12. November 2009 by admin.

I sprayed a mixture of fish emulsion and kelp this morning on the entire garden. It smells pretty foul, but it has everything the plants need. The nutrients get taken up by the leaves and the roots, and it’s got trace minerals and other goodies that other fertilizers don’t have.

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5. June 2009 by admin.

Eva’s Pride, a freestone yellow peach dropped off the tree today. I felt another one, and it was ready, so I picked it along with three others. I submit the following photo:

Oh my God! I tasted the one that dropped off the tree while I was uploading this photo, and I’m in heaven! Just the right balance of sweetness and tartness; and so juicy! Dripping!

Now for my new Falling in Love rosebush:

Now you can see why I chose this rose. It’s not only beautiful, it smells wonderful too.

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30. May 2009 by admin.

I had a new rosebush called “Falling in Love” and it died. I ripped it out and ordered another one. It’s a new variety from Weeks, the rose company. It will be a lovely light pink with a strong scent, or as Michael would say “it’s smelly.” Not every new installation survives and you have to start all over.

I’m reading a book called The Soul’s Code, In Search of Character and Calling by James Hillman. The author would like to put an end to the notion that people have to be fixed, and that symptoms always point to illness. Sometimes symptoms do not belong to disease but to destiny.

I always know when “something is up” and there’s something extraordinary about to happen because G-d speaks in mysterious ways, interesting ways. I feel sometimes that I have a straight line to this Source whatever you may call it or assign it. The garden grounds me, but my head is in the sky, so to speak. It’s because I’m connected so solidly to the earth that I have the luxury of having vision from way up high, if I may be so bold.

In memorial of the rosebush that croaked, I take this passage from James Hillman’s book: “To change how we see things takes falling in love. Then the same becomes altogether different. Like love, a shift of sight can be redemptive—-not in the religious sense of saving the soul for heaven, but in a more pragmatic sense. As at a redemption center, you get something back for what you had misperceived as worthless. The noisome symptoms of every day can be revalued and their usefulness reclaimed.”

I’m a big fan of falling in love. I maintain that love is easy, not difficult to do. Maybe nobody can define it, but you know it when you feel it, and it can be promoted and practiced like an art form. There’s no need to complicate that feeling by saying you don’t know what it is.

Michael and Me

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11. May 2009 by admin.

I visited Michael, our resident Rosarian Extraordinaire at the South Bay Rose Society. I snapped a few pictures, which I include here.

“September Mourning”

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25. March 2009 by admin.

This morning, at the gym I saw a headline that ran “Killings up among Drug Dealers” or something of that sort. I tried to imagine why the killings have gone UP. As opposed to staying level, I guess.

Which got me thinking: if the classes are shifting, more people moving into challenging financial times, what are they more likely to do: drugs or whatever they were doing before this challenging time?

If the youth of today were planting gardens instead of doing drugs, maybe they’d avoid all the gun-related activity as well.

If food is a drug, and my drug of choice is veggies, then really: I’m a drug pusher myself. I espouse healthy food as a way to do drugs to feel good.

Everybody knows that if you eat well, you feel good in body mind and soul. Except how do you treat these veggies to make them taste good? Keep it simple, is what I say: just steam the kohlrabi and put some salt and/or butter on it. That should keep the kids off the street and in the garden.

I’m reading about teenagers, specifically boys, becoming men by going through a process called “initiation.” What our culture lacks is an initiation process for men so that boys know how they fit into society, their role as men: the responsibility it requires, and the spiritual path that beckons.

In a book called “The Secret Life of Men,” Steve Biddulph writes about Ecology as a Spiritual Path: “Many people are attracted to a more natural life, not just from ’save the earth’ concerns but because they are pulled to it by the wildness in their own nature. Indeed there are many who would claim not to be religious at all, yet the wilderness and the ocean are already their spiritual homes. Surfer, mountaineers, hikers, are responding to this call. Even an old person growing roses is seeking the spiritual. The thirst for wildness is with us every day. The more artifical life gets, the more people strive to redress the balance. Nature always offers the happiest way for humans. The closer modern man gets to inner and outer wildness, the better things will go.”

So the daughter of my friend in Spanish class LOVED my script. Now I just have to find out what she’s made of, to see if she’s willing to take a few risks to get it read in Hollywood, the “People-Discouraging Machine.” Only the strong willed survive.

Posted in Roses, Gardening classes and opportunities to learn, Everyday life, Vegetables and Fruit | 1 Comment »

23. February 2009 by admin.

Why don’t gardeners die, they just spade away? Because we have to see our plants grow to their full potential! We have to see the fruits and flowers of our labor, and that takes time and we’re very patient people.

Otherwise, why would we spend a whole afternoon at a rose auction to buy rosebushes without any flowers on them? Because we know they’re going to be gorgeous and smell wonderful once they start blooming this spring.

I love the South Coast Rose Society and all the people who belong to it! They are so passionate about their roses, as though they were their own children. So when I saw Sharon Van Enoo who’s an amazing Rose Goddess who taught me how to treat my climbers, I immediately asked her which roses she recommended at the auction that “smell good” and are “good for cutting”. That’s a great opener for anybody who loves roses, but even more so for someone with as much experience as Sharon, who acted as the auctioneer yesterday. She used to prune the bushes at the Huntington, and if you know anything about their rose garden, you know they have hundreds of rose bushes!

But what I love best about rose lovers is the way they are around rosebushes. The President of our club,  Bill Knebel bumped into Sharon’s hair with one of the thorny rose canes, and what did she do? She laughed! It reminded me of the time that I was visiting Michael, our resident Rosarian Extraordinaire at his homestead of 350+ rosebushes, and he and I were climbing around his cutting garden. You have to imagine Michael, whom I love, trying to get around some really thorny rosebushes, getting caught by one in the pants, and so stuck that I had to free him or he would’ve had to cut himself out (would he have cut his pants, or the rose cane first?)

Are we embarrassed by our roses? NO! We love them and we know we’re going to get snagged sometimes; that’s part of the deal. Sometimes, even when using my gloves, I get stuck and boy, it hurts, but I’ve noticed that it doesn’t hurt for very long.

There’s a word for the beauty inside a flower that comes from its totality. The word is urpflanze, and it stands for the essence of the flower that resides somewhere inside it. You cannot see this essence; it has to be taken in as a whole. The thing I think all rose lovers appreciate is that it takes some time to be with your flowers and really breathe them in, and that’s what gives us gardeners the life force I was writing about earlier.

We get a 10% discount at South Bay Gardens in Redondo Beach for belonging to the Rose Society and picking up coupons at that auction. If you love roses, the $20 yearly fee is well worth the price of membership.

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