Costumes From Nature

Posted on October 17, 2022 by Ann Lovejoy
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Night flying moth costume with sparkles

Wearing The Garden

With Halloween on the horizon, my thoughts are turning to costume making. As a child, I loved making my own costumes, from a bat with big wings sewn on from wrist to ankle to a bird with hand-cut paper feathers to a mushroom (lots of paper mache over chicken wire) and a many-petaled rose with a ruffly skirt made from recycled prom gowns (which cost a quarter each at the annual town rummage sale). Apart from the occasional fairy, nearly all my costumes were inspired by the time I spent in the garden or playing in the nearby woods. These days, my grandkids are always more excited about the costumes than about the candy, partly because they have a family tradition of the generous and funny Halloween Witch, who trades toys and books for excess candy (isn’t that brilliant?).

We also make a lot of everyday costumes, which might include impromptu capes and crowns, or robot arms or giant eyes, but Halloween calls for even bolder designs, from enormous wings and stuffed octopus arms (made from many pairs of old tights attached to a single waistband; it jiggled in a very peculiar way and looked oddly pornographic even on a four year old). Last year, my grandson made a fantastic costume of a blood sucking mosquito, with a very long proboscis and plump belly full of flashing red lights to look like blood (battery powered for freedom of movement). He’s equally as inventive as his sister, if usually in a different direction, and they both enjoy coming up with wild ideas that somehow actually become a costume.

Lions And Moths And Herbs, Oh My!

My granddughter is often nature inspired in her art, and at 6 years old, she’s already an ardent herbalist with well over 50 herbs she can recognize and explain uses for. Last year, she and her mom concocted an amazing night flying moth costume, which made excellent use of Granny’s outrageous fabric stash. This year, she’s making her own costume with just a little help; she’s dressing up as one of her favorite herbs, Self-Heal (aka Prunella vulgaris, heart-of-the-earth, heal-all, and woundwort). I’m thrilled about this, as I’m also fond of self-heal, and I’ve always left this modest herb to wander in and around the garden, honoring its popularity with pollinators as well as its ancient healing history. Native to North America, it’s also considered circumboreal, widely distributed throughout Europe and Eurasia. Like others of the mint clan, this sturdy perennial has made its way throughout the world’s temperate zones, finding favor with pretty much every culture that recognizes it. I’m not sure exactly why this demure plant captured my granddaughter’s imagination. However, she’s hard at work creating large leaves that will cover her arms, and a clever  headdress that will be studded with purple florets. I definitely look forward to seeing what she comes up with this time!

This morning I was asked to help create a lion costume for a participant in the Senior Center’s upcoming Queer Bingo event. There’s nothing more fun than a surprise request for a little creativity and I’m already searching for just the right materials. For the mane, I’m inspired by the humble calendula, with its shaggy heads of yellow, orange, or tawny petals. I’ll make both a stretchy head piece and a long tail from strips of cloth and long loops of fuzzy yarn in those autumnal colors, and face paint can do the rest of the work. If the process goes well and supplies hold out, I’ll make a sunny calendula headdress for myself, what could be more cheerful? Plus as costumes go, that might be a pretty simple one to make and wear, important when I’ll be at a crowded bingo event (a scholarship fundraiser for LGBTQA students) where delicate details won’t count but sturdy flexibility will be my friend. Now I have to ask: What are YOU going as?

Calendulas are always cheerful and almost ever blooming

 

Posted in Annual Color, Crafting With Children, Gardening With Children, Hardy Herbs, Native Plants, Pollination Gardens, Sustainable Gardening, Sustainable Living, Teaching Gardening | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

Growing Sweetgrass

Posted on October 10, 2022 by Ann Lovejoy
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Sweetgrass holds fragrance but loses ground without help

Preserving By Propagation

President Biden proclaimed today as the second national celebration of Indigenous Peoples’ Day and a lot of people are wondering just how to celebrate. There are a lot of good ideas floating around, from attending readings by Tribal writers and poets, shows of local Native artists’ work, and/or performances of music by Native composers. If you can’t find anything local, there are plenty of websites that offer similar experiences, and many libraries now offer both books and music recordings by Native artists too, but for gardeners, I’m thinking about something a bit different.

In Robin Wall Kimmerer’s beautiful book, Braiding Sweetgrass, she talks about the mystery of why wild sweetgrass thrives where it is regularly harvested and falters where nobody is gathering it anymore. She quotes an elder speaking about gathering sweetgrass, saying, “If we use a plant respectfully, it will stay with us and flourish. If we ignore it, it will go away.” If you don’t give it respect, it will leave us.”

Vanishing Or Replenishing

A few years ago, several elders asked Dr. Kimmerer to look into that mystery; what is making sweetgrass disappear from places where it used to be abundant? There are two main traditional ways to harvest sweetgrass; by pulling up or carefully pinching off half of established clumps. Seeing long established sweetgrass stands dwindle, the gatherers worried that perhaps the way it was being gathered was somehow beginning to harm the plants. As a botanist, Dr. Kimmerer was able to develop scientific ways to investigate the problem and found a graduate student willing to test them out.

Despite extensive pushback from established (male, white) scientists, Dr. Kimmerer and her student set up the study literally in the field. Along the way, the graduate student admitted that she recognized that although her scientific methods were sound, she didn’t have the relationship with the plants that Native harvesters do. Without that relationship, might something important be missing? Though she was unable to replicate that deep relationship, she found herself fall unscientifically in love with the plants as she worked closely with them, day after day. After several years of work (including while very pregnant), the graduate student was able to show that no matter which gathering method was used, sweetgrass stands that were being harvested regularly were clearly doing better than nearby stands that were not touched.

Love It Or Lose It?

It turned out that, like many range grasses, sweetgrass responds positively to harvesting, as long as it isn’t overdone. As sweetgrass has become less frequently harvested, it also turns out that it has become to a degree a domesticated plant that needs human help to thrive. Range animals don’t graze on it, so unless humans help by respectfully harvesting it, sweetgrass starts to die out, even in areas where it has grown abundantly for hundreds or even thousands of years. It also turns out that there are still many stands of sweetgrass throughout in the Pacific Northwest. Around here, true sweetgrass, Hierochloe odorata (which means fragrant holy grass), is most often found in moist meadows and slopes and along stream banks and rivers. It is not to be confused with an invasive reed sweetgrass, Glyceria maxima, which can also be found in similar places but is aggressive and weedy looking, unlike the supple, shiny stems of true sweetgrass.

There are a few places to buy sweetgrass plants, but if you like to hike, another good way to grow your own is to collect a few ripe seeds from an established patch. They must be sown quickly or they won’t germinate, but if they are really ripe, they’ll sprout in a week or so. The seeds aren’t viable until they turn brown, no longer green, and the top of the stem should also be brown (though the lower stem often stays green longer). Keep a pot of soil next to your plant so you can plant the seeds as soon as they ripen, barely covering them with fine soil. Once the first shoots appear, wait until they’re a few inches high before potting them up in small clumps. If you get a good crop going, consider gifting some plants to local Tribal weavers and/or planting them where sweetgrass has become less flourishing. Harvest them carefully, never taking more than half and letting plants rest a year before harvesting again. Donate the harvest to local Traibes and/or braid your own for gifts.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=qnVTpWV8R10

Looking for a lasting way to celebrate? Listen to Calina Lawrence singing her amazing song, Lushootseed Is Alive (Lushootseed is the native language of the Suquamish people that’s being taught again in schools and homes). It’s so beautiful it makes me smile and cry at the same time. If for some reason the link doesn’t work,  look for YouTube Calina Lawrence Lushootseed and spend a riveting 3 minutes listening. Calina is an extremely talented person, a member of the Suquamish Tribe, a musician, an advocate for foster kids, an actress, and much more.

Also, here’s an excellent book for the family to read together and discuss, not just today but over time, perhaps a chapter a month. There’s an adult version too but this one is better for multigenerational reading.

Onward, right?

Posted in Care & Feeding, Gardening With Children, Health & Wellbeing, Native Plants, Plant Partnerships, Planting & Transplanting, Social Justice, Sustainable Gardening, Sustainable Living, Teaching Gardening | Tagged , , , | 3 Comments

Generating Generations

Posted on October 3, 2022 by Ann Lovejoy
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It’s so sweet to have a baby in the garden

Making Tomorrow’s Gardeners And Learning From Yesterday’s

Last week I facilitated a fascinating conversation on becoming elders. My community may be especially rich in wise elders but I suspect that many other communities are too, depending perhaps on how we define ‘elder’ and who gets to be one. I’m including the link to a video of this conversation because so many excellent points were raised about various cultural roles and expectations put on elders. Not too surprisingly, many of us grew up with fairly rigid elder roles and sometimes they were exclusively held by males. Some elder cultures tend to be more punitive and judgmental than kind and loving. Where’s the attraction there, except longing to be one the dishing out side rather than the receiving side?

On the other hand, some cultures are very respectful of elders, notably the island’s neighbor, the Suquamish Tribe, a group in which all elders are highly respected and cherished. At community events, elders get seated first, and at community meals, they are fed first. When housing is built, elders are invited to live there and assisted as need be. Elders are invited to share stories, history, traditions and wisdom with everyone, from family and school students on up to Tribal councils. Here are great examples of an elder culture based on kindness and generosity, one that builds community and helps preserve history and teachings. That’s the kind of elder I want to be, and that’s the kind of elder culture I want to help create and nourish.

Growing Gardeners

I was honored to be joined in the pea patch garden yesterday by dear friends and their adorable daughter. If there’s anything more fun than making baby clothes, it’s seeing an adorable baby wearing things you’ve made. This little treasure is growing up with gardening parents who love their wild, unruly, pollinator friendly garden and feed themselves from it as much as possible. She’s been in gardens pretty much every day of her life, as have been my own grandkids, as were my own children. It seems probable that people who are exposed to gardens and to nature from an early age will be ore comfortable and at home in natural settings. It also seems likely that gardening and gardens may bring them peace all their lives. I was reminded about this when, during the conversation on becoming elders, my friend Lilly talked about how all her life gardens and plants comforted her and continue to comfort her. As one of the few remaining survivors of the concentration camps for Japanese Americans during WWII, she gets called on very frequently to be the local expert on that exclusion and incarceration.

When asked how it feels to be the load bearing local Japanese person, she talked about the responsibility to tell the true stories, even though she’s by nature a rather reserved person. She also said that gardens and plants have always comforted and nourished her and continue to do so all these years later, good news for those of us entering our elder years. The idea of being the load bearing person clearly struck a number of participants in last week’s conversation, as many spoke out about being the person identified as THE local Black activist or THE local transgender person, just as Lilly has become THE local Japanese concentration camp survivor.

Get Up Stand Up

We talked about others in our community who have been similarly categorized, how exhausting that is, and how important it is for each of us to stand up and speak out. We can’t rely on a handful of people to be the designated issue spokespeople for many reasons, not least because we need to hear many voices and because it’s simply not fair to expect one person to carry so much for so many. It’s heartening to see and hear students of all ages speaking up so knowledgeably and confidently about racism, classism, and equity issues. My grandkids and their friends are already speaking out when they see injustice and also when they see awesome things that bring joy into the world.

That makes me think of Lilly yet again, having lived through so much injustice and pain and still finding the strength to speak truth and still finding solace and joy in her garden. That’s the kind of elder culture model I’m so grateful for! If you take time to listen to the conversation, I think you’ll also find some amazing role models among the brave and beautiful spirits who participated.

Becoming Elders

Here’s a link to Monday’s rich discussion about Becoming Elders.

Please feel free to share the link with anyone you think might benefit and enjoy it.

Onward, right?

Posted in Gardening With Children, Health & Wellbeing, Plant Partnerships, Social Justice, Sustainable Gardening, Sustainable Living, Teaching Gardening | Tagged , , , | 4 Comments

New Life For Old Potting Soil

Posted on September 26, 2022 by Ann Lovejoy
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Refreshing weary soil (or medium) benefits plants indoors and out

Waking Up Worn Out Soil

As autumn arrives, many of us clear out planters and containers, tossing dead or aging plants on the compost heap or into the green waste bin. Some people also toss out the spent soil every year or even every season, but unless the plants were actively diseased, that’s not necessary. Indeed, many green waste collection services specifically limit or ban used soil. In part, that’s because dirt is very heavy, and even just adding lighter-weight potting soil (especially in large quantity) can make the carts difficult or impossible to empty. Also, some shredding equipment can get clogged or damaged by an excess of soil; the amount clinging to a plant’s roots isn’t a problem but adding the whole planting container’s soil might be. If you have a compost heap or system already in place, tired out potting soil can be layered in a few inches at a time, along with the usual layers of brown/green plant materials. As the compost matures, the potting soil will add body to the compost and gain new life and nutrients from its biotic companions in the composting process.

Where there’s no room for a compost heap, old soil can still be reinoculated with healthy soil biota by mixing it half and half with compost and layering it on dormant vegetable beds. Sow a cover crop like fava beans, field peas, or annual clover and by late winter, you can chop up the cover crop and let it rot in place. Scatter on some granulated humic acid, then top off the bed with more compost before setting out spring starts. You can also layer old potting soil at the back of beds, or anywhere you plan to build up soil for new beds. It’s also a good base layer for areas where you’ve removed turf and want to start a pollinator patch come spring.

Refreshing Soil & Cleaning Pots

In really tiny yards like mine, you can use a wheelbarrow or even a huge tree pot as a mixing bowl for renovating old potting soil. If the pot that’s being emptied is very deep, the upper half of the used soil can be blended with a mixture using a third by volume of old soil, a third of compost and another third of fresh potting soil. Wet it thoroughly, which may take quite a while. Especially if most of your pots are on the smaller side, the necessarily frequent watering schedule has probably stripped out nearly all the nutrients in the soil. Once the re-mix is evenly moist, blend in some slow release dry fertilizer such as Dr. Earth All Purpose before using the mixture to refill cleaned or new pots.

When plants have died for mysterious reasons, and/or when pots have crusty mineral deposits, especially on the inside, cleaning is in order. For really suspect pots, recycling is the best option. To restore good ones that are just grungy, soak them overnight, then remove the crusts and stains with a stiff wire brush. Now soak and rinse them once more before refilling and planting. If you have a large number of nursery plastic plant containers, this is a good time to prep them for re-use by you or local growers. Knock out any dirt, spiders, old leaves, etc., the sort them by size and color/type. I can always give away quarts, gallons, and even 4-inch pots that are clean and sorted, and some local growers who sell starts at the farmers market will even accept clean 6-packs or pony packs.

Aerating The Airless

The soil at the very bottom of large/deep pots tends to be compressed and airless, and may even get smelly, in which case it should be spread on a tarp and wetted down before doing anything else with it. Once it’s aerated, add it to your compost system or put a few gallons at a time in the green waste bin. To keep the soil in very large containers sweeter, add a cup of activated charcoal (the kind used in fish tank filters) to every gallon of potting soil. You can also use a 1-2 inch layer of activated charcoal on the bottom of large containers before adding the base soil. Fill the upper portion of the container with fresh potting soil mixed half and half with compost, then mix in some fertilizer as described above.

Houseplants also need periodic repotting, which is best done before the plants start to struggle or fail. Repotting is harder on a plant that’s in bloom so it’s also best to do it when a plant is finished blooming. Potbound plants are often super dry as well, so put the potted plant into a bucket of water and let it soak until it doesn’t bubble anymore. While it soaks, prepare a pot at least a few inches wider and deeper than the one the plant is already in, keeping the drainage holes clean of soil with a few bits of broken pots or washed rocks. Put in a few inches of moistened soil mix, gently tamped down, set the plant in the new pot and gently tamp fresh potting soil along the sides. Put a little fresh potting soil on top (like about half an inch) and set the pot in a deep saucer. Pour on water until it seeps out into the saucer. Let it stand for 15-20 minutes, empty the saucer and add a little liquid fertilizer. Within a surprisingly short time, your plant will rebound with new vigor. What’s not to love about that?

Posted in Care & Feeding, composting, Health & Wellbeing, Houseplants, Planting & Transplanting, Recycling Nursery Plastics, Soil, Sustainable Gardening, Sustainable Living | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment