Archive for ‘Organic Gardening’

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July 6, 2011

Letting go of the garden…for the love of a dog

Sometimes things happen in life that I just don’t understand.  I’m the type of person who tries to figure out how everyday things fit into the big picture.  Often if it’s not obvious at first, given time, things begin to make sense to me.  This weekend, something happened that still doesn’t.

While working in the garden on Sunday, the gate to our backyard was either inadvertently left open or didn’t latch and our dog got out without anyone realizing.  This wasn’t the first time.  Usually when she “escapes” she heads down the block to play with other dogs in the neighborhood.  Sunday, for some reason, she did not.

At one point, I glanced up from gardening and couldn’t see her. I didn’t think much of it because I’d seen her just a couple of minutes before and there are many little corners that she normally goes to in the yard to torment chipmunks, search for bunnies or just bask in the sun.  A few minutes later, as I sat on the back steps to take a break and cool off, she came around the corner of the house and sat by my feet as she often does.

I had just started to pet her when my husband came around the corner where she had come from and said a car had just stopped to tell him that our dog had just been hit by a car.  The side of our house is on a busy street.  Apparently when she got out she headed up the street and was by the nearby gas station when she got hit.  It didn’t seem possible.  At first we questioned whether they had the right dog.  That’s when I noticed the deep cuts on her back leg which she simultaneously started licking.   My heart sunk, tears started running down my face.  I was sick to my stomach.  The thought of something like this happening to her without even knowing she was gone had every emotion welling inside me.

Thankfully the car that hit her had not driven over her with their tires, but had “bumped” her. The speed limit on this road is 35 mph but people often speed so we have no idea how badly she’d been hit. Thankfully she could still walk.  Thankfully she headed back home and thankfully the people who witnessed this followed her home so they could tell us what had happened.

Grateful as we were that it wasn’t worse, a small dog is no competition for a car.  After an hour or so of observing her at home, we decided to taker her to the ER Vet. In addition to her cuts, she had swelling in her belly and started bruising pretty badly.  After a lengthy exam and a number of x-rays they decided to keep her overnight to observe her.  Even after x-rays and an ultrasound, they weren’t confident that she didn’t have internal injuries.  This was heart wrenching news.  Having lost our previous dog to cancer just 2 short years ago, all the emotions came bubbling back up and I was incredibly fearful that I was going to lose “my little girl”.

We adopted this little rescue dog just a month or two before my fever and fatigue started in 2009.  From the beginning, she has always been by my side.  Wherever I was, she was.  She wouldn’t get up in the morning until I got up no regardless as to how hard anyone tried to convince her.  If I went to lay down, she would follow me and snuggle with me no matter how long I slept.  Having finally gotten my energy back a couple of weeks ago, I promised her we’d get out walking every day.  As I laid in bed Sunday night, trying to go to sleep, I was fearing the few walks we’ve gotten under our belt would be the end.  I was a mess.

Thankfully, the morning of July 4th the ER Vet called with good news.  Her breathing remained clear overnight, the swelling in her belly/abdomen hadn’t gotten any worse and they’d sent her x-rays and ultrasounds out to radiologists and had a surgeon look at her.  Everyone was comfortable letting her come home.  I was elated! Tears welled in my eyes while I filled with relief.  I couldn’t get to her soon enough.

So, my “little girl” is home.  She’s moving slowly and on some pretty hefty pain meds, but she’s on the road to recovery.

As I sit here typing on my laptop, with her by my side, questions are running through my mind.  Why did she go that way?  Why didn’t I check to make sure she was in the yard?  Why did this happen?

Was it a big fat sign that I need to get the latch on the gate fixed? (That seems like a pretty strong message, doesn’t it?)

Is it to teach me to not get so frustrated when she plows through my flowers to chase the chipmunks?  To remind me that perennials will come back, but there’s only one of her?

Was it to remind me just how precious life is, in any form and not to take it for granted?

Perhaps.  Perhaps all of these, or perhaps I’m way off base.

What I can say is that as much as I love all forms of gardening, I let a lot go this weekend.  The planting, the weeding, the watering… I let it all go…  All for the love of a dog.

Kate

Posted in Mindful Living, Organic Gardening | Leave a Comment »

June 25, 2011

Edible Weed #2, Glowing Vinaigrette & Lessons from Austria

Maybe you saw the comment on my first edible weeds post reminding me of when my eyes were first opened to the concept of weeds being edible.

When I was in college I was fortunate enough to be able to do a study abroad program in Graz, Austria.   That trip left a huge impression on me.  I lived with a wonderful host family and made life-long friends.  It’s also where my eyes were opened up to what incredible consumers we are in the US.  At times I almost felt guilty for being from the US, even embarrassed.  I think we’ve made great strides in the years since I was there, but we’re not even to the level of consciousness now that Europeans were nearly 20 years ago.

Their impression of us was that everything is big.  Big houses, big cars, Big Macs.  My impression of them when I first got there was that they did everything the hard way and everything was small. Small cars, small houses, everything they bought came in small packages, with very little packaging.  That was the first time I’d seen the small rectangular cartons that we can now buy broths, milk, etc. in.  At the time they were foreign to me, including lunch.

Lunch is the main meal of the day in Europe, which when you think about it, is way healthier than eating the main meal in the evening like the majority of Americans do.  When you eat in the middle of the day you’ll get energy when you’ll use it vs. filling up when you’re winding down at the end of the day when we don’t need it and then turn it into storage!

I’ll never forget the day I sat down to lunch with my host family and looked at the salad we were having.  Everything in my bowl looked peculiar.  The vinaigrette dressing was glowing green, but that wasn’t as disturbing as what it was on.  I thought I was going crazy, but this “lettuce” that was in my bowl looked a lot like leaves of the most common weed at home.  Since I’d just gotten to Austria and was still getting used to “Styrish” (the dialect in the part of Austria I was in) I thought something must be getting lost in translation.  Did my host mom just say we’re eating dandelions for lunch?  I laughed so hard at the concept.  I mean seriously, these people are eating for lunch, what we are determined to destroy with chemicals everyday!  Then I tried it.  Awesome!  The combination of the glowing green vinaigrette (made with pumpkin seed oil) and the dandelions soon became one of my favorite salads.  The next phone call to my parents I told them to quit putting chemicals on the lawn – the dandelions were lunch!

So there you have it, edible weed #2.  Dandelions!  Other than your front yard, dandelion greens can be found in co-ops, farmer’s markets and the mixed greens in most supermarkets.

Now run out and pick yourself a salad! (Unless of course you put chemicals on them, then definitely stay away!)

Kate

Posted in Edible Weeds, Environment, Healthy Eating, Mindful Living, Weeds | Leave a Comment »

June 24, 2011

Weeds and leaves – cont.

After I published my last post, I realized I forgot to mention one more thing about weeds.  Sometimes, we inadvertently plant them.

The past few years I’ve been putting straw on my veggie beds to keep the moisture in and keep the weeds down.  This year, it backfired.

When buying/sourcing straw there are a couple of key things to keep in mind. First, you want straw, not hay… hay is for horses.  Hay is green and food for animals.  Straw is  grain that has  already been harvested and only the stalks are left to dry. Second, make sure the straw is “seed free”.  In other words, no seeds mixed in with the stalks. We were told this load was “seed free or that there should be very few seeds in it” (red flag #1).  We did notice a few seeds when we originally unloaded the straw (red flag #2), but since he said there would be “very few” I spread it out not paying attention to every piece of straw that hit the beds (foolish flag #3).  Apparently I should have.  After the 40 days and 40 nights of rain that we just had I went out to the garden today to find a little surprise.  The straw is growing!  Now, I not only have tomatoes, onions, peppers, kale, etc.  I also have grain (I’ve yet to do plant ID on it or I’d be more specific) growing in-between the other plants.  When I first saw the shoots I thought perhaps it was just a coincidence and some seeds had blown into the garden, gotten carried by the birds, what have you.  That was until I looked at the small pile of straw I had yet to spread throughout my other veggie bed…

“Weeds” in the straw

So, lesson learned.  Be extremely cautious in the future.  Seeds + water + sunlight = sprouts (whether you planted them there or not).

Oh, and another note about seeds and leaves that I omitted earlier.  Not all seeds produce 2 leaves.  Most do, and those that do are called “dicots” (di = two; cot = cotyledon/seed leaf), there is also a group of plants that only produce one leaf, they are called… you guessed it, “monocots” (mono = one; cot = cotyledon).  Corn, grasses, grains and daylilies are all monocots and, as previously posted in Weeds and Leaves, plants are hard to ID by their seed leaves, even harder when they are monocots!  I can pretty much guarantee I won’t be leaving these to see what they turn into though.  Well, maybe.  At least not in the bed between the other plants. Yeah, probably not.

Your humble, ever-learning gardener

Kate

Posted in Edible Weeds, Plant Biology 101, Weeds | 4 Comments »

June 24, 2011

Weeds and leaves

Whether you’re a veggie gardener, flower gardener or a lawn lover you will find yourself weeding at some point through the season.  Ever since I was a kid I remember hearing people complaining about weeds and weeding their gardens.  At a very young age, I learned what weeding was all about.  My mom would send me out back to weed the veggie garden.  Oh, man!!! Why did I tell her I was bored?!? What was I thinking?  I’d drag myself out to the garden, sit on the edge of the bed and start in.  I consider this to have been my first Plant ID class. (This is also when I snacked on everything in the garden!)

If you’re going to weed a garden, you definitely need to know what to pull and what to keep.  If you’re not sure, leave it a few days or a week (or longer if necessary) until you can identify what it is.  Once you’ve got your plant ID down or at least know what the plants you put there are “supposed to look like”, the rest would be considered “weeds” (a.k.a. – any plant in a place you don’t want it).

I used the “leave it” method on a plant in my backyard a couple of years ago.  When I first noticed it, it wasn’t very big, but I wasn’t sure what it was. It was in a very bad spot in my flowerbed, but I was too curious to pull it.  By the time it got to be 7 feet tall (I kid you not) it had multi-lobed leaves and strongly resembled Mary J. except that I don’t have any experience growing that so I couldn’t say for sure one way or the other.  So I waited, curious to see what it would “do”.  Finally, near the end of the summer, it blossomed. Since the bloom was so far above my head, I may be short-changing it, but it ended up with a little, non-showy cluster of nondescript flowers.  Then, it got pulled.

Before you start weeding, I should back up a moment… make sure you know what you planted and what it looks like in each stage of growth.  Most seeds start with 2 cotyledon/seed leaves.  Seed leaves are made using energy stored within the seed and don’t have much character, so it makes it really hard to tell plants apart at this stage.  It’s not until they develop their 2nd set of leaves, their “true leaves”, that plant ID really becomes possible and weeding becomes safe.  As a side note, some plants will also have juvenile leaves which won’t look like their seed leaves or their mature leaves.  This can sometimes trip you up a little, but once you know what you’re looking for, you’ll be fine.

The best time to weed is after a lot of rain or after you’ve watered.  This makes the soil loosen up and allows weeds to come out by the root, which is always the goal.  It’s not always possible, but when it is, try not to just snap off the top or the root will just regenerate new top growth and you’ll literally end up weeding the same plant over and over again.

That’s it for now.

More edible weeds to come.

Kate

Posted in Edible Weeds, Plant Biology 101, Weeds | 1 Comment »

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