Growing vegetables, herbs, etc. in a small urban space
Peace and light, E — Posted with WordPress for BlackBerry.
Peace and light, E — Posted with WordPress for BlackBerry.
Peace and light, E — Posted with WordPress for BlackBerry.
Scheduled to arrive some time tomorrow is one of those impossible to forecast until it is happening because how fast the storm travels and a variance in its track of even 50-100 miles north or south, or east or west can make the difference between just a bit of rain, a lot of rain with a little snow, and a little rain with a lot of snow, or perhaps the dreaded wintry mix. What I would do for the garden would be different for the various scenarios. The best for continuing to thrive would be a 2-4 inches of snow that didn’t entirely melt when it hits 50F on Saturday and acts as a blanket when it is forecast to get below 20F. I harvested the tenderest of the greens and the last handfuls of unripe tomatoes (they need to be cooked and spiced–it’s way past the date they should have been able to grow). I left the hardier greens and the root vegetables. I will be watching for the true hard freeze right before which I will need to harvest everything. The extreme weather occurrence is not, however, the coming storm, but the fact that I still have this much growing without a cold frame in the middle of January.
turnips, arugula, grape tomatoes, chard, snowpea shoots, kale, roses, assorted lettuce, cilantro, carrots [not shown, but also growing: spinach, green garlic, mint, parsley]
It is nice to have lettuce in January without a cold frame, but the trees could use a couple of good snowfalls.
Snow pea shoots, kale, carrots, spinach, lettuce, grape tomatoes, arugula, chard, (not shown), turnips, parsley, mint
Another blink of Siva’s eye, another,
As a friend has been saying, trip
Around the sun. Decades from now,
A parent walking in the woods with a child,
Or one lover to another, or a forest guide
Might point out the signs from the
Big hurricane of 2012. I expect 2013 will
Be momentous and full of joy, ephemeral,
Another trip around the sun.
It is hard to imagine how this tree–sundered down the middle–continues to live upright.
Peace and light, E — Posted with WordPress for BlackBerry.
The excessive dryness and unseasonable warmth make me anxious. Sixties fahrenheit and dry may feel good in San Francisco, but here it just is out of place for the existing flora and fauna. Still, I made sure to get out and enjoy the exquisite afternoon that it was. I find the skies of drought achingly beautiful and mysterious.
It was also nice, but peculiar to go out into the backyard and pick nearly a pint of ripe grape tomatoes.
We are composed of nothing different than earth, water, fire, air, and space, and much of yoga practice (as are related practices such as ayurveda) is designed to recognize and align our elemental identity. It is human nature to manufacture, just as it is the nature of a beaver to make a dam or a termite to make a mound of mud that displaces what was in its path. Why then is it so common to think of man-made as completely separate from “nature” rather than to recognize the wild and extraordinary creations of humans as an integral part of the complex fabric of being on this planet?
Photos taken on a Thanksgiving trip shared with friends and family: DC to NJ, Cape Cod, and back to NJ before heading home. Without the time on highway and train, I could not have seen so much “nature” in so short a time. Nor, might I add, would I have appreciated being out exposed to the wind and water without the shelter and protection of manufactured goods (including houses, cars, and clothing, etc). This does not mean, of course, that to live better, we should not seek to balance and diminish our consumption of resources for our protection and comfort.
Peace and light, E — Posted with WordPress for BlackBerry.