The Hermans Host A Rave

Posted on March 2, 2012 by rebeccapalumbo

The worm factory was assembled and I left for Florida the next morning – which was probably the very best thing that could have happened to those worms, given my curiosity and maternal feelings. They were able to settle in, dark and damp, undisturbed and unruffled, for an entire week.

Of course, when I got back, the temptation was just too overwhelming. When I opened the basement door, the first thing that hit me was the odor. More specifically, the lack of it. While it’s all well and good to read on every vermicomposting website that there is virtually no odor, we do well to take these claims with a grain of salt. (Much like I lifted my brow incredulously when reading the claim that if I just avoided bananas, I could lose 20 lbs in one week. Who eats that many bananas in the first place?)

Here, the claims were true. There was the faintest wisp of earthiness in the air, a fleeting vapor of a fresh soil smell, but that soon vanished, leaving me to wonder if it was just the basement door being closed for a week – or my imagination. With Tony beside me, we opened the lid on the farm.

It was still full of worms. (Tony headed back up the stairs quickly.) There was a sprinkling of castings on top of the heap of organic material, looking like caraway seeds tossed into the mix. “Just four weeks to get through a tray?” I wondered. It seemed to me that these little girlguys had a great deal to chew through in the three remaining weeks and it also seemed that their pace was not fast enough. “I must have lazy worms,” I sighed. I popped the lid back on, shut off the light and silently urged them not to be slackers, to be real red wigglers and to make me proud.

I waited another two weeks, going to great lengths to ignore the farm sitting on the landing each and every time I went into the basement, never opening the lid. The suspense really was killing me. I longed to check their progress nearly every day. My self-control was astonishing.

I was making myself proud.

Today, three weeks after they were dumped into their new home, full of brussel sprout and shredded paper possibilities, I checked again.

Wow. Slackers they are not. After the initial lull, these worms have put on the full-court press. As light poured into the tray, little heads lifted and swayed back and forth. I could almost sense eyes (if they had any) squinting as they were roused from this bacchanalia, groping for that red solo cup and clutching sore heads. What a party indeed.

Worm castings were flung hither and yon, with a substantial decrease in the size of the original material. The pile has shrunk dramatically. Worms crawled and crept and slithered; some alone, like the weird kid in the kitchen who’s caught going through the cabinets, but most tangled in a heap of slime, like the mosh pit in the living room, all dancing so closely together, bumping and pushing, that they become covered in each other’s sweat (Well, yes, I know it’s a gross thought, but I’m sure it’s happened to you at some point in your life. Unless you were the weird kid in the kitchen).

A smaller worm sat on the edge of the lifted lid, waving hisher tiny body in the air, the break dancer of the group. I could plainly see that they did not like the onions (they did worry about bad breath!) and they have not touched the tomatoes either. Perhaps they are continental and eat their salad last. Wait – this whole thing is salad.

The timing estimated by Uncle Jim’s nephew seems dead on. If they are this far along in three weeks of a non-stop whirlwind of dark, damp indulgence, one more week just ought to do it. I’ll add a new tray of carrot peels, potato peels, broccoli peels, onion peels (we seem to have a great deal of peels, don’t we?) next weekend. The worms will migrate up to the this new tray to continue the party with fresh supplies. They’ll leave behind a pile of poop, tiny bits and pieces of uneaten food and a whole lot of pee.

Kinda reminds me of Jersey Shore. Especially since worms look a lot like Snooki.

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Yes, Wonderful Things!

Posted on March 2, 2012 by rebeccapalumbo

Today, this first day of March, I’m changing my attitude. I’m going to stop wishing for two feet of snow. I’m going to stop dreaming of knee-deep drifts, stop fantasizing about ice-covered branches, stop hoping for front lawns askew with snowmen and stop thinking of slick sled runs.

It’s just too darn late. And the garden is just too darn early. Things are happening at an incredible pace, weeks and weeks before they did last year. The garden is waking up, much sooner than usual. The shoots are shooting, the buds are buddings, the greens are greening. I find myself daydreaming about soil, seeds and plant arrangements, transplanting, dividing and cutting back more and more. The itch to get out there is growing.

I’m too far gone to embrace snow now.

The daffodils in that toasty microclimate next to the house are taller and bushier today, March 1, than they were on the first day of spring last year. The buds are in full development. I can feel the thickness inside the outer covering, thin torpedos filled with a burst of yellow petals that should come well before the first day of spring this year.

Now I see that daffodils are up everywhere – in the front perennial beds, in the bed next to the driveway. They are up inches already, brave even in the face of this incredible weather. The hyacinth is up too, pointed little green cones poking through the dirt. The tulips unfurl, tiny funnels of emerald rimmed with red.

Last year’s clematis sags from the front trellis, no longer sheltering sparrows, just brown and dried and tangled. It needs to be cut down and thrown into the honey locust so the sparrows can re-establish their homestead.

Foxglove in the back beds has tender, tiny green leaves curling out of the center, harbinger of a good healthy crops of bells this summer. The new butterfly bed in back is decidedly not sprouting, there is little green. I think that this is the year it will sleep – and suddenly, a modest line of teeny sedum rosettes proves me wrong.

And shockingly – because they are always the last – the daffodils in the pin oak bed, up inches already, completely disregarding the calendar and taking their cue from weather alone. Most amazing – and indeed wonderful.

At the pond, dead leaves covering the netting almost entirely, I muse about the goldfish. We did have a few (just a few, very few) of below freezing days, most likely freezing the whole 16″ ish deep. Fish sticks, I figured, would be on the menu for spring. Suddenly here too, a surprise. At least one goldfish has made it through, unscathed. I see the flash of gold in a clear spot, wavering back and forth. “Well, look at lucky you,” I think. “How many of there are you down there?” I suddenly feel like the diver in “Goliath Awaits,” communicating with underwater survivors of uncertain attitude.

My hands are getting cold – it is not quite balmy spring yet. A cold mist is settling in, veiling me in a chill. It is only March 1, we must remind ourselves.

And two feet of snow really wouldn’t be that bad.

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They’re Heeerrrre!

Posted on February 18, 2012 by rebeccapalumbo

The worms were expected to arrive either Wednesday or Thursday. As the weather has been cold, I was hoping against hope that I’d be home when the postman arrived so the poor things wouldn’t have to sit out in the cold. The last thing I wanted was a box of frozen little worm carcasses on my front porch.

On Wednesday, I heard the familiar starting and stopping of the postal truck and looked out of (okay, actually ran to) the front window. When the postman stopped the truck, got out of the seat and began to rummage in the backseat, I was practically hopping up and down. I opened the front door as he turned with a big brown box in hand and started up the drive. He saw me on the porch and smiled. “This says ‘Live Product’ here,” he said.

“It’s worms!” I replied. “For indoor composting.” He lifted his eyebrows in a most compassionate way – perhaps thinking of all the times I’ve walked down to get the mail from him in purple latex gloves and silly hat. “Ahhhh,” he said. “You have fun with that.”

While I was indeed simply dying to open that box, postmarked from Uncle Jim’s Worm Farm, at that moment, I had projects to finish. If I opened it, that would be the end of that, so the box was placed on the kitchen table (don’t tell Tony- he’d never eat from that table again). At 4:30, I could stand it no longer. Scissors cut through tape, out came cardboard spacers and there, atop more brown plastic trays, wrapped in newspapers, was a cloth bag, damp and slightly squirmy.

I tugged on the drawstring and looked in. Yep, worms. Red and wriggling, looking a little dry and pathetic. Kind of weird and kind of cool all at the same time. I felt committed to their well-being immediately.

I unpacked the Worm Factory. A few wild adventurers had crept out of the bag during transit; those were found randomly between box and tray, jerking and flailing in the now-bright light. I was reminded of Earthworm in “James and the Giant Peach” – anthropomorphosizing this soon is going to mean trouble. A welcome sheet recommended adding about a 1/2 cup of water into the cloth worm bag immediately as “the worms probably need a drink.” I gently poured that in and set the bag on one of the plastic trays.

The assembly and farming instructions were printed on a slick white sheet in black ink and there were typos on the front that made me sigh in disappointment. The booklet told me I was a courageous, reliable, committed and intelligent individual, embarking on a quest both daring and challenging, sustaining the health of our beloved planet. Well, my goodness.

My sense of self-worth now happily inflated, I found all the parts as indicated, installed the faucet (to drain that worm pee, er, tea) in the collection bin and stacked all the other three trays, like dish pans with colanders in the bottoms, just as shown in the illustration. The lid fit snugly on the top tray.

And then things skidded to a halt. Included in the package were two Tyvek-like sheets – but nothing in the instructions explained what to do with them. The main illustration showed the two lower trays full of material: shredded paper, veggie peels and the like. But the instructions were incredibly vague, with sentences such as “Put the lid on the second trays.” Well, which one is the second tray? (the typos were making me nuts) Why were there “remaining unfilled trays” – plural – if you’re already using two of them? And citrus (orange peels) is a death knell for the worms? “Always feed worms from the top tray” made no sense as, in the illustration, the materials are clearly in the lower trays.

Since I am a fervent believer in the power of the 800 number, I dialed up Uncle Jim. And found out that the Worm Farm had closed just 15 minutes before. Internet searches revealed dozens of how-to videos to assemble the farm itself, but none of the getting-the-worms-situated-and-chewing information seemed to match Uncle Jim’s instructions.

Well, the worms were watered, squirming happily (or at least squirming) in a bag of damp peat. Could they last until Thursday morning? I thought yes. I packed the bag into one of the trays, stacked it all up and put it on the basement stairs landing and turned off the light.

There were no good night kisses and the kitchen table was scrubbed clean.

The next morning, I called Uncle Jim’s and spoke to (I would suppose) one of the nephews. He initially seemed a little put out at my questions, but explained very clearly (unlike the instructions) that the trays are added one at a time. The Tyvek can be used to line the tray – or not, as you prefer. The included bag of coconut coir should be mixed with enough water to make it almost soupy, but not quite (how about stew-y?), and laid on the bottom of the tray. This advice was mentioned absolutely nowhere in the booklet. Foodstuffs should be layered in (no citrus, not under any circumstances ever), a little shredded paper, “whatever you like” (except citrus, dairy, meat or oil) and then the worms dumped in and the lid closed. In 4 weeks, said the nephew, we should put more peelings and eggshells and shredded paper in a second tray. When we remove the lid from the first tray, we should see a pile of worm poop, er, castings at that point. That’s when we should put that second tray on top, replace the lid, and wait another week for the worms to migrate out of their (and I truly loved this) “byproducts.” After another few weeks, we’ll dump the castings in the bottom tray in the garden and add another materials-filled tray to the top, rotating these like a ferris wheel, with the most casting-rich tray on the bottom and the newest food at the top.

Never include citrus.

The nephew said the cycle will go faster and faster as the worms reproduce to fill the space, but never to overpopulate (that’s smarter than humans). He also mentioned that I shouldn’t include citrus peels or rinds. (I get it, I get it, I get it.)

I hung up the phone and went through the “Other Useful Hints” in the booklet again. With the nephew’s clarification, the hints made more sense. It was recommended that materials be cut into small pieces, even run through a food processor. In for a penny, in for a pound, I hauled out the Oster and shredded the old brussel sprouts and the mealy apples. I promised myself this would not become a regular custom.

I dumped the coconut coir into a big steel bowl and added water. The earthy smell of spring wafted from the bowl and I took a deep breath. And added more water. And more water. And more water – this stuff just sucks it up. Finally, there was enough to hand mix it into a sludge, seemingly exactly what the nephew described. That went on top of that sheet of Tyvek in the bottom tray. On top of that went the sprouts and apples and old onions (will the worms have bad breath? will they still be able to mate with this troublesome halitosis? or have I doomed this colony to a Shaker-like demise?). On top of that, shredded paper and a good drink of water. I did not add any orange peels.

The worms were then released from the bag, dumped rather unceremoniously into the center of this tray. I fretted about water content, so added another 1/2 cup. The shredded paper seemed to soak it up. The worms, every one of them named Herman, felt the wind in their hair and wiggled and squirmed in celebration of their freedom. I wondered if there were truly 1,000 and if there is someone at Uncle Jim’s patiently counting 1,000 worms into cloth bags. The cloth bag, seemingly completely empty, went outside the house nevertheless, placed on the backyard hose reel.

The lid went on the farm and the whole kit and kaboodle went to its permanent home on the landing of the basement stairs, two empty trays waiting their turn. All The Hermans can get to work now; the many factors for eating and pooping are perfectly in place. The temperature is perfect there, they have a very full meal in front of them and there is no citrus.

I shut the door to the basement and felt courageous, reliable, committed and intelligent. I felt like I’m doing a small part to make the planet a better place. I felt this year’s tomatoes will be juicier, the cucumbers bigger, the coneflowers taller and my impatiens bushier.

I felt the need to scrub the kitchen table again.

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Ordering Worms

Posted on February 4, 2012 by rebeccapalumbo

It’s getting to be a problem. We save egg shells, veggie peels, tea bags and those shredded confidential documents. Orange peels pile up, wilted celery piles on top of that. Makes you think that this might be the beginning of a hoarding story, doesn’t it? Fear not – there is nary a cockroach, rat, mold or fungus here.

We do, however, have a problem. While all these materials are perfect for composting, perfect for becoming those “coffee grounds” of nutrient-rich soil to be spread on top of our beds, they become a challenge in the winter. The compost bin is stuffed. I’ve filled every container I can find by pit composting. The lasagna composting in the front bed looks, quite honestly, gross without adequate snow cover.

So now, here come the worms.

I’ve been considering vermicomposting for about a year now. I’ve pulled up unclejimswormfarm.com so many times that my browser automatically fills in the site when I type “u.” I had many questions and concerns. Where do I put these things? They cannot be outdoors in the cold winter, or even in the baking hot summer. They are indoor crawlers. Do they ever escape from the worm farm? Will they smell? What if they are prolific breeders like Creepy and Crawly?

We found Creepy and Crawly, two snails, in a hibiscus pot many years ago (B.D – before dogs) and the kids insisted on keeping them as pets. I bought a small fishbowl, threw in some dirt, plants and a cuttlebone (recommended by the snail-keeping experts), and stretched a piece of screen in an embroidery hoop for a cover. Perfect low maintenance pets! Entertaining – albeit in an extremely slow, quiet way, but still entertaining. Of course, we read up on snails and discovered they are hermaphrodites; Creepy and Crawly were both males and females. How amazing, we thought! The first laying of eggs was also amazing, tiny pearls in the soil. The first hatching was amazing, the baby snails simply charming, traveling (at “breakneck” speeds) up and down the sides of the fish bowl, small as a pencil dot. Then we learned a lesson. While they may be slow travelers, snails breed faster than the blink of an eye. Soon, we had a fishbowl absolutely chock-full of snails of all ages, continuing to mate, lay eggs, hatch and mature in a matter of weeks. It was a perfect environmental disaster – a wonderful teaching moment. The kids and I discussed predators and prey and natural balance. Then we set the fishbowl outside and took off the cover. Hundreds (if not thousands) of snails made their way out into the sunshine, making the neighborhood birds very happy. We theorized that Creepy and Crawly, being so much older than the rest, were probably much wiser as well, and had made it down into the dirt safely – it made the kids feel better.

So do I really want to open up this new “can of worms”? Do I really want to have the responsibility to feed and shelter 1,000 red wiggler worms? Would this smell? These worms, Eisenia Foetida if you prefer the Latin, are perfect decomposing machines. They eat paper and peels and shells and even tea bags, converting them into worm castings (a very nice way of saying worm poop), packed with nutrients, making the perfect mulch and top dressing. Worm tea (a nice way of saying worm pee) is also full of nutrients. Fellow gardeners say there is no smell and escapes are rare. Still I hesitated. This was a big leap in compost craziness.

Today, I leapt into the insanity. I finally had enough of the just-plain-wrong look of the lasagna compost and dropped the Worm Factory (3 tiers so the worms migrate upwards to separate themselves from the compost – I am going only so far – I am just so not picking out worms from compost) into my shopping cart. 1,000 worms (the smallest quantity available) went in too. Found a discount code online and then pressed “place order.”

My brother Rich is amused and interested. He thinks he’s going to be another disaster; too many worms reproducing far too quickly, producing too many castings. He is looking forward to regular reports. I tell him there can’t be too many castings with all the beds we have. And as for too many worms – well, there’s always the birds.

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Dazed Daffodils

Posted on February 1, 2012 by rebeccapalumbo

Inspiration hits me this afternoon – the inspiration to open the windows and turn off the heat for awhile. How, for the love of all that’s green, can this be the last day of January? The temperature gauge is reading 50 degrees, with high 50’s forecast for tomorrow. Last year, we were hunkering down for one of the biggest snowfalls in recorded history. This year, we are all dancing the hula.

I open that window and I take a gambol around the garden. The air is mild, wet and full of an earthy smell. Not that spring smell – not yet, but still a good healthy outdoor perfume.

I make my way along the flagstone path and under the arbor, covered with dried clematis branches and emerge onto the side of the house. This side yard is starting to make me itch; it does not connect our front landscaping with the backyard. It is just a boring swath of green grass, bordered by a sidewalk and stressed-out weglia bushes planted way too close to the house. That side yard needs a plan, it needs soil and it needs plants. Ideas fly across my email constantly from gardening newsletters, making me feel guilty about my side yard’s lack of excitement. This will be my 2012 project, I decide. A thoughtful, designed side yard will pull everything together.

Somewhere, Tony’s back is cringing at the thought of wheelbarrows full of soil.

There is one lone lump of snow in the front grasses bed, the residue of a shovelful from the driveway.

The lasagne compost looks simply dreadful without snow, just piles of peels and scads of shredded paper in the front bed. In a normal winter, this would be covered with snow, freezing and thawing, decaying and decomposing. But this is not a normal winter.

How abnormal it is I soon see – and get a jolt. The daffodils, always first on the scene near the house, are up by inches already. On January 31. The tender green blades are frighteningly early, exposing themselves to such possible trauma. When the temperature drops into freezing, those tips will stop growing and turn black, preparing themselves for a rather unique look this spring when growing begins again. I look more carefully and see foxglove emerging, sedum growing and iris peeking out of last’s year wreckage. Even the grass grows, green as Ireland, eerie and unfamiliar at this time of year. The spot left by the honey locust removal is filling in throughout this weird, weird winter, and for that I cannot complain.

The pond holds a sheet of ice floating in the center, the edges melted into black. I look for fish swimming beneath the floe, but see no flash of gold, no streak of yellow.

The daffodils in the back yard are not up yet, there are no peek-a-boos of green under the pin oak. The new butterfly garden stretching across the back yard shows no signs of life either, but the recently transplanted evergreen is still green and healthy-looking. This may be a success. This strange season is not bringing enough water, either in snow or in rain so I worry about the new butterfly bushes, the new river birch, all the transplanted coneflower.

This 15-minute browse has enlivened me, made me feel chipper and happy. It is always good to be outdoors, to breathe fresh air, feel warm breezes and be a part of the natural world.

Back inside, I water the tiny Christmas trees (still alive!) in the dining room and am hit with another inspiration. These three trees will make the perfect anchor for that side yard in the spring.

I settle back in to work, closing the window. While the gardener in me is concerned about having a hot mess of spring foliage, the outdoor person in me really hopes I can open it again tomorrow.

 

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Pea Planning

Posted on January 30, 2012 by rebeccapalumbo

I love grids. There’s something calming and organized and structured and just plain sensible about a grid. Grids are useful in just about everything we do, from driving to drawing to planning a garden.

Digging a new bed or plotting annuals in an old one is the perfect place to implement a grid. Rows of squares and clusters of circles all nestle together to fill the space. Moving plants around on paper is so much more efficient – and healthier for the plant. Grids solve problems before they become problems as we can consider eventual plant height and width while they are still seeds.

I also love seed catalogs. There’s something about the arrival of these publications, filled with eye-popping flowers and vegetables beaded with clean raindrops, that make the dreariest, coldest, bone-chilling-est, windiest, most miserable days seem like a moment of warm sunshine.

Getting the newest Burpee catalog presents problems. Do we flip through quickly, read through slowly or just turn to the pages we know are of interest for our particular garden? I couldn’t decide, so I did all three. The first read-through was a quick scan, just enough to see how the catalog was arranged. The second reading was done page by page, with careful mental notes made of seeds that sounded promising. Then, ah! the third reading. With pen and paper in hand, I turned to those pages I knew were important and wrote down my wish list.

Today, I bundled up in winter coat and gloves, grabbed a tape measure and headed to the veggie bed. The bright sun belied the cold bite in the air; my cheeks felt raw fairly soon. A garden ornament left standing caught the sunshine and popped bright blue against the snow. It’s round and walking up to it, I noticed that the shadows from the tomato cages (really? I didn’t get those put away?) made a pattern of circles, like the Olympic rings. The ornament fit right into those shadows – how very charming. The tree stump was dusted with snow, the fungus bright white.

Last fall, I had an epiphany: I could use the existing tall wooden fence as one of my Damn Rabbit blockades and use all the wire panels to create a longer protected veggie bed. I measured the fence panels and measured the veggie bed and realized I could plant spinach, lettuce, beans, peas and brussel sprouts in a 23 foot x 3 foot space – double the size of last year’s protected bed. Even in the cold and the snow, I could visualize spring sprouts with panels in place straight and neat, Damn Rabbits salivating on the outside, pea hopes dashed and spinach dreams destroyed.

In the house, toasty and warm with Griffey snoring on my feet, I created a grid on paper, one square for each foot of space and plotted in my vegetable choices. Vertical supports will be built for the peas, cukes and beans, made of piping tied with biodegradable netting. I see this garden more clearly now, a rush of pedestrian vegetables. My enthusiasm for seeds and for grids doesn’t carry over to my family’s eating habits; they are very modest and safe in their vegetable choices. It is planned, the seed order just needs to be placed.

Now, spring is that much closer. Sunshine and warmth is that much closer.Digging in the dirt, planting something new is that much closer. Sweet crisp peas fresh from the garden are closer now.

I love that too.

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A Serial Killer Confesses

Posted on January 30, 2012 by rebeccapalumbo

Dead bodies, dead bodies, everywhere dead bodies. Dead bodies in the kitchen, dead bodies in the library. Dead bodies splayed; rotting, mouldering, withering and blackening.

There’s only a twinge of guilt, a whisper of remorse, a mist of hesitation when a new victim is selected. The overwhelming feeling is hope, a sunny optimism that everything will be different next time – and next time – and next time. But the slaughter just grows, the bodies stack up – the floracide continues.

You see, I murder houseplants. For the life of me (and, most unfortunately, the death of them), I cannot keep a houseplant alive for any length of time. Any. At all.

I received a bountiful and glorious live arrangement after the death of a relative and ambitiously bought a self-watering container and clean potting soil. I transplanted carefully, watching for roots and for crowding. Once settled in a sunny southern window, the perfect place I’m told, the plants inside this splurge of a pot immediately began to swell and droop, as if they were overwatered. A few passed to Horto-Heaven right then and there.

So I stopped watering. And then forgot completely about watering, except when I thought about it. Which wasn’t very often. Every now and then (mostly then – hardly ever now), I would throw the water in drinking glasses left from dinner into the container. And pull out yet another dead plant. For awhile, the last survivor, a vine, really gave it a shot, really fought against the torture and rallied against the cruelty. But around Thanksgiving, that vine’s will broke completely. By Christmas, it was just another brown twig dropping leaves on the carpet and the container was just another pot of dirt and cadavers.

Thanksgiving is also when I found a new torture device: the terrarium. Articles about terrariums sit in stacks in my office, sprinkled with memories of childhood terrarium failures. When I saw that big glass jar at the Container Store, it called to me – and to my killer instinct. Ted’s Greenhouse provided the soil, the charcoal and the victims – er, plants. The first go-round was bright lime green moss (that died so quickly, I can’t even remember the name) a Red Ti plant that is (wonder of wonders, miracle of miracles!) still alive and an African violet. Pre-terrarium, I managed to keep the violet alive for several months in a not-so-bright kitchen window. It was healthy and happy in a little pink pot, absolutely content, so naturally it had to die. In my defense (your honor), terrariums are supposed to be a perfect environment for African violets.

After the lime green turned black and slimy, with the violet well on its way to the same, I went back to Ted’s and talked to Ted himself. He informed me that the pea gravel recommended for drainage (I doubled the depth given my violent criminal history) was “bull$%^#.” When I expressed confusion and despair, he did give me hope, recommending more sacrifices – er, possible plants – that will tolerate moist soil and confined spaces. I came home with an Alternanthera and a Peperomia Puteolata. After removing the evidence (i.e. dead plants) and planting these, I really really thought this time, it would be different.

Two weeks later, the Peperomia is surviving, the Alternanthera is dead.

Sighhhh…back to Ted’s next week to select another innocent. However, there is a flicker, a spark, the barest glimmer of hope here. For every three plants I buy, one seems to survive the misery inflicted upon it. At this rate, I should have a thriving, healthy terrarium by, oh, let’s say 4th of July.

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Sunrise In Winter

Posted on December 28, 2011 by rebeccapalumbo

The air was chillingly crisp this morning, the beginning of a perhaps real winter day. I opened the back door to see that unique light, that light that only comes in winter and only in the minutes just after dawn. This light seems to paint the garden in a burnished, flattened gold while popping the evergreen foliage into a deep forest. The browning leaves, the dying plants, the seed heads turn from ecru and beige to something kissed by a mysterious aura, something magical. The spruce and fir and pine radiate an energy, a set-apartness, never really noticed in the riot of summer color.

The green is unsettlingly within the pampas grass; there should be no hint of it this late in December. Coneflower seedheads nudge through the labyrinth of blades, dark brown and black against tan, circles against blades, arcs against lines. The lawn is still green, but now caught in morning’s rime. Each step feels like a new chance to walk fairy-light across the yard dancing atop the blades, then ruined when the foot’s pressure cracks and bends the grass.

Geese call.

The sky is filled with waves of clouds, like a windswept ocean turned awry and mounted in the blue. A tableau of russet dried sedum blooms, green and red coral bell foliage and silver lamb’s ear lines the driveway, broken by the white gold of mulch, otherworldly in this light.

A milkweed pod has cracked open wide, revealing the soft fluff of seeds. That fluff coats the dried alyssum below, blankets the stems of the coreopsis, tangles in the branches of the butterfly bush. More pods open, also trailing seeds and fluff like a frilly winter scarf. There is a pod completely empty, an ovary of juttering ebony lined in cream, bisected by a peach skeleton.

Around the corner sit the pumpkins, nestled among pots of dried and dead fuchsia mums. They sit in a sheen, not ice-covered but frozen nonetheless. The skin is scraped through, whether by teeth or claw. The flesh of the pumpkin is exposed, delicious for the diner if the enthusiastic gnawing is any clue. The texture is intriguing, the color fabulous.

This one moment is incredible. The chill of the air as I breathe in, the light all around, the blue between the clouds, the gold, the green, the black, the shimmer and shine, the flat and the dull. It is here, it is now and I am so grateful that I am too.

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Gambling On A Freeze

Posted on December 28, 2011 by rebeccapalumbo

On Christmas Day, our dining room and kitchen tables went all Martha Stewart.

While watching bad television with Eliza, I cut out three-dimensional trees from white cardstock. Alternating with six very small spruce trees I found on the clearance rack at Lowes ($1.25 each – how happy is that), the tables looked elegantly festive, handmade charm and nature side by side. Our guests oohed and aahed quite satisfyingly until distracted by the place cards my mom made. The white foam snowmen were all personalized with photographs of “our favorite things.” Tony’s held coffee, popcorn and a golf club, my sister-in-law’s exercise equipment and wine, and my uncle’s the television remote. There were 21 of them, all individual, all thoughtful, all reflecting exactly who we are.

Before you say it, my mother agrees: she has too much time on her hands.

At the end of the evening, those six spruce trees sat near the front door, beckoning guests to take one home. After everyone had put on their coats, gathered up their dishes and gifts, doled out kisses and hugs and one more kiss and headed for home, there were three trees left. Since half of our guests live in condos with strict planting guidelines, I could hardly object to their polite refusal of a tree. I watered the remaining plants and put them in an aluminum pan in the bright dining room. I looked out the windows, front and back, to try to find a spot where three eventually-huge spruce trees could fit in our garden. Nothing looked very promising.

In ordinary winters, there would be no question that they would live here for months, watered occasionally, waiting for the weather to warm and spring to arrive. But this winter is a weird one. There has been almost no snow yet this year and absolutely unheard-of balmy temperatures. The lawn is still green. Freezing temperatures are barely called for, even into the beginning of January. I’ve worn a real winter jacket just twice.

So the odds are now considered. How long would it take for the trees to settle themselves into the soil before a solid freeze? Could a freeze come earlier than predicted? Wouldn’t it be best to wait until the temperature was right for the trees to actually grow before planting them? Or would it be best to get them out of these confining little plastic pots as soon as possible? The mind reels with bet-hedging, with long-shots, and with throwing the dice, anguishes best left in Vegas where they belong.

I have never been much of a gambler in my personal life. In two trips to Nevada in my lifetime, I’ve put one quarter in one slot machine and am still disappointed that I lost those two bits. I do not want to lose these trees, even though they didn’t cost much more than that pull on the slot machine. I will not take the risk, I will not make the bet.

This is not a sure thing. The enclosed container could choke them out. I could douse them with too much or not enough water. They could just “pine” away. But I’m putting my money on the favorite, trusting in the fallibility of Tom Skilling and the like. The trees will stay safe and warm in the dining room, watered when they need it. When spring arrives and the ground warms, we’ll see how this wager has worked. We’ll see if they are healthy and green. We’ll see if they are thriving. We’ll see if they’ve survived.

We’ll see if we can find a place to plant them.

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Spike’s New Neighborhood

Posted on December 28, 2011 by rebeccapalumbo

Spike the Betta Fish, usually a resident of Normal, Illinois, found himself in Tinley Park for the holidays. Spike had visited for a week previously at Thanksgiving and now was astonished at the changes wrought. All night long, a tree in the family room – a tree! inside the house! – glowed in a rainbow of glitter and sparkle. There was garland everywhere, balls of mistletoe hanging from every doorway and the same songs playing over and over and over again on the radio. “Drat that 93.9,” thought Spike.

The biggest change, however, was on the table next to him, soaking in the window’s ambient light he had heretofore considered exclusively his own. It was a large glass jar, thick and solid, with a round-knobbed heavy lid. It reminded Spike of a vintage apothecary jar (he wasn’t quite sure how he knew about vintage apothecary jars). The jar was layered with different materials; pea gravel on the bottom, then pebbles of charcoal, then a thick layer of soil. There were plants in here too; a moss, a violet and some sort of bladed spikey sprout with which Spike, for some vague reason, felt a kinship.

The Girl Who Sang told him that this was a terrarium. Spike blew bubbles at her and asked her for an explanation of a terrarium. The Girl Who Sang rolled her eyes and said, “It’s a hippie dippie 70’s thing. Mom says it’s an enclosed ecosystem.”

“Wow,” thought Spike. “That’s exactly where I live – in an enclosed ecosystem!”

As the days passed, Spike noticed that beads of water appeared on the sides of the glass, rolled down and disappeared again. Beads of water glistened from time to time on the plant leaves. The two plastic mice, an unexpected bit of kitsch, sat on the soil and smiled blankly at him day and night. The Mom would lift the lid and take a whiff of the musty odor, stick the tip of her finger into the soil. Once, she trickled water onto the moss.

Over the next week, the moss started to darken. The outer leaves of the violet began to droop and turn a deep green. The Mom poked her finger into the soil daily now, until finally came a morning where she lifted the jar from the table and moved it near the sink. Out came the mice, out came the violet, out came the spike, out came the moss. The Mom lifted out spoon after spoon of dirt. She gently removed soil from the roots of the violet and the spike. The moss, completely black now, went into the compost pile. Back into the jar went the pruned violet and the spike. The mice were placed back inside too. The jar was placed next to Spike on the table again, this time without the lid to let the excess moisture in the soil evaporate.

“It’s Houseplants for Dummies,” sighed The Mom. “And I can’t even manage that. I just stink at indoor plants.”

Spike thought about his enclosed ecosystem. The Girl Who Sang scooped him into a net and then into a small jar every week or so. His tank was emptied, the rocks rinsed. Fresh clean water filled the tank, his bright pink plant was replaced and then Spike was allowed back into his world. He knew it took some effort.

Spike considered the wider world, of which he had seen on his ride to and from Normal and realized The Mom was being a little too hard on herself. Ecosystems, large and small, all need care and tending. Sometimes there is too much water, sometimes too little. Sometimes cold takes its toll and sometimes it is the heat. Sometimes plants thrive so well they overcrowd each other and sometimes, like the moss, they die.

He swished his beautiful blue fins, like chiffon upon a breeze. He knew that, with tweaking, time and care, this terrarium could be practically self-sufficient. He recommended a trip to Ted’s Greenhouse. And The Mom agreed.

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