A growing season like no other

As springtime temperatures tease us into a season full of new adventure, we can pause and take a moment to ask ourselves, ‘Are we ready?’. Are we really ready?

~ Have we brewed a cup of tea and taken time to reflect on the growing season ahead? This is very important for me and perhaps for you too!

 Beginning

First, I think about my intentions, those related to the plants and myself.

Then, I also think about if and when I might be traveling. This can have an enormous impact, both early in the season when it comes to starting seedlings, later too when it comes to harvesting! There’s no point in growing oats if I will not be here [in northwestern PA] to harvest their milky seeds sometime between the 7th-15th of July.

I think about plants that bring me joy and not just medicine. I think about design and height in my growing spaces, color too as I plan to add annuals around the backbone of my perennial garden.

I think about available space. I know too that each year I want to grow “more”. I have learned to remember that growing more also means tending more. It also means watering more. Extending each bed, each year by just six or so inches around the perimeter has a notable effect on growing space. For me, these slow expansions allow for manageable change.

Having time and space

I prefer to plant sequentially whenever possible. This means that I can harvest over a longer period. Harvesting everything at once can involve not just time, but also cost and space. Space to dry if drying, to freeze if freezing, to tincture or make into a glycerite … and preparation! There is great calm in sifting and sorting, garbling and more. I don’t feel comfortable when pressed for time. I also believe that it compromises the integrity of a harvest.

This means that at the start of the season, I need to have some idea of what will become of all that I will be growing (medicinals and food crops) and that when it comes time to harvest that I have the necessary supplies on hand – from bottles to vinegar, from alcohol to freezer space and beyond.

At the start of the season, this season, as I sit with a cup of tea, or indeed multiple cups of tea, I also think about what I might do differently: what was cumbersome during the last growing season; what new medicinal might I introduce; what didn’t work out during the last growing season and what I might change. Over the many years that I have been growing, there is usually a crop, or part of a crop that doesn’t thrive and I try to understand this.

Reflecting on notes is sometimes helpful and many herbalists and gardeners keep journals with information about seed purchases, designs, dates and plantings/harvesting schedules, successes, and failures.

 How I love exploring catalogues

Another quiet few hours can be spent sorting through seeds and seed catalogues.

I will often plant seeds from a previous season. Even amongst new seeds, germination rates vary. This happens from supplier to supplier and from the seeds that I collect myself.

I sort seeds into those that need to be started indoors and those that can be sown directly into the soil once it warms up. I also offer seeds to the four winds. If I’m not sure if my seeds are still viable, I will scatter them over days as I walk my canine pal.

This year especially, but actually each year, I consider when to plant out. Certainly, here in Erie we have had an atypical winter and like many places around the globe, we cannot rely solely on historical records to predict temperature and moisture. Questions around when to plant out are pricking my consciousness this year. When will we have our last frost? There’s a regional tradition of planting June 1st to avoid frost … but can I move this date forward with any surety?

What about …

I then get on to thinking about seed trays, pots and planters. Are they clean? Do I have enough? Do I have soil? Have I gathered sticks for supports?

And labels. Yes, labels. I tend to shy away from plastic in many realms of my life. That said, yoghurt containers can be cut up to make great labels for indoor starts.

 Outside, this year I’ll be making some new wooden stakes and burning names using an inexpensive wood burning tool. I long ago gave up on Sharpies for use outdoors as labels fade quickly in the sun and rain.

For me, one of the most rocky starts to any growing season is finding that I forgot to label my seedlings!

I also turn my attention to my tools. Are they clean? Oiled? Sharpened? Do I need to replace anything?

When I work, I carry out a basket bag full of “stuff”, from gloves and string to a wee notebook and a pair of cheaters (eyeglasses) as invariably I leave my reading glasses indoors. My gardening bag also has a blanket. It serves two purposes … as a place to rest harvests and as a place to rest.

No agenda

For all the energy we put into planning and planting and harvesting, I also enjoy simply being with the plants. I hope you do too. No agenda. Just admiring and feeling the sun and the wind, the chill and the heat. I must confess, after years of living in the UK, I would probably classify myself more as a ‘fair weather gardener’ and rarely do I enjoy routine misty maintenance.

Poundage or pleasure?

I also begin to contemplate about how I’ll measure a successful growing season.

Will it be by poundage? By the integrity of the crops? By my pleasure throughout the season or the gifts from my garden? Will it be by feelings of satisfaction for showing up as best I am able or by the numbers of folks who stop and have a chat and a gander at my growing spaces? Will I have sketched my harvests this year or made prints? Will my plantings of medicinals focus particular body systems (and did I manage that)?

Will I have grown enough, or too much and do I have enough to give away?

This is where I am beginning again.

Anew.

This year my growing season is unlike any other.

May we all bring the best of intentions to working with the plants … and each other.