You Know You're Not Turning Your Compost Enough When...

...one of your resident red-tailed hawks decides he'd better get his talons busy tossing the stuff if you're not going to do it.

I awoke one morning a few weeks ago to see this "little" guy (if you can say 26" is little for a bird that isn't a condor or a bald eagle) was prancing around in one of my compost piles. I ran to my trusty, handy-dandy Petersen's Bird Guide to identify this handsome devil and it appeared he was a juvenile red-tailed hawk. No red tail at his age, so that threw me off initially. At that point, like any typical 'baby' bird, he was more fluffy and downy than anything and his coloring was still a bit muted although beautiful.

After I took several pictures (of course) I noticed he wasn't exactly prancing. He was panicking as he tried, unsuccessfully, to fly out of the soft, vinyl-webbed enclosure. With every attempt he'd crash into the webbing, bounce off of it and back into the pile. Why was he unable to get airborne, I wondered? Then I saw the chunk of bark that he held clutched in the huge talons of his orange right leg. One of those daggers had pierced through the wood and it was lodged onto his foot. My heart broke as I watched him flutter, crash and bounce continually while that chunk of bark clung to him. Perhaps that was throwing off his balance. I, too, began to panic. I've seen my share of critters in distress in and around my garden and have always done whatever I could to rescue them. So my immediate reaction was to help this poor fellow out of the enclosure.

Racing to the back door to his aid - to do exactly what I didn't know - I suddenly stopped in my tracks. "Linda", I reminded myself, "this is no little finch you're rescuing here!" I could hardly scoop him up in a towel and deposit him in a shoe box. I didn't have any beach towels handy nor did I or my husband wear shoes big enough. Besides, even if he did allow me to get close enough, I risked more than just a gentle brush of feathers should he manage to take flight past my face. The thought of deep gashes from those talons across my cheeks and forearms caused me to seriously pause and rethink the situation and my approach.

First, I needed some protective headgear. Ah! My husband's Yankee batting helmet. But what about body armor? It was 90 degrees plus that morning, but I rummaged through the winter clothes in the closet and hauled out my heaviest, quilted, down-stuffed jacket. Okay: head, body somewhat protected. Now I needed something to fend him off should he decide I was more of a threat than an aid and his increased panic rejuvenated his flying abilities and sent him lunging for my helmeted, down-stuffed body. I didn't want to flail something over my head like a mad woman. That would frighten him even more. (Not the neighbors, however, as they've become used to some of my rather "strange peccadilloes" in the garden over the years.)

Do you ever notice that when you're on automatic-pilot-emergency-must-do-something-and-no-time-to-properly-evaluate-the-circumstances mode...you wind up doing at least one thing that, in retrospect, was totally ludicrous? As in: "What the hell was I thinking?"

In my frenetic quest for a pseudo-defensive weapon to wield and finding it unbearable to wait a second longer to help this beautiful creature, anxiously poised at the backdoor, I reached for the closest thing at hand. A flyswatter. A pink, plastic flyswatter.

Indeed. What the hell was I thinking?

To my relief - and I'm sure the young hawk's - just as I neared the back corner of my house, I saw that not only had he managed to free himself from my 8'X4' leaf mulch/compost pile, but was resting quite peacefully and regally on the corner of my deck. I silently withdrew to the backdoor, closing it slowly as I stepped inside so he wouldn't hear the "click" of the latch, become startled again and fly off. I wanted to see him even closer from the safety inside my house and check that he'd unhinged himself rom the chunk of wood as well. Slithering up to the back window once again, I could see that his talons were indeed free of the wood, and he posed there for some time on the corner of my deck assuming a very stately stance as if to tell me "Go ahead, check me out for as long as you need. I'm okay."

Still wearing my helmet and down jacket I managed to snap a few more pictures of him in all his royal glory as he temporarily claimed my deck for his throne.

You must trust me, dear reader, that there isn't one iota of embellishment here. These were the actual events and my actions as they unfolded. Truly as silly as parts may sound, on that blazing hot morning in late July, I sallied forth unto The Great Piles Of Compost On The Moors, helmeted, downed and brandishing my Excalibur flyswatter which was removed not from a legendary stone but from a metal hook on the wall of my mudroom - to rescue not a fair maiden but one of Nature's gifts that blessed my garden that day. However, on that fateful day, Nature oversaw the welfare of its own as She so often does and relieved me of my gardener's duty as steward of my land and the critters therein.

I removed the Royal Yankee Helmet; shed my regal robes of down and laid up Excalibur flyswatter upon the golden hook - knowing that soon enough another day would dawn outside my castle walls when a new battle would join and "Her Ladyship of Gardenz-A-Lot" would be called upon to once again unsheathe the Holy Grail of flyswatters.

All hail my not-so-little-compost turner!

How To Have A Beautiful Garden Without Really Trying

If you believe that... then I've got a bridge to sell you for a buck and, don't look now, but pigs are flying!

Oh, sure, there's so-called "low maintenance" gardens: succulents, shrubs, wildflower meadow-gardens. But even they require some attention. Some time and care and usually results in some aches and pains to the gardener in charge.

Once upon a time in a garden galaxy center actually not all that far away, I foolishly deluded myself into thinking that when I became more involved with perennials, my garden would pretty much take care of itself as opposed to the constant demands of more needy annual plants. Even my neighbor who maintains a vegetable garden and only dabbles in flowers, seemed to think so, too. Uh...wrong!

I've come to several conclusions in this regard after 25+ years of gardening.

The first is that my neighbor doesn't grow enough perennials. If he did, he'd quickly learn they are just as demanding - if not more so - than other flora. When you care for perennials, you're not just caring for them for that season. Your concern is not just the amount or health of that season's bloom but for their safe return and abundance next season and seasons thereafter. With perennials, your eye is constantly on the future for both their well being and the prospect of your own well being enhanced by their continued beauty. Then, again, any gardener will always have at least one eye on the future. Whether it involve the care of perennial flowers and ornamentals or perennial vegetables like rhubarb or asparagus or projecting which annual veggie, flower or herb seeds to save or buy or learn more about or decidedly never plant again! Gardeners alike garden with their feet planted in today's garden and their eyes constantly peering over the fence to next season.

The second conclusion is that no matter what I grow - vegetables, herbs, annuals or, yes, perennials - I will still push the envelope of my body's limitations in order to care for my garden.

Oh, and the third conclusion? It's the lack of basic dissimilarities between anyone who works the soil for their own pleasure. Even the person who grows a single tomato plant in a container along with a few window boxes of herbs and flowers can somehow figure out some way to tire themselves, hurt themselves and spend as much time in the pursuit of their passion, as the person who gardens a backyard vegetable garden or an acre flower garden. Admittedly, the container gardeners won't have to bend quite so much and need knee replacements as will those who garden directly in the earth. But, hey, there's always carpal tunnel syndrome from repetitive trowel digging. And...we all have the same dirty fingernails. Big or small (uh, "gardens", not people); vegetable or flower; water or orchards....We are all gardeners, "hear us roar, in numbers too big to ignore". (With apologies to Helen Reddy)). And if you can't hear our roars, then you may know our legions by our faint aroma of fish emulsion and manure and our International Salute to all passers-by: BUTTS IN THE AIR.

So, as to having a beautiful garden without really trying? Aside from the reality that it can't be done, heck, even if it could, that'd take all the fun out of it!

***Note to self: Remember how much fun I'm having after three or more hours of bending, lifting, digging, kneeling, weeding, deadheading and remulching in sauna-like weather, blazing sun or constant drizzle.***

Hey, just where were those garden fairies when I needed them? Seems to me I was pretty much on my own when I was putting some of this together, and I've got the heating pad and ice pack burns to prove it! And then there's those fingernails........

The Road Back

After the loss of a loved one, there seems little or no desire to pursue any pleasurable endeavors. Maybe it's sheer lack of enthusiasm. Maybe it's guilt. But, inexplicably - yet ironically predictably - I found myself on the road back to the peace and solace of my garden.

Perhaps it's Nature's simple continuity of life - in spite of our human tragedies - that first diverts and, ultimately, centers those of us who garden with our hearts. And it's impossible to escape our hearts.



Even those times when the pain follows me into the garden on mornings before the sun hits the front beds and gloomy fog still hovers in the tall oaks and pines, it dissipates like the fog when I see the first butterfly or the diamond dew drops in lady's mantle leaves. Chipmunks dart past my feet playing tag; a bluejay frenetically splashes in the birdbath; a gentle breeze rhythmically sways the feathery plumes of ornamental grasses; a red tailed hawk casts a sudden shadow in the rising sun as he swoops over the house. And I realize I'm not crying anymore. My eyes are too busy taking it all in. My frown alternates between smile and awe as rapidly as the arrival of the early shift of bumble bees collecting first-morning's pollen.

"Without having experienced pain, how can you recognize and truly appreciate life's simple pleasures?", my mother used to say. So I guess the pain is a necessary evil if it means continuing to savor the beauty right outside my front door by ensuring that habitat of hope and healing remains and thrives. Although there'll always be days when I'll struggle with that logic, I will also try to remember that in addition to Nature's wonders guiding me back on a more peaceful road, there are always angels in my garden and in my gardener's heart to help me find my way back.

Tears For A Tiny Heart

Broken flowering heart bleeds
Tiny heart within a single teardrop
My broken heart bleeds
Endless teardrops for a tiny heart.


~ For My Tyler
May 14, 2007

WHEN DID IT STOP BEING FUN?

I remember when gardening was supposed to be a form of relaxation. Experimentation. Learning. But mostly, it was supposed to be Fun.

After turning to organics nearly 15 years ago (already 10 years into gardening at that point), I figured it'd have to be even more fun now that I could work with the earth and not against it. Now my yin and the earth's yang could coincide and "grow" harmoniously in my little garden. No longer would I fight with mother nature, but learn to work with her. More importantly I would learn that although my new-found organic enlightenment wouldn't necessarily lighten the physical or time-consuming load, it would lighten my worries over lost plants, lessened harvests, smaller blooms - no blooms - alien bugs and unidentified munchers who fed on my plants under cover of darkness leaving them crushed, skeletonized, or slimed with a fungus.

I learned that "going organic" didn't just mean heavier on the manure, leaving those grass clippings on the lawn instead of at the curb, building a compost pile, embracing the ocean's aroma from a freshly-opened bottle of fish or seaweed emulsion, or finally understanding just why the acrid stench of chemicals made my eyes burn every time I walked past the piles of weed n'feeds in the Big Box stores. I learned that when agreeing to work in partnership with mother nature, you had to accept whatever she doled out. Good, bad or otherwise. Learning and accepting that I no longer had to strive for perfection at all costs...that I no longer had to strive for perfection at all...brought a great sense of calm, relaxation, and helped reacquaint me with why I began gardening in the first place: to have fun.

Too many people I've come across in organic gardening circles seem to have forgotten that gardening is supposed to be fun and that "perfection" is not in an organic gardener's lexicon. It isn't an engineering-degreed, complex calculation of browns and greens; exact to the week, day and minute of seeding and transplanting; to the proper proportion of worms per square foot of soil; till vs. no till; should mulch be grass clippings, wood chips, leaves or newspaper. Would heads roll if perennials were mulched before or after a freeze? Lacking any other viable alternative, would one risk organic castigation if they were to purchase a single bale of peat moss? Would an aspiring organic gardener be shunned if they strived to improve their hopelessly inadequate soil with organic amendments other than compost? And what wrath did they face if they added no compost at all initially - or even the next season - simply because there had none? After all, a gardener "going" organic doesn't necessarily make the transition with a pile of finished compost in tow.

Would a gardener risk eternal organic damnation if they succumbed to applications of pre-packed or bottled organic fertilizers? Would that blasphemous act mock those who sanctimoniously adhere to compost's irrefutable ability to cure and prevent all manner of gardening ills? And what if - armed with a wheelbarrow of neatly finished compost - it still failed to vanquish disease and pests? Would that be the compost's failure or the gardener's? In the eyes of those organic hardliners preaching from bully pulpits built on their perfect soil, the fault, dear Gardener, would lie with Thee. Yet another reason for any neophyte gardener dabbing newbie toes into organic waters to run screaming from shores of compost tea because they were brow-beaten with such daunting criteria from these self-proclaimed "experts" who consistently held the bar unattainably too high. Especially for a newcomer and even for a veteran, these organic demagogs bled all the fun out of natural gardening by mystifying it as rocket science and dehydrating it into soil biology 101.

Surely this current organic perfectionism, once the bastion of laid-back, go-with-the-flow flower children of the sixties - aligned with Rodale's teachings and Rachel 's warnings - would collectively "roll them over Beethoven" in their graves or reverberate a shake, rattle and roll of hippie walkers at the very suggestion that their "least harm" philosophy had denigrated into such organic fascism. Why, I wonder, does it seem so many organic gardeners these days appear to devote more sweat of their brow to the details than to the actual deed itself? Why does it seem so many new organic gardeners are having less fun doing something which should provide more pleasure because of so much intimidation postulated by unforgiving organic evangelicals?

Instead of promulgating the real credo of organic gardening -"Doing The Least Harm" - these alleged "experts" spend more time wagging fingers of chastisement than lending a supportive hand of understanding and helpful information. Instead of praising or commiserating with the newcomers to the organic fold (or even the veteran players) for garden missteps, they mercilessly drop kick each gardener who simply can't maintain optimum soil conditions. Reasons are unacceptable to them. Even pleas for suggestions are dismissed with responses of party line rhetoric, which - when broken down in practical, day-to-day terms - is of little or no constructive value to the poor perplexed gardener. The miserable failure (and I hardly consider the loss of a tomato plant or a begonia a "miserable failure" in the first place) are all laid at the ill-informed, ignorant and pathetically incapable Bierkenstocks of the gardener who didn't heed the Word of the Ozes of Organics. We didn't follow the "rules". We didn't get our soil tested every three weeks or watered overhead a few times because we couldn't afford to replace a soaker hose or there was no time to sprinkle during the day because our kid was sick, so we had to haul the hose out at 7:00 pm risking fungal disease on our hollyhocks. Blame is not placed on the errant whims of Mother Nature or Fate or a prolonged case of the flu or attendance to life outside the garden, but rather our trowels are raked over the coals of failure because we did not follow the path of those self-righteous preachers of garden perfection.

The real irony there is that, organic or otherwise, it is an oxymoron to combine "perfection" and "gardening" in the same sentence, paragraph or thought. Yet, we are beaten about the heads with the limp leaves of our deceased plants and mocked for our shortcomings with snide innuendoes of "I told you so". We are graded as "organically criminally negligent" and deserve what ills befall our garden as a result of our careless and casual irresponsible equation of gardening and fun.

And are those who've assumed the mantle of grading a gardener's term paper more educated, more experienced and more knowledgeable of natural gardening than the average Joe or Joan Gardener? Perhaps. But are they true Educators? Do they educate with broad parameters and allow a student to learn at their own pace? Do they judge a different approach as a mistake or assist a gardener who's taken a new road toward the same goal of doing the least harm? Most importantly, do they encourage experimentation and fun? Isn't that the description of a true Educator? If they don't fit that description, then they are merely close-minded, myopically arrogant preachers who just like to hear themselves talk.

There are many of us organic gardeners out there who still value Fun in gardening at a higher premium than any fixation on failures. There are those who look upon failures as opportunities for lessons otherwise not learned. Probably the majority of us are of that mindset. Yet as in any group or philosophical approach there exists fanatics. These are the ones who threaten to take the inherent Fun out of it for the rest of us. Perhaps most disturbing is that these are the people in positions to bring new organic converts into "the fold" - gently - educating with a soft garden glove and not the back of a steel trowel. These are the people who should know that nature will win out - sometimes...most times - no matter what you do. Gardeners, new and old, must acknowledge that acceptance of a least harmful, organic approach to gardening, also demands acceptance of a garden that may be imperfect through no fault of our own. No matter what blame any presumed learned "expert" may lay at our scruffy garden clogs.

Gardening organically means rejoicing and having fun with the garden that is half empty as well as half full. Perhaps one should perceive no difference in it at all. Half full...half empty. As long as at least one half remains Fun.