Читать книгу The Crafty Gardener - Becca Anderson - Страница 19

The music of the night insects has been familiar to every generation of men since the earliest humans; it has come down like a Greek chorus chanting around the actors throughout the course of human history.

—Edwin Way Teale

The Art of Plant Propagation

Early spring is the best time to make new houseplants. There are four ways that plants propagate, ranging from easy to hard (I for one refuse to do air layering), and some plants respond only to one or the other.

1.Division: You just take a plant out of the pot, divide it into two or more clumps, roots and all, and replant into two or more pots. Plants that do well with this method include African violets, wax begonias, most ferns, agapanthus, and many orchids.

2.Offshoots and runners: Plants such as spider plant, strawberry geranium, and mother fern create ready-made babies, complete with tiny roots, as appendages that are considered runners. Bromeliads, clivias, and piggyback plants’ offspring grow adjacent to the mother. In either case, I just detach the baby and plant it in a tiny pot out of direct sun, giving it plenty of moisture. (With runners, there’s a way to do it while it is still attached to the plant, but that’s too much work for me.)

3.Stem cuttings: My mainstay. Simply cut off a stem, strip off lower leaves, and place in water. (Don’t touch the surface of the cut—bacteria from your skin can make the stem rot.) In a month or so, it will have rooted, and you can transplant it into a pot. Avoid rot by placing a couple of charcoal chips in the bottom of the container. Many houseplants will root this way, including coleus, fuchsia, philodendron, Swedish ivy, miniature rose, pothos, and wandering Jew. For cactus and succulents, let the cuttings dry for at least twenty-four hours, and root in rooting medium such as perlite or vermiculite.

4.Air layering: Required for dieffenbachia, dracaena, ficus, and split-leaf philodendron. To find out how to do this, ask at your local nursery.

Flowers preach to us if we will hear.

—Christina Rossetti

Plant Swapping

Usually, passing along plants is a two-person exchange, but it is possible to set up a larger-scale swap. You could perhaps do it through your local agricultural co-op or set something up like a flea market or garage sale. Run an ad in the classifieds and tell all the garden club people in your community. I know of one group in Texas that had two hundred people show up! All you need are tables and a few rules. Here’s how the Texas folks do it: They hold it in a place that can stand the dirt, require that donated plant be a “good” one—no unrooted cuttings, seeds, diseased plants, etc.—and limit the number of plants you can bring to swap. They ask people to label the plants they bring and include care instructions (Sun? Perennial? Drought-tolerant? Indoor?) As people bring in plants, each plant is given a number and a corresponding slip of paper with the same number goes into a hat. Then the hat is passed around and you get the plant with the number you draw. After that, people mill around trying to trade, if they don’t like their plants, or get cuttings from the plants they lust after. If you have a smaller crowd, of course you can just have people barter between themselves for the plants they want and skip the numbers. Either way, the purpose is to have fun, mingle with plant people, and go home with something new.

And this our life, exempt from public haunt Finds tongues in trees, books in running brooks, Sermons in stones and good in every thing.

—William Shakespeare

Into the Kitchen

Everything is good in its season.

—Italian proverb

Easy-Does-It Asparagus

The ancients believed that asparagus was an aphrodisiac. It certainly tastes good enough to be, but even if it isn’t, the prospect of your own tender shoots each spring should entice you enough to give it a try in your garden. It takes about three years to get enough asparagus to make planting it worthwhile, but a maintained asparagus bed will last for twenty years, so you’ll get plenty of spears for your efforts. While asparagus prefers cold winters, it will grow just about anywhere in the US. The trick is to dig a one-foot-deep trench and half-fill it with compost and ¼ cup bone meal per foot of trench. Plant roots eighteen inches apart, and don’t fill in trench with dirt until roots begin to sprout.

Green fingers are the extensions of a verdant heart.

—Russell Page

Stir-Fried Asparagus

Once you’ve grown them and had your fill of them steamed, give this a try. It is delicious!

•2 tablespoons low-sodium soy sauce

•1 tablespoon dry sherry

•1 tablespoon water or chicken broth

•1 ½ pounds asparagus, ends snapped, and cut into small pieces

•1 tablespoon sesame oil

•2 teaspoons minced garlic

•2 teaspoons minced fresh ginger

•½ minced fresh basil

•½ teaspoon sugar

Combine the soy sauce, sherry, and water or broth and set aside. Place a large (at least twelve-inch) skillet over high heat for 4 minutes. Add 2 teaspoons of the oil and heat for 1 minute or until the oil just starts to smoke. Add the asparagus and stir-fry for 2 minutes or until barely tender. Clear the center of the pan, add the garlic, ginger, and 1 teaspoon of oil, and sauté for 10 seconds. Remove pan from heat and stir the ingredients to combine.

Place pan back on heat, stir in the soy sauce mixture, and cook for 30 seconds. Add basil and sugar and cook for another 30 seconds. Serves four.

A Humble Root

In his book, Tomato Blessings and Radish Teachings, Zen cleric and teacher Edward Espe Brown ruminates on the lessons food has to offer. Here he is attending a dinner party and describes the appetizer. “Radishes! Seated at a low table, we come face to face with platters of radishes, brilliantly red and curvaceous, some elongated and white-tipped, rootlets intact with topknots of green leaves sprouting from the opposite end. It was love at first sight. Gazing at the plentitude of radishes, red and round with narrow roots and spreading stems, I felt a swirling joy… These radishes kept growing on me, as if they exuded happiness… To be able to see the virtue, to appreciate the goodness of simple, unadorned ingredients—this is probably the primary task of the cook.”

Sow the living part of yourselves in the furrow of life.

—Miguel de Unamino

When in Provence: Fabulous Fresh Herb Salad

This is a salad from Provence that uses an unusual variety of late-spring greens and herbs.

•One garlic clove, halved

•2 teaspoons lemon juice

•¼ teaspoons salt

•4 teaspoons olive oil

•1 teaspoon hot water

•4 cups arugula

•1–2 cups watercress, large stems removed

•1 ½ cups escarole

•¼ cup parsley, stems removed

•½ cup curly endive

•¼ cups small basil leaves

•20 small tarragon leaves

•10 small sage leaves

•5 chives, minced

•Pepper

Rub the garlic clove halves all over a large wooden salad bowl. Whisk in the lemon, salt, all of the oil, and the water. Add greens and pepper to taste. Serve immediately. Serves four.

Unexpected Friends: Volunteer Veggies

My city-born husband was at my Southern mother’s house with me one year when she remarked that she felt like cooking a pot of “volunteers.” After enjoying his confused expression for a few seconds, I explained that this is what she calls this small patch of turnip greens that come up every year without any coaching or invitation. So we headed out to pick a mess of them, and I schooled him on how to pick the small tender leaves, and to pick quickly so as to avoid the scratchy texture of the plants. He didn’t care much for the greens, but I do think he enjoyed the picking.

Anywhere you live you can find room for a garden somewhere.

—Jamie Jobb

Superfood Garden Greens

Besides turnip greens, there are many other vegetables that seem to be overlooked in the typical American diet. Recent research comparing French and American diets found that the French eat three times the variety of vegetables that we do, and the variety alone may have healthful benefits. So why not consider the following for your garden this summer?

•Chard: red or green, can be eaten raw when the leaves are tender, or used like cabbage to make chard rolls. Also good for a winter pasta sauce.

•Kale: member of cabbage family, popular among Romans and Greeks, loaded with vitamins and never bitter. Superb steamed.

•Kohlrabi: turnip-like root with edible stems. Can be eaten raw like an apple, shredded like a cabbage, or cooked like a turnip.

•Amaranth: also known as Chinese spinach. Rich in iron, calcium, vitamin A. Cooks like spinach or chard.

•Good King Henry: also known as poor man’s asparagus. Leaves can be cooked like spinach.

•Purslane: can be used in salads or cooked like spinach. Sharp-tasting, but high in vitamin C and omega-3 fatty acids that help prevent heart problems.

Tea in the Garden: How to Make Compost Tea

Compost tea is a marvelous way to feed your plants and give them extra nutrients in a wholly natural way that is free of chemicals. You want to feed your friends and family only the cleanest and pesticide-free produce, so start out organic and you will have a garden that produces healthy food. You will need a big bucket and the following to make compost tea:

•2 cups homemade, fresh compost dirt

•1 gallon of clean, filtered water

Add the water and the soil to a gallon bucket and keep in a place out of direct heat or cold; I use my outdoor shed, but a garage will also do nicely, Let your compost tea “brew” for a week and give it a stir every other day. Watering cans are the perfect teapot for your garden. Strain out the dirt and pour the liquid into your watering can, where it is ready to serve up some serious nutrients to your garden.

Popping Fresh

You can grow your own popping corn. One of the most exotic varieties is pretty pops, which has kernels of red, blue, orange, black, purple, and yellow. Left on the cob, it’s great for decorating your home. And it tastes wonderful when popped (the kernels turn white, though).

It’s the leisure hours, happily used, that have opened up a new world to many a person.

—George M. Adams

Red-Hot Antioxidants

If you like spicy food, consider growing a variety of hot peppers in the summer. Recently, scientists have found the substance that creates the heat in peppers. It’s called capsaicin, an antioxidant that gives chilies their bite and, like all antioxidants, may help prevent cancer.

Some chili peppers, rated from low to high capsaicin content (and therefore amount of heat), are:

•New Mexico red: (rated 2–3)

•Jalapeno: 5

•Serrano: 6

•Tabasco: 8

•Thai: 9

•Scotch Bonnet: 10

•Savina: 10+

There’s something about sun and soil that heals broken bodies and jangled nerves.

—Nature Magazine

Garden in a Jar

The very first garden I remember was a sweet potato in a jar. My mama planted it when we were living in three tiny rooms behind our dress shop. There was no yard, no room outside even for a flowerpot. But Mama filled a Mason jar with water, propped the long, skinny sweet potato up in the glass with a trio of toothpicks, and told my brother and me to watch. By summer, the kitchen window was curtained with graceful vines and big curving leaves. And somehow that window garden made our shabby little kitchen into a special place. Even the light seemed different—more restful, more alive. That was when I first realized I needed a garden in my life.

What I know of the divine sciences and the holy scriptures, I learned in the woods and fields. I have no other masters than the beeches and the oaks.

—St. Bernard of Clairvaux

Comfrey for Comfort

Comfrey is beloved by healers and is one of the best-known healing herbs of all time. It has even been referred to as “a one-herb pharmacy” for its inherent curative powers. Well-known and widely used by early Greeks and Romans, its very name, symphytum, from the Greek symphyo, means to “make grow together,” referring to its traditional use of healing fractures. Comfrey relieves pain and inflammation. Comfrey salve will be a mainstay of your home first-aid kit. Use it on cuts, scrapes, rashes, sunburn, and almost any skin irritation. Comfrey salve can also bring comfort to aching arthritic joints and sore muscles.

Coconut-Comfrey Cure-All Salve

•¾ cup comfrey-infused oil

•¼ cup coconut oil

•4 tablespoons beeswax

•10 drops lavender essential oil

Combine comfrey and coconut oils. Heat the oil and wax together until the wax melts completely. Pour into a clean, dry jar. When the mixture has cooled a little, but has not yet set, add 10 drops of lavender essential oil, which is also an antiseptic. Seal the jar and store in a cabinet to use any time you scratch yourself working in the garden or want to renew and soften your hands and feet after a lot of house and yard work. One note: use it on the surface of your skin and it will work wonders, but, if a cut is deep, don’t get it inside the wound. Let your physician handle that. Comfrey is a miracle plant for healing; in combination with the lavender, this power duo will restore your spirit along with your skin.

Emotional Rescue Remedy

Why does every day seem like it is weeklong nowadays? Unplugging from cable news and constant social media feeds will help, as will this time-tested aromatherapy healing potion. This remedy is an excellent way to recharge and refresh after a hectic week.

In a small ceramic or glass bowl, gently mix together the following essential oils with a small amount of base/carrier oil:

•2 drops bergamot

•4 drops carrier oil (apricot or sesame, ideally)

•2 drops vanilla

•1 drop amber

•2 drops lavender

Gently rub one drop of Calm Emotion Potion on each pulse point: on both wrists, behind your earlobes, on the base of your neck, and behind your knees. As the oil surrounds you with its warm scent, you will be filled with a quiet strength.

Beautifying Your Home

Now the earth with many flowers puts on her spring embroidery.

—Sappho

Shabby Chic in the Garden

To add a distinctive look to outdoor plants pots and planters, try this simple trick. Create a mixture containing one part garden soil, two parts peat moss, and one part water—the mixture should be gooey and thick in consistency. Using a garden trowel or your hand, spread the exterior of a terra-cotta pot or planter with the mixture, and allow to dry. Sow seeds or outdoor plants plantings as desired in the pots, and water normally. Within a few weeks, the peat moss mixture will have blossomed with a variety of mosses and lichens, giving your pots a verdant, natural patina.

Growing a garden and staying out in the fresh air after office hours seemed to give me the strength to meet all problems with greater courage.

—Jim G. Brown