Celebrating The Autumn Equinox

Posted on September 18, 2023 by Ann Lovejoy
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Nature’s autumnal love offering to the world

Nature’s Paintbrush At Work

This year’s autumn equinox (Saturday, September 23) is almost here, marking summer’s exit and fall’s entrance. Since every part of the globe experiences some form of seasonal shift, solstices and equinoxes are celebrated everywhere in various ways. Pretty much all of these celebrations feature special food as well as (surprise!) intoxicating beverages. In the Northern hemisphere, where autumn ushers in the dimmer, shorter days of winter, traditional festivals often focus on light in the coming darkness. One of my favorites is the Chinese Moon Festival, featuring lovely, round, paper lanterns to light and delectable round moon cakes stuffed with chopped nuts to share with family and friends. A nearby neighbor’s balcony is illuminated with large round lanterns that glow like many moons in soft pastel shades through the dark nights. Now I’m inspired to hang some smaller globes in my own little covered porch as a gentle way to light up the night and spark a little happiness.

Last week marked farewell to light-filled evenings here-the Seattle area won’t see twilight after 8:00 pm again until mid March. Morning light is shrinking as well, prompting plants to begin to shut down for winter slumber. After a very dry summer such as we had here, it’s wise to continue at least minimal watering of new plants and transplants well into winter, as in some places deeper soil never got saturated at all last year. It’s also important if you want your garden to be as bold in autumn as it is in summer. Moderately moist soil makes for more vivid and longer lasting foliage color displays in the garden as well as in the woods and fields. Though rain is still scanty and rare here, the heavy autumn dews help to boost plant health as well as fall color.

Moisture Matters

Soil moisture affects both the timing and potency of leaf color; warm and wet summers followed by warm, sunny fall days and cooler nights make for the most dramatic displays. Cold, late springs and hot, dry summers can delay or diminish fall color as will autumn heat, which encourages rapid leaf fall before potent colors can develop. In such a disappointing year, leaves turn brown and drop without their time of glory. This year, local trees and shrubs have been showing a little color for a few weeks, and as the nights grow cooler, the colors are intensifying beautifully.

In gardens, compost mulch can boost blazing color in everything from maples and ginkgos to spireas and hydrangeas to Blue Stars (amsonia) and peonies. That’s because compost helps plants build up brix, natural sugars that contribute reds, coppers, oranges, golds and purples to the foliage fiesta. Though the loss of chlorophyll stored away summery sugars, cooler autumn nights shrink leaf veins so newly produced sugars can’t escape to the twigs. Instead, they become brilliant colors; anthocyanins (which put the blue in blueberries) create reds, purples, and burgundy, while carotenoids (which make carrots orange) create yellow, gold and orange tints. Beneficial bionutrients for all!

A Legacy of Lovely Leaves

Wherever they flourish, deciduous trees (especially hardwoods like beech, maples, and oaks) can be almost shockingly beautiful in a good leaf color year. While soil nutrients and moisture are important keys to color, briefer days trigger the reduction in chlorophyll production that allows the hidden sugars and minerals to shine. As photosynthesis slows down with the dwindling daylight, leaves loose their greenness, changing the chlorophyll into nutrient compounds that get stored in twigs for the winter, ready to feed baby buds as winter wanes.

When the leaves fall off, you can often see the tiny nubs that are next year’s leaves in the making. The leaves themselves are also packed with nutrients that help feed the soil which in turn feeds the tree roots. This beautiful cycle continues unbroken unless somebody gets into a fit of tidiness and removes the leaves. If the look of loose fallen leaves is too messy for anyone, the simple ecologically sound solution is to shred those leaves and put them right back where they belong. Just saying…

There’s An App For That (Of Course There Is)

If you’re seeking a great place to enjoy fabulous fall color, there is now an app for tracking the progress of leaf changing color peaks across the country (see below). Slide the bar below the map image to track projected color changes by date and region. The map is updated often to help promote tourism for rural areas where leaf lookers can boost local economies that often drop after summer vacationers leave. Onward, right?

https://smokymountains.com/fall-foliage-map/

Posted in Annual Color, Climate Change, composting, Health & Wellbeing, Soil, Sustainable Gardening, Sustainable Living | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

A Plenitude Of Pears & Perplexity Of Carers

Posted on September 4, 2023 by Ann Lovejoy
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Perfect pears celebrate autumn’s approach

Of Happy Bees & Fruitful Trees

Our little neighborhood is kind of a hidden gem, surprisingly peaceful and sunny despite being tucked away behind tall apartments. Small as our lots are, quite a few boast dwarf fruit trees that produce a remarkable amount in a good year. This has been a bit mixed in terms of fruit; some trees are loaded, others hardly have any fruit. Depending on when they bloomed, the cold winds may have blown away the blossoms before the bees could get to them. In some cases, icy sleet kept sensible bees in their snug nests and fertilization never occurred. Wherever happy bees found nectar and pollen last spring, we are now harvesting fruit. The ever-changing odds make it even more delightful when our little local trees have a bumper crop, especially because sharing the bounty is part of the neighborhood ethos, so we all benefit from the good fortune.

Our usually heavy bearing local plum tree wasn’t especially fruitful this year, but because nobody else was picking them, I was able to gather and distribute the best of them before the raccoons moved in to clean up. In my kitchen, a dozen turned into plum vinegar and another dozen, split and stoned, went into the freezer for a holiday plum tart. Now it’s time for pears, and that’s cause for rejoicing, since our neighbor’s Clapp’s Favorite pears are just plain fabulous. A heritage variety dating back to the 1800s, this is a succulent variety I remember fondly from my Massachusetts childhood, when local farm stands sold them each fall, along with apples and pumpkins and winter squash. Each luscious yellow pear has one rosy cheek and offers crisp yet juicy sweet-tart fruit that’s perfect for eating fresh. Like most pears, they’re best harvested before they ripen fully, which they readily do in my kitchen.

Perfect Pear Treats

Fresh, ripe pears are so delicious that we usually enjoy them as is, but a few recipes are part of welcoming autumn around here, among them this simple pear clafoutis. Though the ingredients are similar to a crispy Dutch baby, clafoutis has a tender, almost custardy texture that cradles fresh fruit like a warm, soft blanket. Clafoutis will slowly puff up and get golden brown but don’t up the heat if it’s not browning quickly, and don’t overcook it or it can get a little rubbery; 35-40 minutes tops!

Pear Clafoutis

3 large eggs
1/3 cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract (or 1/2 almond if you prefer)
1 cup milk (whole or 2% but not skim)
2 tbsp melted butter OR avocado oil
1/2 cup all purpose flour
1 ripe pear, halved, cored and thinly sliced
1 tablespoon chopped candied ginger (optional)

Preheat oven to 325 F. Blend eggs, sugar and vanilla well, then stir in milk and butter or oil, then add flour and mix well. Pour into a cast iron frying pan (my favorite) or a glass pie pan and arrange pear slices on top, scattering ginger bits if using. Bake at 325 F for 35-40 minutes. Enjoy it while it’s hot. Serves at least one.

On The Home Front

As the weeks whirl by (or crawl, depending), I’m remembering how lonely long term caregiving can be. Initially there’s often a rush of kind and sincere offers to help, some vague, some specific, but as time rolls on, people get busy and move on. As your personal situation gets displaced by so many others, there can be what feels like a kind of impatience from some early supporters if you continue to reply that things are rough, as if you’ve had your turn and now it’s time to get over it (whatever your ‘it’ may be). That’s very understandable, especially given the rate at which dire things are happening these days, particularly to those in my age cohort and older. However, with fewer and fewer folks willing to listen to what must sound like the same old same old, it can feel like there’s nowhere to go with our ongoing sorrow and weariness, and that’s the part that can feel lonely. I’m even hearing the same experience from caregiving friends involved in traditionally supportive faith communities; seems like everyone’s so stressed out that there’s little extra empathy left.

I have to chuckle and shake my head when I remember my mom telling me it was time to get over it two weeks after my husband died suddenly, because she wanted me to take her to the grocery store instead of the pleasant and kind volunteer I’d lined up for her. It’s only kinda-sorta funny, but I think much of her generation (she’d have turned 100 this summer) was brought up to button it up and march on, pretty much no matter what. I can understand that too, as it eventually gets tiresome both to hear about other’s travails and to recite our own. But after two weeks? That’s a pretty brief allowance for a pretty major grief. However, the deeper lesson may be that externalizing our comfort source and looking to others to provide it isn’t ultimately as effective as learning to find lasting and ever-present comfort from our own inner teacher or guiding light.

Listening To The Light

Call it what you will, I believe that everyone has what the Quakers call ‘the still, small voice within’; a calm knowing that may present in words or images or feelings or all or none of the above. For me at least, the key is shutting up long enough to hear it. In her beautiful, powerful book, Sacred Instructions, Penobscot Elder Sherri Mitchell tells a great story about bringing a spiritual teacher to tears of helpless laughter as Sherri described her own increasingly desperate, passionate pleas to hear that inner voice to the teacher. She says, “When she was done laughing, she told me, ‘You have to stop asking and be quiet if you want an answer’.” That still makes me smile because it’s so close to home for me. Surely it’s all about finding just the right words, right? Or maybe it’s about finding just the right silence? Onward, right?

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Dazzling Dahlias

Posted on August 21, 2023 by Ann Lovejoy
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Dahlias that match my cat and my dinner

Easy Beauty For Weary Gardeners

After a cold dry spring, the warm summery weather we’ve been getting is very welcome. Sunny day after sunny day, it definitely has that endless summer quality, and the kids are thrilled to be able to go to the beach and swim in our cool coastal waters and not turn blue. However, without those cool, grey marine layer mornings to keep things damp, many of our English Border perennials are drying out fast, despite daily watering. In contrast, the sun lovers, annuals and perennials, are basking happily, drinking in sunlight as if it were water. My zinnias just keep producing bud after bud, and the charming little Lemon Drop Evening Primroses tumble in silvery-green cascades studded with endless golden blossoms. There’s a charming pink one too, from Mexico, but it rarely returns to my garden after a cold winter.

Among the best of the sun lovers are dahlias, tough, enduring and gorgeous. Dahlias come in so many tints and tones these days that you can choose them in almost any color but blue. Last week I visited a nearby dahlia farm with a Senior Center group and we explored fields of flowers in full, triumphant bloom. The farmer told us she had started out with 100 different varieties and now grows at least twice that many, in every size and shade and hue imaginable, from lacy white to deepest red-black. I picked an assortment that called my name and was tickled to find when I got home that I had created an arrangement that perfectly blended with both my cat and the beautiful ripe nectarine I was getting ready to chop up (add a little yogurt and some nut-rich homemade granola and you have the perfect summer no-cook meal).

Grow Your Own, The Lazy Way

Like tomatoes, dahlias like full sun and adequate water but not soggy feet or drenched foliage. My farmer friend dutifully digs up several fields full of tubers each year because they regularly flood in winter, when water tables are high. The largest field stands higher and never gets sodden, and there they only lift the plants every other year, and mostly because they sell tubers in spring as well as flowers in summer. At the local library, where I’ve been gardening with the Friday Tidies for nearly 30 years, we’ve got dahlias that have never been lifted in years, and they bloom as strongly as ever, providing plenty of cut flowers for our beloved librarians as well as casual passersby. People just can’t resist helping themselves and that’s fine with us, since the more you pick, the more buds the plants produce.

Similarly, at the Senior Center, half a dozen dahlia plants have braved freezing winter temperatures as well as sweltering sun and reflected heat off the parking lot for several years and they, too, bloom abundantly all summer. This year, they really stood up to the test, as I’ve been too busy (and overwhelmed) to do much watering and my most faithful (and fun) helper has been traveling (and broke her hand on her last trip), so the dahlias have had to manage on their own. They’ve done amazingly well with only a handful of organic fertilizer scratched in in May and a few inches of wood chips for mulch to lock in whatever moisture the dew might offer. You’ve got to love a plant that’s so giving and needs so little in return.

Granny Granola

1/4 cup avocado oil
1/4 cup coconut oil
1/4 cup honey or maple syrup
1 teaspoon each cinnamon, coriander, and ginger
1/4 teaspoon cardamom
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 cup each walnuts, pecans and peanuts
6-7 cups rolled oats

Combine oils, sweetener and spices in a bowl and blend well. Stir in vanilla and nuts, then add oats, stirring often to coat generously. Spread the mixture into a rimmed baking sheet and smooth it out to the edges. Bake at 350 degrees F for 20 minutes and cool if you like softer granola, or stir the mixture and bake for another 10 minutes if you prefer crunchy granola. Cool and store in a glass container. Makes about 2-1/2 quarts.

Posted in Annual Color, Care & Feeding, Climate Change, Drainage, Easy Care Perennials, Planting & Transplanting, Recipes, Vegan Recipes | Tagged , , , , | 3 Comments

Celebrating Lammas

Posted on August 1, 2023 by Ann Lovejoy
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Bounty by the bowlful on Lammas

An Ancient Harvest Day

As local gardens brim over and fresh produce is everywhere I look, I’m thinking about the ancient tradition of Lammas. Halfway between the Summer Solstice and the Autumn Equinox, Lammas marked the beginning of the harvest that would tide people over through the winter. It seems strange to think about winter in August, but my daughter and I are looking forward to winter as never before, hoping it will mark a time of healing and a return to wholeness for both of us. Next week we will go to Seattle for tests to determine whether my daughter can be safely sewn back together, eliminating the need for the ostomy bag. Though another surgery will of course require another time of healing and recover, it will almost certainly be far less fraught than the last one. By now, we both feel like we have the skills to meet whatever the normal consequences of such a surgery might require.

It’s oddly disconcerting to consider what a future without pain and awkward, frequent inconvenience might look like for my daughter. She’ll once again be able to navigate things she had lost the ability to handle over the long years of illness, as we both saw with great pleasure over her recent recovery. The horrible setback of recent weeks has not been pleasant but it has shown us that we work well together even under duress and that she has not been held back by it in any but physical ways. She is thinking deeply about her future in ways she hasn’t bothered to for a long time, since she wasn’t so sure she would actually have one. Now she knows she will, she wants to shape her life differently, and that will take some new thinking.

Choosing What’s Next

Looking ahead this way, I’m realizing that I too will have some re-thinking to do while transitioning from being a caregiver to simply being in charge of my own life again. I remember after my parents and my husband had all died, I would suddenly feel uneasy at times, with a mild panic, as if I had left my purse at home. Without the constant anchor of being needed, I felt weirdly untethered. This time, I’m looking forward to being able to do more of what I want to do, from gardening and singing to knitting and sewing and finally making that quilt I’ve been planning for years. Ok, decades. Heaven knows I’ve got enough fabulous fabric in my stash to make ten quilts. Hmmm, now there’s an idea…

In recent conversations with a young(er) friend, I was reminded of an intriguing practice. Whenever we come to the end of a chapter, before we walk into the next one, it’s valuable to choose a theme for whatever comes next. Last time I did this, almost ten years ago now, I chose satisfaction and contentment, things I had not experienced much of. That combination was actually quite pleasant to work towards and I succeeded in becoming far more comfortable with both those sensations. After a day or two, my friend reported back that she has chosen to guide her next chapter through connection and balance. I love that combination, and though I feel pretty solid on the connection part, balance is definitely a concept to live into. To partner it, I’m thinking about harmony. Or maybe kindness. Hmmm again.

Onward Indeed

My underlying goal is to open up my life again without falling back into hyper-responsibility. Since childhood, I’ve tended to accumulate responsibilities, accepting a new set of tasks even before I’ve finished whatever I’ve been working on at the moment. It becomes a never-ending cycle of must-do work without a lot of space for want-to activities. Obviously it worked for me or I wouldn’t have kept on doing it for so long.

Now, however, something has changed within me. Getting to NO and staying there is easier than ever, especially with the unarguable reason; I’m a full time caregiver. When I’m not that anymore, I want to hang on to that inner permission to NOT do things just because I don’t want to do them. Why not give someone else a turn? On some level, I think I’ve been trying to earn the air I breathe. It will be good to learn to breathe for free. Right? Onward!

Posted in Care & Feeding, fall/winter crops, Health & Wellbeing, Nutrition, Sustainable Gardening, Sustainable Living | Tagged , , , | 4 Comments