The Seed Sanctuary: A Spiritual Home

My first garden, planted when I was a lad of but four tender years, was dubbed Jason's Pea Patch by my parents, and the report is that I was inordinately, uncannily focused on it. Well, that spiral keeps coming around in my life, and the 45-year-old version of me can still let the world fall away while staring at a plant and seeing how it's growing.

Not surprisingly, perhaps, it was the peas that drove me to this construction project. Ever since we installed our wonderful garden fence ("good fences make good neighbors" applies especially to our relationships with groundhogs, rabbits, and deer), the chipmunk, vole, and other rodent populations have often run a little to the dense side of things, which is not a plus for seed savers like us. The chipmunks especially are thorough at finding seed as it matures, and they have a special love for dried, mature green peas. Last year we got no Green Arrow shelling pea seed at all, and the strain we've worked hard to select over the last decade or so was in danger of dying out. I don't begrudge the chipmunks their instincts or their ingenuity, but this is important and I felt I needed to do something about it.

Trapping or poisoning them all was a disheartening prospect to us, seemed unlikely to succeed, and was not enough of a guarantee...new ones could always move in at inopportune times. Keeping a terrier in the garden or the traditional pride of semi-wild cats around the place come with enough liabilities (expense, care, disease potential in garden soil, destruction of wild birds), that we preferred to go another route if possible. We felt we needed a safe place to grow small quantities of rodent-attracting seed, and the best solution we could think of was a physical barrier creating a safe zone.

I had had good luck last year with isolating selected pea plants from a winter-ready snap pea variety we're trying to breed (see?...again with the peas!) wherein I had crafted a tube of wire mesh and slid it down over a stake with the pea plant tied to it, then worked it down into the soil at the base of the plant to prevent digging under the edge. That worked, but it was not going to do to have to labor that way for every plant with desirable seed. If we can sow a whole patch of something, we can overwhelm the ability of the rodents to consume it all, but when it is only a few individuals, things get pretty tenuous.

The solution we arrived at for peas and other vulnerable seed-producing plants was a large frame, covered in wire mesh with small enough holes (1/4") to keep birds, chipmunks, and even mice and large crickets and grasshoppers out. I drew up several design ideas, eventually settling on a Black Locust-wood frame tall enough for full-size bean vines, sorghum plants, and tall sunflowers. It needed a sloping roof to shed leaves and other tree debris carried on the wind.

The space we decided to use for it is our old strawberry garden, which has been pretty useless because of the chipmunks, squirrels and birds anyway. This meant the area available was 16' long by 10' wide. I knew right away this would feel tight, but I was also pretty sure it would be enough space to be an effective haven for bulking up quantities of precious seed for larger plantings and for reliably developing and maintaining small supplies of seed for certain varieties we keep for our own use.

Like many of our building projects, this one was high on innovation and learning curve, meaning we had no clear idea how long it was going to take. If I had had to guess, I might have said 4 days. It was more like 8, in the end, I think. Yes, this implies some moments of stress. Stress for Janelle as she worries about all that isn't getting done while I'm hitting it hard with the "seed cage," stress for both of us as we think about the money spent on supplies (over $350 on hardware cloth alone!), meta-stress for me as I wonder if my design will be successful, stress for me as I battle remorse over all this fuss and effort in support of my drive to work in the development of seed varieties as I wonder what it will all amount to, meta-stress for Janelle as she regrets her stress putting pressure on me and taking some of the enjoyment out of the building work...these projects can really take a lot out of us, and that's not even mentioning the physical stress of digging for posts and buried wire edges; felling, working up, peeling, and carrying locust trees for poles and braces; setting posts; assembling the frame; careful chainsaw and carpentry work for the door-shaped gate with a rodent-excluding fit; cutting and stapling hardware cloth to the whole exterior, and the interminable shuttling of tools back and forth from far-flung storage location, plus the constant moving and climbing of ladders in soft, uneven garden soil (It was taxing, unrelenting work for this 45-year-old, and I can tell you I am glad it snowed and rained today!) By the time I finally got to shaping the beds inside and filling in the wire-edge-burying trench (12 inches deep, by the way), one would think I would be so soured on the project that I'd never want to see it again.

I love it.

Not just the work...though I do really love that, too, frustrations and spent energy to one side. Seeing my idea take shape by the effort of my hands is like magic, truly. What I really love is that when I step through the door-gate into that space, I feel something that has to be like what I felt in Jason's Pea Patch over forty years ago: an entrancing blend of wonder, eagerness, contentment...it is a place that I know is good, that I trust will be a safe place for my ideas and our family's needs. Despite the wind that whistles through the wire and rain coming right in through the roof, it feels like home. The first peas are already planted inside, of course.

I've been thinking a lot, in this transitional time, about the process of seed saving and development and what role it fills for us, what it means, and how it is accomplished. One of the things I've noticed is that I feel so differently while I do the work depending on what else is going on in our lives. I can feel numb with exhaustion, eager with anticipation, whimsical, driven, dubious (even regretful), proud, distracted...in the end what will matter most is that we persist. And that's how I feel about this project. It was in some ways costly to us, but even if I didn't believe it would earn its keep and then keep on giving (which I do), it is evidence of our tenacity that we got it done, evidence of our vision that we conceived of it and followed through, and the good things that come out of it will come because of that tenacity and vision expressed through time and despite the momentary feelings that may or may not always align with it.

(the view from up top - that top was then covered in snow today!)

Spring has sprung!!

Jason is outside working on the seed cage project - the hope is to wrap it up soon so that we can get peas planted inside it (the goal is to have a chipmunk/squirrel/grasshopper-free place to grow some of the seeds that are most tempting for certain critters). And the girls are enjoying time with family in PA! They left yesterday on a fun road trip north and will get to hang out with cousins, aunts, uncles and grandparents for a few days!! That means the house is quiet! I've made a verbal commitment to a few friends that I will carve out some of the next day or two to hole up with my journal. So that's up next after sharing some spring images and snippets here. 

I did chores this morning and sloshed my way through various places on the land. We've had A LOT of rain since we did our spring planting. I was excited to see the lettuce sprouting. I also made the first batch of apple mint tea to have alongside sautéed winter cress for breakfast. Green is popping out more or less everywhere. Of all the animals, I most enjoyed tending the chicks that we booted out from the house when they started exploring beyond the bounds of the kiddie pool. 

We had three good weather days recently before the predicted rains where we worked all together to get the spring gardens in. Those were the best 3 days I've had in a really long time. It was so good to be outside working together. We did so much seeding, planting, mulching, watering, weeding, transplanting, alongside a lot of laughing and talking. I was able to mostly mentally table everything else for those few days which is a monumental feat for me. There were some moments where it was iffy if we were going to meet our goal for the day (for example, get the potatoes in before dark). But we made a good team and accomplished more than we even set out to in those few days (we'll credit that by and large to kids getting older and more helpful)!! 

We did take breaks and this one was a picnic in Terah's turtle shell playhouse. The willows are slowly turning the roof green!

Alida and Terah would get tired of various jobs pretty quickly, but they were normally open to selecting something else helpful from a menu of options - they seemed to really enjoy filling wheelbarrows with leaves for mulching. 

I really do love the combination of shades of greens and browns - the leaf mulch on paths with a layer of compost on the beds is truly a beautiful sight for my eyes. 

Jason did the hard work of digging all the potato trenches. Then the rest of us helped putting the seam of bio char in, some soil over that, planting potatoes and then covering them. It feels like this year Terah is exponentially expanding the number of things she can do in the garden.

All the baby shallot and onion plants are in and looking pretty happy. I was worried the recent rains might have been too much for them, but the onion patch, especially, looked quite perky this morning.

In addition to planting potatoes, shallots and onions, we also seeded cilantro, lettuce, beets and dill. We also did a lot of weeding and path work (scooping soil from paths onto beds and applying fresh leaf mulch to the paths). Additionally, once the biochar pit was emptied we raked and scooped up all the duff from the bottom of the old brush pile to fill in the pit. It was a cascade of projects, all the more fun when done together. Here's a few other pictures from those days...

In other non-garden news, but still in the vein of things growing: Terah has lost her 4th tooth. And our trip to the dentist the other day for cleanings confirmed that she has a few more loose. She's not wasting any time!! She is enjoying what foods she can stick in through the hole.

My heart had its best kind of therapy the other night when Jonathan, Christen and Luca came over for dinner. After he had had his (several) dinners, he sacked out on my chest. There's nothing like it!!!

Since both Terah and Alida had gotten a chance to hold and feed him, they even let me hold him without asking for turns. Or maybe they could just see how blissfully content their mama was and didn't want to end that time prematurely. Whatever the reasons were, I was grateful!

It's so amazing how a little person can reorient our social spaces. He is literally the center of attention in some moments. :) He's becoming much more alert and curious about the world around him, and his smiles and little coos are something else!

And, yes, I was having a little bit of a hard time giving him up at the end of the evening!

Here's to hoping that each of you reading this have the kind of love, accompaniment, nourishment, tending, challenge and gentleness you need in your life to inspire your own growth and blooming!

Tangly Woods trip to Lost River State Park

I'm just in from all the morning animal chores. Jason is out working hard in the potato patch digging trenches for tomorrow's potato planting. There hasn't been any sounds from the girls' bedroom yet so I thought I'd take a few moments to share some photos and snippets from our little getaway this past week. Before too long, I'll whip up some nutty sweet potato waffles for brunch before we all head out into the gardens again. The "spring gardening blog post" will come once this little rush of seeding and planting comes to an end (and possibly a rainy day gives me a good reason to stay indoors). 

Alida got a coupon for her 11th birthday for a Tangly Woods' pod getaway to a surprise destination. She headed out in one vehicle with Grandma, Grandpa and Terah on Monday afternoon and Jason and I followed in the second car, being chauffeured by Kali (it was her longest driving stint yet!). The idea for this little trip was hatched a few months ago when I learned that while Alida had loved our precious time at Lost River, there were some sad feelings related to not getting to sit in a certain little rocking chair before we left. While it doesn't take much for me to look forward to a few days in the woods at a state park, I also thought it would be special to return and hopefully have a redo on the departure and maybe even find a little rocking chair for her to sit in. When it came down to it, it seemed the ritual of finding a little rocking chair for her to sit in now some 4 or so years later was more for her mother's conscience than for her. 

It's always a feat to get ready to leave the farm for a few days, but we were grateful to have someone farm-sitting who seemed up for the adventure of tending to the animals in our absence (including newly hatched chicks). We worked hard before leaving and are playing catch up now, but we soaked in time away from the project lists and many hours on trails in the woods. I know at least me and the girls were feeling some muscles that aren't used all that often - the trails there include lots of up and downs and we were comparing where the muscles were sorest on the second day when we headed out for another round. 

The weather worked out so wonderfully. It was super cold the day we arrived so we made that day for eating our dinner indoors. It got warmer the next day and still warmer the next. And then it was rainy when we left, making it not as hard to leave. It felt closer to camping when we lost water in the cabin for a few hours and then electricity later the same evening. Otherwise, the cabin was quite comfy and plenty roomy for the 7 of us. We spent a lot of the two full days there outside - hiking, playing at the various playgrounds, sitting around an outdoor fire playing verbal word games (French Toast and Contact) and telling stories, as well as eating pizza pockets and s'mores and experimenting with roasting turnips and carrots over the fire. We also enjoyed some game playing inside, reading (and napping for some of the adults who believe in naps!), and one of the younger gals favorite things was wrestling with Jason or being drug around the slippery wood floors. There was lots of laughter!

Jason and I did comment how different this getaway to Lost River was from the last one (when we came alone!). Time just the two of us was replaced with time all together as a family. It was precious too, just louder and slightly less restful! We did enjoy a long hike just with Kali while the younger two went with Grandma and Grandpa the first day. The second day our family of 5 set off leaving Grandma and Grandpa to enjoy a quieter hike just the two of them. Those aforementioned sore muscles in our littlest meant the hike was a little more challenging that day. But I did have a moment of brilliant inspiration when I suggested to Terah that she see how many things she could slip into Jason's back pockets while we hiked. He was a good sport and it thoroughly entertained her for probably nearly an hour. She really did exceptionally well keeping up with our longer legs. 

It was good to be away and also good to be home safely. I'm finding that when away from home or at home my internal landscape continues to be working overtime to sort out the big 2022 shake up and adjust to my role and identity changes in this new phase of life. It hasn't been internally very smooth, to say the least. But I did find the time in the woods to be soothing and have found the time in the gardens since our return home to also ground me in positive ways! 

One interesting thing that happened on our trip was that we passed a place on our way where there were chicken coops that looked like exact replicas of Jason's roving pens. On our way home, we pulled off to snap a photo, but Jason didn't feel quite brave enough to talk with the person in the garden with two small children at the place. He has a dim memory of someone getting chickens from him years back and coming to take photos of the coops. It was fun to see his pattern replicated so perfectly on someone else's place. 

Well, surprisingly, Kali is the first one out of bed at 10:40 a.m. It sounds like Alida is also awake (probably reading) and it won't be hard to wake Terah if there are waffles underway. So I better get to it!