Category Archives: politics

Sugarloaf chickory

Many of us are poring over gardening catalogs at this time of year.  It, admittedly, is a fun exercise, this paper gardening:  such potential!  Such success, if it’s all on paper!  And not to knock all those catalogs that come in the mail, most unbidden, but…have you considered the alternative?  You know, seed houses that are either so small they haven’t a catalog, and/or seed houses that are actually trying to do the world a bit of good by preserving diversity?

The longer I have lived on this farm the more I do try to walk the walk:  I am a seedsaver, but I am not yet entirely self-sufficient in seeds.  This year I am doing a bit of seed-trading with some local gardeners, so I anticipate new additions in the form of both seeds and rootstock from these trades.  But there are a few other outfits that I think should get more traffic because of what it is they are trying to do.

Into growing the grains for your daily bread?  The Heritage Wheat Conservatory both sells grain and is a great advocate for the preservation of heirloom grains.  Recipes included!

The child and I experimented with leather breeches beans last year with a usual green bean variety that I grow.  Trouble is, this variety is not grown to be preserved this way!  Beans are a vastly varied species of edibles, and the average seed catalog barely budges beyond green beans and the occasional heirloom dried bean.  I will purchase some creasy (greasy) beans from Sustainable Mountain Agriculture Center this year.  The objective of this organization is to recover and encourage Appalachian heirloom tomatoes and beans.

Nobody beats the Sage of La Honda for preserving seed and plant biodiversity.  His catalog is a botanical education.

Sand Hill in Iowa is a family-run organization that preserves rare seeds and poultry.  I will be getting our Chantecler chickens from them this year, but their seeds are also quite notable.  Don’t be put off by their byzantine ordering process.

NativeSeeds Search aims to preserve the seeds and foodways of the American southwest.

Amishland Heirloom Seeds is a one-woman seed store based in Pennsylvania Dutch country.  She’s stingy with her quantities but her heart is true:  you are to preserve the entirety of your first crop for next’s year’s seed.  Word of warning:  she hasn’t updated her catalog for 2009 so I have no idea if she’s even still doing what she’s doing.  UPDATE, 1/8:  seems she’s just a little slow getting her website running!

This year, I think I will give my beloved Fedco a pass and order all of my seed needs from Turtle Tree.  This company, based in upstate New York, suits both my latitude and growing expectations and is ALL open-pollinated, a necessary step in my own adventures of seed saving.  They also have forage crops for the expected four-legged additions for the farm this year.

And finally, there is one fruit tree company you should all know about.  They’re local to me so I do have a bias, but their catalog is much deeper than either Fedco Trees or Trees of Antiquity.  The problems he has had with an embezzling employee are over, so he’s back to providing the best fruit tree diversity in the country.  Shop Southmeadow Fruit Gardens!

Ugh:  yet another photo of a page out of a book that you probably can’t read!

I curled up in bed with my highlighter and my 2009 Fedco Seeds catalog yesterday.

I will not claim that this outfit is all things to all gardeners, because it is not.  Even if Fedco has a nationwide reach now, it is avowedly pro-Maine in its seed selections as far as climate goes.  The seeds it sells that won’t reliably perform well in its home state tend to get a big disclaimer in their description, to the effect that the variety “will grow in a good season.”  Point taken.  And every year, I always have to go to another seed outfit or two to retrieve all that I need for the homestead, but every year, Fedco reliably adds a wanted item to its catalog, usually a year after I have bought the variety elsewhere.  (Good King Henry is this year’s addition.)

But I will show you why I love this catalog so:  Here is a photo of the example page showing how people should fill in group orders. As an example, it used the Wall Street recipients of the government’s $700B federal bailout, and addressed the order to The Bail Outs, c/o Henry (Hank) Paulson.

Now who said gardening wasn’t a political act?

The peppers are on the fence: still alive in the old greenhouse

Now that the election has passed, I readily admit I face a void without my daily dose of polling.  Dang, but there is something quite addictive about verifying a candidate’s status on a regular basis.  Polls can be misleading, of course.  If I were to poll my garden plants, for example, I am quite sure I would hear wildly different things from each vegetable about how I, their representative, well, represents her constituents:

• From the tomatoes:  “She’s generous with compost, but we get eaten by hornworms and aren’t trimmed and tied often enough.  Only a few of us were fortunate enough to live in the greenhouse so she doesn’t equally represent us.”
• From the root crops:  “She’s generous with the compost, but often thins us too late and we get crowded.  Oh, and she spends too much time with the tomatoes.”
• From the potatoes:  “We can’t see, we’re underground.  This clay soil sucks, though.”
• From the lettuces:  “We are far too numerous and need different housing plans.  And she spends too much time with the tomatoes.”
• From the beans:  “She is generous with the compost and spaces us correctly.  We don’t mind being ignored by her.  She’ll get us if we’re dried out, if we’re shelling, or if we’re fresh; we don’t really care.”
• From the entire brassica family:  “Keep her away from us with that sharp knife!”
• From the squash:  “She is stingy with the compost and we get eaten alive by squash bugs!  Throw her out of office NOW!”

Polls are often misleading in terms of what one actually does versus what one says one will do.  If I were to fashion a pie chart, say, of my time in the garden, I am quite sure I will be horribly inaccurate.  Self-delusion is a wonderful thing. Let’s say the categories of time are 1. dealing with the soil (mulching, composting) 2. planting 3. weeding 4. harvesting and 5. screwing around, usually with the compost piles.  I would guess that this breaks down as such as a typical season of gardening for me:  10% soil, 15% planting, 20% weeding, 50% harvesting and 5% screwing around.  In reality, it’s probably 30% soil, 5% each planting, weeding and harvesting and 55% screwing around.  But I could be wrong.

You will hear almost every candidate for office say that s/he doesn’t pay much attention to polls.  That’s bully, and we all know it:  even the most blithely bubbled candidate (GWBush comes to mind) certainly knows how s/he is faring in terms of opinion.  You can’t take on the job without answering to somebody!  I think in our heart of hearts we know our elected officials have our needs on their radar:  whether these needs are met or not is why we have elections, after all.  For me, I think about how much there is to know and how little it is that I actually DO know about gardening and all I can say to my veggies is a Clintonesque “I feel your pain, and I am with you.  I am trying my best.”

That, and I’m also glad they’re all annuals with memoires as short as their lifespans!  Next year’s crops won’t know what a slacker I really am.