Late spring crashed into early summer, and then rapidly exploded into the sort of sauna like conditions that uniquely sap my will to live. I’ve been trying really hard to be more active lately, mostly to improve my stamina. I’ve been walking 20-25 miles a week for the last two months, in addition to working in the garden, which has all been great, but now…I just cannot function in this heat. It sucks. Between perimenopause screwing with my ability to thermoregulate, the meds I take that have heat sensitivity as a side effect, and the fact that heat is a migraine trigger for me, things go from “unpleasant” to “getting scary” pretty quickly. So, I got a bit done in the garden last weekend, but for the most part I’m just going to have to let things out there fend for themselves for a week while I catch up on The Vampire Lestat and Taskmaster.
Now that it’s summer, things are warm and comfortable for the bugs, and the invertebrate diversity and abundance climbs by the week. The shy spring ephemeral herbs have died back (relatable), replaced by the plants that will be with us through the summer and into fall, and after a rain it feels like you can juuuust about hear them growing as they jostle for position and do their best to outpace whatever’s grazing on them.
In the garden proper, we’re getting some of our first meaningful harvests of the year. The early culinary successes have been gratifying. One day I gathered up as many garlic scapes as I could, food processed them into a paste, blended that with stracciatella (aka burrata filling) and butter, spread it on thick slices of artisanal bread and baked it….and we had the best garlic bread I’ve had in my life. Like, I’m a fan of garlic, and garlic bread, in general, but this was next level shit. No idea why I was so slow to get on the “blending up scapes and baking them in stuff” train but I’m here now and I love it.
The critters left about two strawberries (out of so many) for us to sample this year. They were…not great, but the quality will improve as they get better established and happier. They have started to throw out runners so I’m hoping that one of these days there will be enough to keep us and the local fauna happy.
Our black raspberries are further along on that curve; this is the first year the berries have been as big and flavorful as they were before being transplanted to our yard. (They previously lived on a hill behind the dumpsters at the office building I worked at; at one point it was announced via email that that entire area of the grounds was going to be torn up “to clear out all of the invasive brambles”. I rather pointedly replied noting that they were a native species, and asked if they minded if I took some of them before they were destroyed. With the building owners’ blessing and my partner’s physical strength, we recovered a dozen plants to start our own backyard bramble with.) I think if we just saved up all the black raspberries we have picked/will pick this year, we’d have enough to make a pie; as it is we’ve been eating a handful of them apiece every day, because they’re so good on their own.
Unexpectedly, we got our first actual (modest) harvest of red currants this year. We didn’t actually intend to have red currants; the bush we have was yet another rescue from the cruel hand of conformist landscaping sensibilities, this time in the name of removing everything interesting from the yard of a house that was going to be sold, at the behest of the seller’s agent. It was late winter/very early spring at the time, so it was at least possible to dig things up, but there weren’t many features visible that one could use to identify the plants. One of the other rescuers thought it was a Nanking cherry, which we thought would be fun to try, so we nabbed it. Instead, when it leafed out in the spring, it quickly became clear that it was a Ribes species.
I’ve had bad experiences with Ribes. Black currants are common around here, and I’ve tried foraging them, but 1. more than 50% of the berries I’ve picked have had insect larvae in them, and 2. the ones that didn’t have resident bugs didn’t taste great. I actually thought about just ripping out the bush after the first year because I tried one of the berries and wasn’t impressed, but I left it because as it turned out, the resident chipmunk really loved them The sight of this ‘munk perched on a little branch in the bush cramming currants into its mouth was too hilarious and cute to deprive myself. That chipmunk disappeared sometime over the last year, though, and apparently the new one hasn’t gotten the memo regarding currant deliciousness, because the little bush is absolutely rife with beautiful, ripe, and apparently untouched currants. They don’t even seem to have any bugs in them, score! They’re a little tart, as they should be, but much better and sweeter than they were when I first tried them….once again, established plants that are not stressed and have abundant energy to pour into reproduction make tastier fruits! I went through and picked a bunch today, and they’re waiting in the refrigerator for a cooler day to be made into jelly.
Besides the aforementioned fruit, we’ve been nibbling on a handful of other things from the garden, like mustard greens and radish seed pods. We tried ditch lily flower buds for the first time, and were pleasantly surprised; uncooked they taste a bit like peas. I’ve read that they’ve even better sauteed in butter, so that’s on the list to try soon. We’ve also got our tomatoes, peppers, summer squash, and assorted other veggies and herbs transplanted into the garden, although I do have a few more things I need to find homes for, once it’s feasible to be doing physical labor outdoors again.
I had one of those moments of synchronicity recently that the universe occasionally throws at you (or, you know, which our powerful ability for pattern matching picks out of the noise around us – but that’s a less fun idea). I have, like many of us I’m sure, been feeling powerless and isolated, especially in the face of so much awful national news for wildlife and public lands. I’m so frustrated and scared about the damage that is actively and purposefully being done to the biosphere, and that the people who voted for those things are so incapable of understanding, admitting, or caring about the harm they’re doing. I have spent a lot of time wishing I knew what I could do about those things that matters, what magic words I might say. I felt stuck.
The first thing that helped me get unstuck was an interview I saw recently with HCR, where she talked about focusing not changing minds, but just mobilizing the people who will vote against the absolute vile nonsense happening right now. And, she’s right, the trick isn’t to bring people from the far side all the way across the line – it’s to make sure that everyone who’s on your side actually shows up to the fight. That’s empowering, that’s a helpful thing to focus on. That’s something that can actually be done that will matter.
The second thing that helped was that I went to a workshop on native garden planning last weekend, run by a local organization that, among other things, supports rewilding efforts in my town. The aim of the workshop was to help people who wanted to bring native plants into their yards figure out how to do so in a way that was doable for them. It was absolutely delightful to spend a morning in a room full of people who all cared about finding ways to support native flora and fauna in their own yards. And, as it turns out, the organization is looking for volunteers at the moment.
So, there it is. The opportunity to get involved, dropped right into my lap. I’m reaching out to them soon to figure out exactly what my involvement might look like, but I have the feeling I’ll find a niche for myself with them, and there’s nothing quite like the excitement of figuring out how to apply the skills, knowledge, and resources you have in a way that matters to something you care about.
Trash Panda Druiding 