January on the homestead

 

Bay and Rosemary

When I was 16, my mother took me to the Massachusetts Bay Horticultural Society’s Garden Show, set up in a echoing convention center in Boston. It was an exceptionally good year for displays—mounds of hyacinths on every corner. Daffodils in barrels. Azaleas everywhere. Rustic garden structures and sheds. I sniffed every bloom, stroked every leaf, breathed in the warm moist air that smelled of soil, reluctant to move back out into the slushy grey world of New England in late February.  The plant that I most remember, though, was an old and gnarled rosemary in a terra cotta pot. How did the owner keeps such a tender perennial alive?

For years, I nurtured rosemary plants in terra cotta pots. I set the pots into the soil in the summer, so that the plant could feel at home outside and not dry out. I brought them in for the winter, giving them the prize sun spot in my chilly old apartments. They would live for a few years, growing about half as big as the one I saw at the garden show. I would be cautiously optimistic.  Then they would grow faint, and develop mildew, and slowly fade away. I dreamed of armfuls of herbs—rosemary, bay, oregano, mint—but the climate and my rental status made it impossible.

Then I moved west, settled in the Willamette Valley and bought a house. Our first summer, after I finished painting the exterior of the house, I bought rosemary and daphne plants for under the bedroom window. The rosemary grew. And Grew. And Grew. It sprawled. Another one sprouted from the crack between the sidewalk and the steps. A third masqueraded as lavender at a plant sale and has taken over the planting strip in from of the house. Now, in order to walk down the sidewalk, or into the front door, I prune armloads of rosemary every spring.

At the same time, we bought a Bay sprig—about a foot tall—and planted it in the old rosemary terra cotta pot. It grew on the front porch for several years, then we moved it to an oak barrel in the side yard. Close enough to harvest the leaves easily, but also creating a little barrier to the neighbor’s parking space. It was a sturdy little tree for a long time. One spring day, Mark brushed his bike against it on the way to the back yard. “I think it has broken through the barrel,” he observed. “It’s Growing.” It was heading for the sky, rapidly. Bay trees, I realized, are trees. And, with our shifting climate and urban location, this bay was no longer held in check by colder winters—or by the barrel that still surrounds it. It grows, two, three, four feet a year. If I let it go, it would take over the columnar apple on one side, the gooseberry and tea plant on the other. So I prune armloads of bay, every spring.

Over time, our yard has grown up around us. We have armloads of herbs every year, bushels of potatoes, buckets of apples and plums, enough figs to feed the entire neighborhood. This growth comes, mostly, not from my skills as a garden planner, but from lucky accidents, mature plantings, time and climate—allowing my plants to take deep root in the earth, like us.

 

After Yule, The Long Winter

 

                After 12^th Night, the Long Winter begins, the stretch, here in the Pacific Northwest, which mixes with pre-spring for months on end. Rain. Mud. Dead leaves. Snowdrops. Foggy, icy mornings. Bean soup and fresh bread. Seed catalogs. Finches and juncos on the feeding ladder outside the living room window.  Hazelnut catkins growing longer every week. Solar gain. Rare glimpses off the moon through clouds. Full rivers.

                In preparation for this time, we have taken down the tree, filling the front room with light. The floors and sheets are all washed. The mantle is clear, except for the candles. The pruning saw and loppers are on the front steps; the crockpot is on the counter, full of local black beans. On this foggy morning, a towhee looks in at me while he tosses seed around for breakfast and the house smells like toast.

Yule and Snow

 

  

              We are coming to the end of Yule and the end of a cold spell that had snow on the ground for four or five days—there is still a mound by the greenhouse, where it slowly slid off of the solar panels and the roof. Preparation for both events is pretty similar, as we focus inward and limit interactions with the outside world.

                First, we settle and cover the outside world. All of the plants in pots around the yard move into the greenhouse. If it is really cold, we toss a remay sheet over them, but we did not do that this time. Branches break. Plants that normally live in the greenhouse may move into the dining room or the duration of the cold spell. The scented geraniums that cluster around the front steps move inside to the unheated dining room; the parsley and chives in pots move into their semi-protected spaces under the porch porch roof.  The chickens and rabbit get extra straw and I find the back-up water bottles so trading them out is easy. This year, Mark contacted a friend and brought in an extra load of firewood, which we unloaded one afternoon.

                Inside, the world shrinks down to the kitchen and living room. We go to the library and bring home a stack of books and, perhaps, a DVD or two. We stop at the co-op and stock up on milk, eggs, cheese, and chocolate. We put an extra blanket on the bed. Then, we shut the doors to the bedroom, cozy room, and bathroom, keeping the heat in the core of the house.  

                When everything is protected, Yule can begin, even in a snowstorm.  Wet boots dry by the heater after a long walk.  The crockpot bubbles with local beans, onions, garlic, and bay leaves. Add cornbread—cornmeal from our own plants!—and a salad made from the last head of lettuce in the garden, and we are well fed. I draw the curtains and start a fire while Mark washes the dishes. The cat basks in the dry heat and dodges the occasional spark. We read A Christmas Carol, stare at the flames, watch the snow pile up outside and swirl around the colored lights on the front fence. Our world pauses for a little while, before beginning again with the new year.