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Sun plus water plus soil.
Sun is beyond control. Providing water became an undertaking with short- and medium-term results. Soil, luckily, can be worked and improved, with near -time and long-term results. Meaning it responds to will and rationality and labor, which I possess some – but no surplus – of each.
An acid is a sour tasting substance with a pH lower than 7 and which turns litmus paper red. A base, or alkali, is a bitter tasting substance that has a pH higher than 7 and which turns litmus paper green. Number seven itself represents neutral.
Soils too can be measured on a pH scale. Different plants prefer – or require – different levels of acidity, or alkalinity. Blueberries and lilacs, for example, like acidic soil (meaning slightly acidic, not meaning toxic).
Our plants like anything from an acidic to a neutral to an alkaline soil. We enrich (that is, raise the pH of) our soil with such things as lime, or urine (which is slightly acidic but contains salt), compost – which contains nitrogen, and fertilizers like 10-10-10 fertilizer (meaning one part each phosphorus, potassium and nitrogen).
James Egan shows off his bounty of crops he has grown this summer. Little rain made for a difficult growing season so persistent weeding and watering by James was necessary but the results– as displayed here–were well worth the effort. Photo’s courtesy of James Egan
I measured the pH in some of my dirt, from some of my landscaping and gardening. The poor, sandy, gravelly ground in front of the shed is acidic (5.5). The soil in the beds around the shack were slightly alkaline (7.25), good for the asparagus and strawberries and ferns. The soil under my most recent compost bin is almost neutral (6.75). This knowledge satisfies my curiosity; it does not prompt me to make any improvements.
At my brother’s, one raised bed -where the corn did well – was alkaline; another – where the beans and peas thrived – was acidic; the rest were in between.
I compost, and introduced compost into the soils, to introduce organic matter and help in moisture retention. As an aside, this year I even grew eight thriving tomato plants directly atop my two-year-old compost bins.
I mulch, to keep down weeds and also retain moisture in the soil. This year I used spruce cones and pine needles to mulch my acid-loving blueberries. I mulched the domestic raspberries in spring and didn’t water them once during the drought. And they produced some good raspberries.
A blessing of turnips, radishes, and pepperoncini were just some of the foods grown by James this summer.
I learned that asparagus doesn’t like competition. Which was new to me, because when I was a kid and stalking the wild asparagus along the fence rows in the farm country, you had to fight your way through the tall Memorial-Day grass to get to the hidden asparagus shoots. But crowded or not, the wild asparagus thrived, and when it was tall and woody and went to seed you marked the spot carefully so you could find the hill the next year in the tall grass. But that was wild asparagus. Domestic asparagus requires tending; that is weeding.
I learned that worse than any crabgrass or quack grass infestation is the horsetail. And that the easiest weed to pull is the lambs’ quarters. Fairly easy also is the plantain in loose soil. Clover as it matures becomes more difficult because its roots grow deep and twisted. But I actually like clover. It’s a legume (with beans and peas and alfalfa) and its roots have the important function of actually adding nitrogen to the soil (called “nitrogen fixing”). That’s why farmers rotate corn and soybean crops: so, a season of soybean actually restores nitrogen to the soil. I won’t grow any peas next year because I learned that I actually prefer canned peas.
And I learned how much I enjoy the corporeal smell of tomato plants, the soily, garden-green taste of radish, the feel of working worked soil, the smell of chives and elderberry blossoms and lilacs, the bashful smile of a 7-foot sunflower in bloom, the smell of wild mint volunteering amongst the tomatoes. The blue beauty of blueberries against green leaves – any wild thing blue like the violet or purple like an iris. The white and purple turnips and dull red radishes and bright red pepperoncinis and the hot bananas the color of a drake mallard’s bill.
Apropos of all this, I recall George Harrison: “I’m not a career person; I’m a gardener, basically.”
Yes, that’s it. I’m a gardener, and a learner, and sometimes all other things seem just second-best. I’m a Gopher too and a Wood Duck again.
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