) to buy unique varieties of peppers and beans for cooking.
The first time I went — three years ago — I did not buy any seeds. I was not certain that I should be bringing seeds from the southwest to DC for planting. This year, after the last two years of heat and drought, I bought a few varieties of southwestern greens and some pink green beans to try in containers. I had a good chat with the workers in the shop about shifting what we plant as the climate changes even as we might otherwise try to avoid bringing new species into the area.
I went small with this experiment. As long as I do not let the amaranth (to eat as greens not grain) go to seed and pick the beans to eat or replant, nothing will spread. It will be interesting to observe if these plants require less water or tolerate more heat here than the greens and beans we are more accustomed to planting.
It was also wonderful, on this icy cold day, to take the seed packets out of my bag in anticipation of spring. Planting season for cool weather greens, etc (etc meaning beets, turnips, and radishes) is only a couple of weeks away.
“There’s an intimate connection between the brain and the heart…”
In case you were looking for another reason to share the yoga with friends who might otherwise think that yoga would be too hard for them and to make your practice more regular. Go Kansas City!
