One of my most cherished activities is found in the sheer luxury of being able to go into my garden in the early morning to pick the flowers that will grace my home, and the greens that will become part of my midday meal. All summer I have been blessed by the deep reds, oranges and all shades of yellow found in my reliable and persistent nasturtiums that continue climbing along the front stairs, wending their way into and around the assorted potted plants that live there. And the roses, oh, the roses! Huge, fragrant, (very) old dark red roses. Trellised Pepto-pink roses. Small yellow variegated ones. Treasures beyond belief. The pastel blue and yellow pansies. Tiny purple violets. Snapdragons. Honeysuckle. Lavender and pink clematis. Red sage. And rosemary, cilantro, oregano; the lettuces, and the treasured arugula! Yum!

And now all this is about to change. For it is Indian Summer. Harvest. It is seed gathering time, to help ensure that much of the above is all possible again next year.

My kitchen table is now literally awash in plates and bowls full of various seeds, all at different stages of drying. The soft, wispy white of Romaine and leafy lettuces. The dry tan pods of coriander. (Shall I plant or season with them? Coriander is cilantro, you know.) The miniature black seeds of the California poppy. Cream-colored round pods full of rows of flat, dry seeds from red, white and pink hollyhocks. Precious, wrinkled pale green nasturtium seeds, drying on a Portmerion plate. Fading purple stocks of amaranth unexpectedly yielding a plethora of shiny black seeds that spill across the paper towel where they are drying. And to my great delight, this morning I found the blue and purple morning glories that border my vege garden are full of round dry paper-thin pods, each carrying small triangular black seeds, so I gratefully gathered a nice handful of those and added them to the store. How wonderful! How promising! And free!

In the center of the table is a large bowl full of tomatoes. Red cherry, yellow cherry, Russian heirloom and Early Girls, the latter my first such crop and now to become a staple, for sure, so generous was their consistent bounty. Each of these juicy wonderful red and yellow fruits also offers the promise of seeds for next year, should I make this the year I actually learn how to do that! I think the yellow cherries would be my first choice, as they were the spectacular taste surprise of the season, no doubt. A kind local gardener, very active in seedsavers.org has sent me instructions for saving tomato seeds (which involves fermentation), so perhaps I will find the time and inclination.

To walk into the kitchen and be greeted by the plates and bowls of the seeds for my next garden is a wonderful, uplifting experience, I must tell you. Each bears the unfailing promise of abundance, of deliverance, of sustenance. Within each tiny seed is the profound miracle of the gift of life. It is staggering to contem-plate.

I find myself wondering how many people are actually practicing this. I’m imagining it is largely a lost practice and one actually somewhat in jeopardy, as (and I don’t want to dwell on this as it is quite sad and disturbing) there are actually people in companies who spend their time modifying plants that will not bear seeds, shocking an endeavor as that is, leaving consumers with no choice but to buy new seeds each year. Can you believe it? But, enough said about that, though the luxury of gathering seeds from one’s own garden perhaps has a slightly new importance when held in that light.

In the natural world, gathering seeds and having faith in their promise is precisely one of the great gifts of which we might avail ourselves if only our attentions were drawn in that precise direction. I recommend it!

Posted on September 19th, 2007 by Kathryn
Filed under: Plants | Comments Off on Indian Summer

It was my daughter who first spotted the nest last spring lodged in the center of a tall pink camellia bush blooming just outside the kitchen window. A pair of lovely blue and grey Western scrub-jays were caring for a clutch of eggs and, once alerted, I was delighted to have a ringside seat to their endeavor. I happily climbed a small ladder day after day, several times a day, I assure you, to view each and every activity and relished every little change. I was enchanted!

Eventually the sitting and tending reaped the inevitable little heads poking upward for food brought dutifully by both parents. The dark green leaves of the camellia bush served as good protection from any potential predators, but eventually the day came when the five (!!) babies began to explore their environment, moving tenuously out of the nest on to adjoining branches. Overnight my euphoric witnessing of a delightful miracle turned edgy. What if they fell? Gradually and reluctantly the realization that I had very little control over their fate and well being sunk in upon me. Bummer.

One morning I took my window position over the sink and saw unexpectedly that nearly all the babies were recklessly bouncing from one branch to the next. Adrenaline swept through me,crescendoing as one adventurous baby (I was sure it was a boy) landed upon an innocent sibling (I was sure it was a girl) and they both went tumbling to the ground. I rushed outside, horrified. This was a tall bush. The nest was quite aways up. I knew it was futile to put them back. They had entered life as fledglings.

I don’t know why I thought a fledgling knew how to fly. Over the next couple of days I learned they don’t. They are most often helplessly on the ground, parents watching overhead trying to fend off predators, while they learn to fly to safety. Who knew?

Mama never forgets her birds,
Though in another tree–
She looks down just as often
And just as tenderly
As when her little mortal nest
With cunning care she wove–
If either of her “sparrows fall,”
She “notices,” above.

Emily Dickinson

By now my projections were fully engaged. I was an auntie at best, and I ran wildly at any cat that dared to cross my property line. Trying desperately to protect them I put up a mobile puppy fence at one end of that side of the house, hoping that might offer some protection. And then I proceeded to knock on every door of every house nearby asking whomever answered if they might be mindful that baby birds were literally afoot, and if they happened to have cats, would they please try to keep tabs over them the next three or four days just to give the babies a fighting chance?

I honestly don’t know if this had any effect whatsoever, other than to fully ensure that most of my neighbors’ eyebrows were permanently raised in my direction. I know the cats came and went with abandon. No one seemed to really care about the birds. It appeared it was a stretch to even consider in their worlds.

Eventually the babies disappeared. I had to fully surrender to the fact I would have no way of knowing who survived, who did not. I am left with some reassuring clues. One is that scrub jays routinely land on my fence, just a few feet from the nest, begging for peanuts, which they know I leave on the sidewalk, at the foot of the camellia tree. And I often see them bathing in the birdbath out front, particularly if the sprinkler is filling the bath. (They don’t bathe; they shower.)

More convincing is that this spring a scrub jay suddenly appeared in the old nest, still nestled untouched high in the budding camellia tree and he brought with him his mate, clearly showing her the possible nesting place, which she promptly rejected, to my disappointment. Instead they settled on a large compact tree in the back yard, way up high. I might not have even known had I not gone out one morning and found a large baby scrub jay looking bewilderedly up at me from the ground at the base of the tree. I never saw it again. But the parents took all the fledglings who were able to a fig tree and a large quince bush in the far back of the property and there they taught them all to fly. And that was that. I think they are here to stay.

Posted on September 6th, 2007 by Kathryn
Filed under: Animals | 5 Comments »