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What I know of the divine science and Holy Scripture I learnt in the woods and fields. — St. Bernard, 12th Century sustainable organic gardener
Today is the feast day of St. Bernard. When I think of St. Bernard, I think of wormwood. And when I think of wormwood, I think of the Herb Lady and an August morning 25 years ago.
I lived in the mountains then, in a little house on a ridge eight miles from the nearest small town. I was seven months pregnant, had a big garden, a two-year-old, a four-year-old and a difficult marriage. Because the house was isolated, had no phone or television, and my husband was only home on weekends, I spent most of the time alone with two young children and the gentle embrace of the surrounding mountains for company. Money was tight, so I drove into town just twice a month for supplies and a fresh stack of library books. We read, hiked and gardened while it was warm. When it got cold, we read and I chopped wood. The girls played in the creek to the west of us, or in the pasture to the east. It wasn’t a bad life, but it could sometimes be awfully lonesome.
During one of my bi-monthly supply runs, a shopkeeper told me about the Herb Lady. “She grows all kinds of herbs up at her place. Herbs to cook with, herbs for medicine, everything. And this time of the year, she’s dividing the plants and she’ll send you home with bags full of roots and cuttings. I’ll draw you a map,” the woman said helpfully. In my mind’s eye, I pictured an ancient, plantwise granny… someone who might welcome a visitor interested in herb lore. The shopkeeper paused from drawing a complicated series of squiggles. “It can be a little bit hard to get to,” she said. “ What kind of vehicle you got?”
But for a chance to visit with a real, live adult person and have a conversation that went beyond a cash register transaction, I was prepared to navigate some wilderness. Two hours later, miles from the place we had turned off the paved road, our little station wagon bucked and slid along a muddy track through the woods. It was unusually quiet in the back seat, where two small passengers frowned as tree branches scraped the sides of the car. I hoped the map drawn on the back of my hardware store receipt was accurate. I hoped that if it wasn’t, I would manage to get the car turned around on the ever-narrowing trail. I also hoped (perhaps most of all) that if my previous two hopes didn’t work out, the mountain panthers I’d read about in my latest library book were well and truly extinct.
The thick canopy overhead parted abruptly, spilling sunlight down on us, and the trail opened up into a cozy little valley. The Herb Lady’s tiny farm looked like a Disney movie set: red barn, white cottage, antique pickup truck. A fat tom turkey came strutting up the driveway to scrutinize us with his beady eyes. And then there was the garden.
Herbs climbed trellises on three sides of the cottage, spilled over the porch railings and sprawled in rock-walled beds . It was August and the plants were at their peak maturity, so it was easy to pick out the familiar culinary varieties – dill, chives, a vast mass of Greek oregano, four kinds of basil — happily growing in the largest and most diverse herb garden I had ever seen.
The Herb Lady was around back, knee-deep in a drift of comfrey, and she greeted me as if we were old friends. She wasn’t a granny after all. All that herb knowledge was walking around in a slender, twentysomething frame with red garden clogs and a halo of frizzy blond hair. She poured mugs of mountain sumac “lemonade” for each of the girls, then took me on a grand tour of the herb beds. For nearly two hours, I enjoyed a wonderful, adult-vocabulary-level conversation about planting, cultivating and harvesting herbs. Every few minutes, the Herb Lady stooped to pull apart a root system or separate a clump of stems, and she handed me the new plant wrapped in a piece of newspaper. By the end of our herb walk, the ingredients for a very respectable kitchen garden lay stacked neatly in the grass.
The last plant she showed me was a thick, feathery profusion of silvery stalks and leaves. It was strange and beautiful, and it was taller than I was.
“This is wormwood,” the Herb Lady said. “Artemisia absinthium. But I only grow it for historical interest. I can’t give you any to take home.” And then she told me about this powerful, bitter herb: a popular medieval remedy for worms, as its name implies; a distant cousin to sagebrush; an ingredient in absinthe, a notorious drink in nineteenth-century Europe; an herb associated with grief and mourning in cultures all over the world. Finally, she pointed out, it repels fleas and moths — which is why she grew it just outside her back door.
“If you’re Catholic, you might be interested to know that wormwood is part of the story of St. Bernard,” the Herb Lady said. I wasn’t Catholic, but I was interested in the story anyway: frail and pious, Bernard was only 22 when he was made abbot over 12 other monks. They were sent to found a new monastery in the desolate Valley of Wormwood, in medieval France. For years, the little group lived on wild herbs and water while they struggled to clear enough of the forest to plant the garden that would eventually sustain them. The garden and the monastery were successful, and the monks’ simple devotion attracted and inspired a large number of people. Faith, patience and a garden were the only tools they had at their disposal, but that was enough.
Later, I drove home on the narrow mountain roads with two little girls asleep in the back seat and a car that smelled like a giant bouquet garni. With hours of happy conversation behind me and hours more of happy gardening ahead, I remember thinking that even in the Valley of Wormwood, there must have been a few really good days.
There was a beautiful Eastern Black Swallowtail in the fennel patch yesterday. This morning, the herb’s tender green shoots were peppered with tiny butterfly eggs. The little orbs are pale yellow now, but they will turn black just before they hatch into small caterpillars. In several stages, these fast-growing creatures will pass through increasingly vivid color patterns — all the while steadily consuming an impressive quantity of fennel, parsley and dill. Individuals lucky enough to avoid hungry wasps will eventually transform into a chrysalis and, finally, something that looks a lot like this:
(c)2009 Val Webb
Meanwhile, we have defaulted to our usual steamy south Alabama late-summer gardening schedule. Manual labor is now limited to really, really early in the morning. We’re prepping beds for fall planting, checking our saved seed and picking those die-hard eggplant and peppers… and some scrumptious ambrosia canteloupe that the Perfect Man incorporated into an experiment in edible landscaping.
Summer is also canning time. Last week, it was green tomato chow-chow… and this week, it was blueberry jam. The hardest part is not opening the jars immediately and devouring the carefully preserved contents. It’s a treat to live with a man who has impressive food preservation skills! (Here’s a tip for any guys out there who might be contemplating an online dating service: just be sure your profile includes the fact that you’re inordinately fond of Mason jars and pressure cookers, and then stand back.)
I hate cutting the faded flower heads off my favorite echinacea purpurea. But it’s some consolation knowing that each spiny head will yield dozens of seeds to plant and share.
This dried coneflower was drawn in watercolor and colored pencil.
- Harvesting rainwater
I’m not an expert on irrigation, but the cool new rainwater collection system at our local Master Gardeners demonstration plot seems like a no-brainer to me. Worldwide consumption of water is rising fast — twice the rate of the population — but fresh water makes up less than 3 percent of all the planet’s water resources. When a scarce resource falls right out of the sky, it makes sense to harvest it. That’s exactly what the folks at the county demonstration garden are doing.
Fruit trees... demonstrating!
Rainwater can be collected from any relatively clean surface (rooftops and pool covers, for example) and then used for irrigation, flushing the toilet, washing the car, rinsing garden tools — just don’t drink it.
The system at the demonstration garden uses rain gutters on a small outbuilding to capture water:
These gutters capture 160 - 240 gallons per 1" rainfall
Even a tiny toolshed can yield a surprisingly large volume of fresh water. According to a formula from the Alabama Cooperative Extension System, a 10 x 10 foot surface collects approximately 50 gallons for every inch of rainfall. The main tank for the demonstration garden holds 1800 gallons, and it was full:
Next stop after the rooftop: the storage tank
The thick, vertical pipe visible at the corner of the red building is the first flush diverter. It’s a simple device that catches the first flush of water during each rain — the rain that rinses off any dirt, bird droppings, acorns or leaves that might have landed on the roof recently. Once the diverter is full, the remaining water passes over it and runs into the storage tank. See the plug at the bottom of the pipe? That’s where the first flush water can be drained, between rains.
Storage tanks can be made from all kinds of clean containers. .. however, the Cooperative Extension folks warn that you need to be very careful about what has been previously stored in them. New or never-previously-used fuel tanks, fiberglass containers or septic tanks are what they recommend for larger capacity. There are also polyethylene tanks manufactured for use in the sugar industry, which are cheap to buy and easy to rinse for repurposing as water storage.
Light colored tanks should be painted dark green or black to prevent light penetration. If you bury your storage tank, color doesn’t matter.
Distribution is by gravity or a small pump
(We’re down here in a subtropical climate zone, so temperature extremes are never a problem. But in colder climates, exposed storage tanks would need to be durable enough to tolerate water freezing and thawing during the winter. The recommendation is high-density polyethylene, and a domed top or overflow pipe to allow expansion.)
The demonstration garden slopes gently away from the water containment tank, so gravity alone was enough to provide pressure for drip irrigation. But it’s a big garden, so last week a small electric pump was installed at the base of the storage tank. Now the Master Gardener volunteers can sprinkle, mist and hose to their hearts’ content. If you don’t have electricity in the vicinity of your water storage, a gasoline pump will work.
I’m intrigued. I think a set of rain barrels and some spiffy new catchment gutters on the art studio might be a good fall project. After patiently answering my many questions, the County Extension agent gave me some sources of additional, more detailed information. I’ve listed them below. Happy harvesting!
Virginia Rainwater Harvesting Manual
When it comes to scary subject matter — the stuff you try not to think about when you wake unexpectedly at 2 a.m. — Stephen King can’t hold a candle to Poisonous Plants of the Southern United States. If you’ve ever wondered what would happen to you within 48 hours of, say, nibbling a little lantana from your curbside landscaping, this handy guide from West Virginia University will tell you in excrutiating detail. (Don’t read the lantana section if you are about to have lunch. You’ve been warned.)
Eeeeeeeeek!
As the grandmother of two toddler girls who love to pick flowers, I’m all for nontoxic landscaping. Better yet, edible landscaping. So this year, while our regular backyard garden is doing its usual exuberant summer thing…
… some food crops have replaced traditional landscape plants on the “public” side of the fence. Five itty-bitty Bush Pickle cucumber plants, tucked next to a privacy fence and around the foot of an antique urn, have produced several dozen fat seven-inch cukes and show no signs of slowing. No sign of wilt or insect infestation, either — which, here in the coastal subtropics, is cause for rejoicing.
We tried a ten-foot row of Greasyback Cornstalk beans, a wonderful heirloom that was my great-grandmother’s garden favorite, against a section of privacy fence. A strip of plastic bird netting is tacked to the fence posts to give the beanstalks something to grab. I’m watering them with a dipper from our algae-rich fish pond, and they’re producing lots of characteristically knobby, slightly shiny green beans. Some catnip and St. Francis finish off the little bed.
There’s something very satisfying about landscaping with table fare. Our lawn crops over the past two years have expanded to include citrus, blueberries and culinary ginger, and we want to keep moving in that direction. Eating the yard isn’t for everyone — there are a lot of folks living in suburban housing developments with restrictive covenants, for example, and inner-city gardeners whose street gardens are fraught with unforeseen hazards.
But, personally, I love the idea of yanking out a poisonous invasive and replacing it with something the grandbabies can happily harvest. Hey, lantana! Let’s see you do this:
This gardener took a break from tending his rattlesnake beans and tomatoes, and gave us a quick tour.
It was Saturday, and we were rambling around Pensacola’s first New Urbanism neighborhood — a whimsical 20-acre community called Aragon. We turned a corner and there it was: a lovely community garden, divided into individual family plots and hemmed all around with a white picket fence. Each family has a rectangular plot in the public space, and about two-thirds are currently under cultivation. The garden appears to be designed to encourage its use as a gathering place, with porch swings on one side and a big playground on the other. Brick walkways and trellises of sweet-smelling Carolina jasmine bisect the garden property (our friendly gardener pointed out that the jasmine probably wasn’t the best choice for this location, though, since its big woody roots keep snaking into the vegetables).
Some Florence fennel and a big ol’ rosemary.
Florida summers are hot, hot hot. The community garden at Aragon has a sprinkler system that comes on automatically, three times each week.
I’m not afraid to admit it. I love compost. There’s an irresistible alchemy involved when you can start with garbage and end up with a wildly nutrient-rich substance that has been likened to Ghiradelli chocolate for earthworms.
We alternate our layers of leaves, chopped garden vegetation and coffee grounds — plus kitchen peelings and parings — between two large compost bins made of recycled construction lumber. The two of us, prodigious vegetable peelers and coffee drinkers, produce enough compostible material allow us an inch of top dressing on most of the garden, twice each year. I keep an eye on the pile as it cooks itself into readiness — it gets turned once, and then is periodically poked with a sharpened tomato stake to introduce air deep into the heap. It seems to progress best when it’s slightly damp.
Our parfait of decay includes: exhausted garden plants and weeds, hedge and grass clippings, piles of leaves collected from our neighbors, fruit and veggie peels, eggshells (rinsed and crushed up), dryer lint, coffee grounds, and a handful of garden soil now and then for a bacterial boost.
We don’t compost woody plant material or the thick stems of broccoli, synthetic fabric or its lint, meat or any cooked food scraps, plants with seed heads or plants that show signs of disease.
Our warm, humid climate helps speed the rate of decomposition. I have been assured that urinating on one’s compost pile is the ultimate accelerator, but — being an urban gardener — I lack the courage to use that technique.
What are your favorite compost recipes?
Okay, I’ll just come right out and say it: The 2008 Local Food Challenge was not the transcendent experience I anticipated. Suddenly confronted with surviving on mostly starches and dairy, I gained five pounds the first week and promptly developed chronic indigestion. Chocolate and avocados haunted my dreams. Was it enlightening? You bet. Was it fun? No way.
On the positive side, the Challenge provided an ideal opportunity for The Perfect Man to master his techniques for making butter and cheese. And, in the absence of spinach or broccoli, we discovered that fresh-picked kale makes a very respectable quiche. But drawbacks included large amounts of gasoline required to round up a very limited variety of veggies… and large amounts of time required to prepare basic ingredients.
I have enormous admiration for the brave souls who shepherded their entire families through the long month of local-only menus. Ang Jordan at Gulf Coast Local Food is at the top of that list, because she’s right here in south Alabama, where sustainability is a new and exotic concept. (Ask someone in Mobile if they support CSA, and they’re likely to assume you mean the Confederate States of America.) Then there’s Cafe Mama, who writes about her local food quest in prose as spare and sweet as poetry. And Sarah Beam makes it all sound easy at Recipes for a Postmodern Planet.
Call me a curmudgeon, but my mood soured by the middle of the second week — around the time that I ran out of innovative ways to cook sweet potatoes. When I turned to my fellow bloggers for inspiration, their posts sounded so…so… chipper. Was it possible that I was the only cranky Challenge participant, a vegetarian doing without vegetables, grumpily counting the days until the local-only pledge would finally end?
Well, bad attitude and all, I may have actually whittled away at the old carbon footprint much more than I thought — just by being a longtime herbivore. According to a study by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, raising animals for food results in more greenhouse gas emissions than all forms of transportation combined. Yikes. But here’s the good news: even a modest reduction in meat consumption takes a big bite out of fossil energy use.
On Saturday, I accompanied The Perfect Man to a last-chance plant sale at Mobile Botanical Gardens. All the unsold plants left over from their annual autumn sale were offered at bargain prices. Fun! We brought home two big Bengal Tiger cannas, a new Louisiana iris for the water garden, a pot full of pineapple sage and a tiny container of the whimsical succulent my grandmother calls “hen and chicks.” Our loot is pictured below, but excuse the camera strap dangling in the upper right corner. It was early, and I needed some coffee.
With apologies to Titian.
Last night, I dreamed about apples – tart, juicy Granny Smiths; shiny Macintoshes; Golden Delicious with the mellow taste of autumn beneath their skins. I dreamed of glistening chunks of apple piled on a plate, just waiting to be speared with my fork. They looked delicious. And then…and then…
I woke up. It was Day 6 of the 2008 Eat Local Challenge, and if there are apples grown within my 200-mile range northward from the Gulf coastline, I haven’t found them. Nor bananas. Nor rice. What I HAVE found in generous abundance are sweet potatoes. I got out of bed and had a plump, baked sweet potato for breakfast.
As a longtime vegetarian with a big organic garden, I didn’t realize how dramatically my diet would change with the onset of the October challenge month. Before last week, the major part of my daily food intake consisted of fresh fruits and vegetables, grains and soy. I occasionally ate bread, and my moderate dairy consumption came mostly in the form of homemade yogurt and cheese. I drank lots of juices.
Now, under the 200-mile rule, most of those fruits and vegetables are off limits. It’s planting time in our subtropical gardening zone, so all our winter greens and cole crops are mere seedlings this month. Kale, bless its fast-growing heart, will be ready to start eating next week. But the rest — four types of lettuces, three types of cabbage, the broccoli, cauliflower, collards, field peas and butternut squash – are weeks and weeks away from harvest. So, I’m eating LOTS of whole-grain bread and LOTS of our homemade dairy, which has been an unpleasant surprise to my fruit-and-veggie-based digestive tract.
Suddenly, shopping for vegetables has taken on a treasure hunt aspect. My Saturday trek to the weekly grower’s market was disappointing (plenty of candles, flowers, handmade soaps and honey, few edibles) until we spotted a table selling eggpant. Yay! And a pint jar of blueberry preserves from a neighboring county. Yesssss! I found some leathery-looking Alabama green beans in a neighborhood market this weekend, and — hallelujah! — some fresh squash from a grower in Lucedale, Mississippi (50 miles from home). I discovered on Saturday night that tiny red potatoes, roasted in the oven, taste even better when they’re seasoned with thankfulness that the soil they were pulled from lies only a little way down US Highway 98. Like pieces in a culinary jigsaw puzzle, we fit together a half-dozen zucchini here and a handful of green tomatoes there, as we find them. I’m learning that practically every item in the average grocery store – roughly 50,000 different items — has been hauled here from somewhere far away. I’m learning to be flexible. I’m learning a deep appreciation for simple meals.
But man, oh, man. An apple sure would taste good.
My significant other, The Perfect Man, designs and builds homes. His houses are not large, but he uses light and form to create a comfortable sense of spaciousness. A cupboard tucked here, a window seat there, a cozy set of bookshelves… and the result is a house that quietly comforts and nourishes the people who live within its walls. When it comes to square footage, substance beats size every time.
That’s how I feel about my kitchen pantry today. My groceries are all about substance: no frozen veggie burgers, no boxed snack crackers, just a few fresh local ingredients. At the close of the second day of the 2008 Eat Local Challenge, there isn’t much in there. But there’s enough.
Breakfast was three locally grown satsuma oranges and a cup of coffee. The satsuma, familiar to most people in the form of canned mandarin oranges, is coldhardy enough to grow here along the Gulf Coast. Late in the nineteenth century, sprawling groves of the sweet little citrus covered hundreds of acres just to our east, in Baldwin County — until brutal freezes in 1894 and 1895 brought a quick and icy end to large-scale Alabama orange cultivation. Since then, they have become a favorite of backyard grovesmen (The Perfect Man has several young trees) and small farmers. Tiny, leather-skinned and sweet as honey, they are scrumptious replacements for my usual morning glass of commercial orange juice.
I made the short trip to a family farm market across the bay in Daphne, scoring a few more provisions for the pantry shelf: Mississippi sweet potatoes; coarse grits and corn meal from a Louisiana town 20 miles inside my 200-mile limit; local peanuts still in their big, knobby shells. And wonder of wonders, on a rack near the cash register was one lone remaining loaf of walnut wheat bread just waiting for me to invite it home for lunch. (It was made by Jane Holland Smith, The Bread Lady, who works her bakery magic in a special kitchen she built next to her house. She’s always my first stop during our downtown farmer’s market season.)
Alas, the locally grown zucchini I bought never made it to the pantry at all. Atticus assumed that the green oblong was a strange new chew toy. Judging from the expression on his face, it was very tasty.
