Every time I go out to harvest a bunch of peppery arugula and mizuna greens I find the Indie-folk group, The East Pointer’s 2019 song, Wintergreen, playing in my head:
Let it breathe, if it doesn't breathe, it's gonna die
Let us see, if you let it be, is it gonna fly?
Set it free, and if it leaves, we say goodbye
Web we weave, and then we grieve, and then we cry
I want to tell you before I forget
You're doing well
You know you're living it
You're gonna make it no matter how hard it gets
Despite the darkness
Some of these days…wintergreen…
The first bright green spears of this season’s garlic have pushed through the leaf mulch blanket this week. Every day there are more. Garlic has become one of my favorite food crops to grow. It fills up the garden in winter, giving me a focus for nurturing, then has a long shelf life after harvest. I only planted Inchelium Red this year. I wasn’t that impressed by the Nootke Rose which I tried last year.
Somebody is nibbling on the rainbow chard. Birds? Grasshoppers? I’ve looked for worms but found none and it’s a bit cold now anyway. There are currently four chard plants just hanging in there. Not exactly a wild success, this attempt at winter chard. The other smaller greens are doing so much better, albeit pockmarked by what I think is flea beetles.
Now that it is coming inside at night, the Faucaria tigrina (Tiger jaw succulent) has finally decided to bloom, about six weeks later than prior years. Maybe it got too hot and dry on the south facing front porch all through summer. This little potted roommate is very special to me as it’s wild ancestors are endemic to the Makhanda area of South Africa.
The Firethorn (Pyracantha) is currently living up to its name. It was a struggling mostly dead shrub under the east bedroom window when first I became custodian of this little piece of Chihauhauan desert. I pruned it a little for health and then again a year ago when the windows were replaced and it was somewhat abused by the attendant demolition and construction activities. It fought back courageously with its thorns, drawing blood on the window installer. (Oops!) I have self identified this shrub as Scarlet Firethorn, using the not always accurate internet. I welcome correction. Birds love the berries.
Leaves are piling up, their falling hastened by a couple of days of strong gusty wind this week. I rake the leaves from the grassy pathways and redistribute around the plants as mulch or add to compost bins.
The apricot has four golden leaves left. What makes some leaves hang on more tightly than others?
There is more foliage still on the cottonwood but those leaves too are falling rapidly.
The cedar fencing is overdue for refinishing with an oil wood preserver. I’m beginning the enormous, arduous, but immensely satisfying, task by sanding down, then sealing those fencing slats which have come loose during the year.
The wood dries, the nails become loose and they drop. Aided by rascally neighbourhood cats scrambling in haste over the loose slats when I surprise them stalking birds or using the outback garden as their litter box.
I love watching the transformation from blackened, desiccated and weathered to glowing and nourished.
There are so many things to do in the garden at this time of year. Though I’ll never get through them all, I’m grateful to have these tasks to fill my days. It’s mostly beautiful out, if a little cold early in the day.
Birds supervise me, especially the very territorial and very vocal curve-billed thrasher. I think he is hoping for a cabinet position in the new federal administration. He really loves to chase visiting migrants from the bird bath. On the other hand I always know from his call when a cat is hunting in the undergrowth.
Great purring and honking vees of cranes, pelicans and geese fly overhead periodically. Sunset always comes too soon.
I’ll never get used to how short winter days are here compared to the old country. I’m just getting into a day’s work outside, and suddenly the sun tumbles to the horizon and the desert night chill creeps up.
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