Perfection

Tictictictictictic...

Remember this game? You know, the one by which we instill in our children a lifelong fear of sudden heart failure? It's called Perfection, and since the goal is to correctly match all the shapes into their holes within the allotted time lest the whole game board explode like a jack-in-the-box on meth, its name seems to imply that anything less than the nominal perfection is catastrophic, cardiac-arresting disaster. Good times. That tictictictictic of the timer still makes my hands sweaty just thinking about it. WHY CAN'T WE JUST BE VERY GOOD AT SOMETHING!!??

The reason I bring up Perfection is to evoke the lit-fuse urgency and dread one feels (one belonging to the Perfection generation, anyway) whenever there is a limited amount of time in which to accomplish a large number of tasks. My previous post laid out a few of the many such tasks to be tackled around Fencebroke. What I failed to mention is that—tictictictic—there is a—tictictic—timer going on in the—tictictic—background while I hem and haw and dither and procrastinate and wait for the weather to clear.

For Spring lies in wait, ticking silently underground, like an impending subterranean nuclear test blast beneath our feet. At least that's how I feel. But I mean, what difference will it make if I manage to relocate a couple perennials and add a row of bricks to the patio and prune two out of five apple trees when tictictictic—KPPSHWHOOOMPH!!!—Spring explodes in my face come April and I can't even find the rest of the apple trees. Unless I accomplish every. Single. Thing. To perfection. Then it will all be for nought, it will all be buried 'neath the incoming, supersonic, pyroclastic shrapnel cloud of daffodils and yellow plastic game pieces. That's just the way life works. According to Milton Bradley anyway. Those folks must have been gardeners.

To-Do

Whew! Okay, uh … sorry, just had a mini freak out when I started thinking about all the off-season gardening tasks on the docket for Fencebroke this Winter. But, if there's one thing I've learned from my brilliant wife over the years, it's that there's not a problem in the world too overwhelming to be solved—or at least put off for a few more minutes—by making a list. So here goes …

*Prune fruit trees

*Design and build small greenhouse out of existing materials

*Install new cinderblock border for veggie bed; plant strawberries in cinderblock holes

*Throw away old, expired seeds

*Buy new seeds

*Stifle guilt of once again buying too many seeds

*Build support for raspberries planted last year

*Find and re-bury treasure

*Dig new bed for planting quinoa; use sod thus lifted to start a new squash mound

*Figure out why the @##$^& I can't seem to grow potatoes

*Finish planting and edging existing ornamental beds

*Conduct mass funeral for all the plants that didn't make it this year

*Clean out rain barrels

*Find a way to market my book in China; learn Mandarin

*Dig-up and relocate at least 75% of so-called “permanent” plantings; after careful consideration, replant at least 50% of those back in the same spot they came from.

*Pot-up container plantings

*Clean out fire pit; burn all incriminating documents

*Plan edible plantings for the year in order to maximize nutrition, yield, variety, flavor, preservation, kid-friendliness, and length of growing season; give up and just wing it.

*Instill in offspring a lasting sense of harmony and connection to the Earth through the thoughtful cultivation of its soil; give up and put on Daniel Tiger instead.

*Find a way to share this year's harvest with those in need

*Prune dead limbs on trees in front yard

*Make garden more bird-friendly

*Make garden less cat-friendly

*Make garden more gardener-friendly

*Re-do and expand back patio for better—

—You know what? This isn't helping at all. I can't even … I don't know where to … and the ground is still frozen … and the kids won't ever nap at the same time and—

All right, I've got a new, simplified list:

*Stay inside

*Drink coffee

*Play video games

Check, check, and … check. Turns out my wife was on to something.

New Year's Eve

The leaves are down. The rains and wind have settled in. Our brief Northern days are half dusk and half struggling dawn. A murder of crows patrols the low gray sky. Dour little winter birds descend to scratch and pick what little forage a sleeping Fencebroke has to offer.

From inside, windows are gazed through, as upon harvest memories not so long removed. Weeks of apples, a whole heapa tomatoes, cucumbers every day because why not? Meanwhile, the kitchen fruit basket sulks with waxy, bland, store-bought Produce®. That's not fruit. That's not a salad. Enough is enough.

The back door is cracked like a seal on something new. Flanneled morning sorties assess the garden, coffee in hand. The slumber is evaluated, dormancy surveilled. What designs for the new year? What will be come Spring? More coffee. Plans are laid. Dreams are sown. Let's do quinoa! Pickles! Still more tomatoes! A SCALED REPLICA OF THE GARDENS OF VERSAILLES! Okay, too much coffee. But the first dirt under the nails of tomorrow.

And then, like a beautiful and cathartic mailbox angel (you know, one of those) here to grant some small measure of peace to a weary 2016, the first seed catalog arrives. It brings hope and reassurance, that in the coming year, like every other, there will be seeds to plant. And some will grow, and some will not. And that, as always and after all, is life in the Garden.  

Ten Reasons Not to Buy Twenty Reasons Not To Garden (And Why I Ignore Them All) And Why You Should Ignore Those Reasons Not to Buy It

1. I just made you read that godawful title for a blog post, which pretty well satisfies any lingering obligation you may have felt to support my creative endeavors.
2. The cover is such a thoroughly irradiated green that you may have trouble sleeping in the same room.
3. The book is almost certainly headed for cult-classic status, and you don't want to seem like the kind of person who indulges that kind of pretentious alt-literature snobbery.
4. After it becomes a cult-classic, it will likely achieve some measure of mainstream success, and you don't want to seem like the kind of person who reads books you can find in the grocery store checkout line.
5. When people see the book on your shelf, they will probably want to ask you about it, and frankly, if you wanted to discuss books you would have just joined a book club. At least then you could drink wine.
6. The book is meant to be funny, so if you find yourself not laughing while reading it, you might be dead inside. No one needs that kind of doubt during the Holidays.
7. What if reading the book makes you actually want to start gardening? Then you're doomed to live out all twenty reasons not to garden I went to such great pains to point out. Trust me, they're not as funny when you're experiencing them first hand.
8. It costs $10. That's like … two gingerbread lattes. Which would you rather have this time of year, honestly? It's okay, me too.
9. Yes, it makes a perfect Christmas gift or stocking-stuffer, but what happens when you give a perfect gift? Sure, the person you're giving it to loves it. They'll tear up. They'll thankyouthankyouthankyou. They'll laugh and cry at the same time. They'll be forever in your debt … a debt for which they will secretly resent and despise you for the rest of your life. It's just a silly book, it's not worth that kind of baggage.
10. How good could it really be? There's not a single vampire, zombie, princess, ghost, werewolf, secret agent, wizard, vampire-princess, zombie-wizard, or secret agent-werewolf in the whole thing.

So after all that, what possible justification could there be for buying my book? Simply put, my friends, the reason you should buy Twenty Reasons Not To Garden is this: it could end up on Oprah's Book Club some day and you want to be the person who's like, “Yeah, I totally read that before it was on Oprah's Book Club.” That's it. For once, don't you want to be the jerk who was ahead of the game? That's what I thought.

The Five Kales Summoned

The Five Kales aligned.

It is written:

When the five great houses of kale

Are summoned from every corner of the garden

(And I guess one from the middle somewhere)

In the dead of night

In the Winter cold

Together upon a single altar

Then will the feast of five deliciousnesses begin

And confer to the faithful gardener

(whom many mocked for his steadfast pursuit of kalish perfection)

Fortune and immortality and yumminess.

Call forth the five kales!

'Tuscan Baby Leaf', O mighty dwarf! Say YUM!

'Scarlet x Lacinato', son of two ancient tribes! Say YUM!

'Wild Russian', untamed and unsurpassed! Say YUM!

'Tronchuda Beira', Portuguese behemoth! Say YUM!

'Cosmic', radiant sentinal! Say YUM!

And now, let the five great kales

Be simmered in juices savory

For an epoch

Or until tender and reduced to quintessence

Or about half an hour

And at long last let the gardener

Eat his weird meal

And it was so. And it was good.

Hay Hunt

Jump in! Mind the bricks, however.

All right, kiddos, it's ready! Fencebroke's traditional late harvest hay hunt is all spread and ready to dive in! Wooo! Sorry, I get so excited. These are the things that bring out the kid in me. Since the grown-up world has far fewer legitimate treasure hunts than I was led to expect as a child, it falls to me to create little ones wherever I can. It's pretty easy, really, you just have to periodically remind yourself that all of the stress-creased, frantic, sleep-deprived automatons chugging Starbucks all around you were once, not so long ago, wide-eyed children scrabbling for the wondrous caches of candy, coins, and little toys secreted by mysterious forces in stockings, pinatas, Easter eggs, hay piles, and arcades everywhere. The world was pregnant with loot.

Then they grew up and found in those hiding places only lint, runny yolks, and allergies.

So I think we all need a little treasure hunt now and then.

Sure, our tastes change as we grow up, which is why the treasure of the Fencebroke Hay Hunt consists largely of root vegetables and hardy winter greens. I've already found a rutabaga and two carrots! And not to spoil the surprise too much, but there's definitely some heirloom Scottish beet seeds down at the bottom somewhere. Oh, and the big fat earthworms are finders-keepers. But I've said too much.

Rest assured, anyway, there's something for everyone. My daughter loves Kix cereal, so maybe I scattered a box or five of Kix and maybe I didn't. (I did.) And sometimes grown-ups need a bit of incentive to break from their routine and get out there where the treasure is. So maybe I hid my wife's car keys. “Keep at it, baby, what's more important, getting to work on time, or rekindling your childish sense of wonder and adventure?”

Hey, look! Even crows like a good hay hunt. And, uh, squirrels. And raccoons and possums and seagulls and rats and—boy, kids, you better get out there before all the Kix are gone!

A couple ground rules before we get started: the hay itself is not part of the treasure, so no stealing it to mulch your own garden; there is a limit of 1 leek and 1 parsnip per person—those things take forever to grow; and finally, if you find a set of car keys, please return them post-haste to my wife, as I may have crossed a line somewhere in all this hay fever.

"Irrigation"

Does plumbing have a place in a garden blog?

How about if we call it “garden infrastructure improvements”? After all, it was the catastrophic failure of the existing pipes which led so some unanticipated, undesired, and all together unfortunate irrigation and … er … fertilization of the grounds. And the house itself, actually. But the plants! The plants don't need this kind of trauma, please think of the plants! Damn the expense, I'll not have pipes breaking willy-nilly and “watering” the garden and laundry room whenever they please. Only the best for my – wait a minute … is this the bill? Hold on, Mario, are those gold pipes you are putting in my backyard? Was the burst pipe radioactive, subsequently contaminating the entire property and requiring extensive environmental remediation? Have you had to do battle with hoards of crab-walking mushroom creatures in order to complete the work agreed to in our contract? NO? THEN HOW ELSE DO YOU JUSTIFY THE SIZE OF THIS BILL!?

I changed my mind, the garden can handle a little unforeseen irrigation. And Fencebroke has plenty of room for an outhouse right there next to the tool shed.