Holly Korbey - Outside/In

Back To School

I'm back.

I think it was Wallace Stegner who, when asked how on earth he had time to write Pulitzer Prize-winning novels while teaching undergrads at Stanford, replied, “That’s what summers are for.” I feel the same, but in reverse – how to be a mom and a writer? Well, that’s what the school year is for, and school for us begins tomorrow. Hallelujah. At the end of every day this summer, emotionally and physically depleted, I sat down to my blog and found I had no energy to write, no inspiration. I tried a couple of times, I swear I did, and all the postings read the same way: “It’s very hot today, over 100 degrees, and we stayed inside. I played Star Wars, and was forced to be Emperor Palpatine - again. One more time, I shrouded myself in the Emperor’s hood of darkness and fought my sons - the good guys, of course, wielding light sabers made from swimming noodles - using his electric fingers of evil. Why can’t I be Luke Skywalker or Princess Leia just this once? ‘You, mommy,’ said my youngest son Zane, jabbing the end of his chubby little finger into my thigh, ‘are the bad guy.’”

Determined to create some non-scripted free time for my children - especially for Holden, my oldest, who had had a long year in kindergarten, sitting in his chair for seven hours at a clip filling in worksheets - I brazenly did not enroll them in one summer camp, lesson, or activity. Instead, we held Camp Korbey (I came up with that myself) at our place, which included trips to museums and libraries and especially swimming pools and spray parks, daily activities I bookended with plenty of time for wandering around the house eating snacks, playing Star Wars and basketball, and of course, when it was just too hot, TV.  This reminded me of my own childhood summers, which on some level I took great pains to re-create – first, because I really, really enjoyed them, especially the wandering around the house eating snacks part, and second, because I didn’t know what else to do. Overall, Camp Korbey appeared to be a success, but not one without its struggles.

For the first few weeks, Holden and Zane argued all day, every day, to the point where I called into question my efforts in creating Camp Korbey (wouldn't they just be happier at Lego Camp?), not to mention motherhood in general. They argued about everything, and at the same time nothing, and it went on forever.

Holden: Zane, you do NOT need the black marker any more. That’s enough. What you need is green.

Zane: NOOOOOOOOO!!!!!! (clenching black marker between his teeth) You are idiot! You are stupid and dumb and a real dummy!

Holden: MOOOOM! Zane called me an idiot! And stupid! And dumb! He said all of those things! You need to put him on his bed!

Zane: NOOOOOOOO!!!! Mommy, please, please, please, Holden is dumb and he is idiot, but please don’t put me on my bed, I don’t want to goooooooo!!!

And so on and so on into infinity every day, at least until dinner time, at which point my husband would walk through the door and I’d already have my shoes on, my eyes filled with tears, ready to escape Camp Korbey and all its knotted, confusing arguments – arguments that soon became between the three of us, trying to sort out who had done what to whom and who deserved the dreaded time alone on their bed. I began wondering why I did this in the first place, they weren’t enjoying each other, and they certainly weren’t enjoying me, mostly because I was yelling at them all the time.

Ahem.

By the end of June, the arguments had mysteriously subsided - were they worn down, or getting used to each other? - and Camp Korbey slowly plodded into a kind of peaceful honeymoon phase, where all my plans happily fused into a (mostly) steady summer rhythm. Holden was drawing lovely pictures with accompanying stories without an ounce of input from me; Zane would drag out his Star Wars figures, set them up, and talk to them for an hour. I even caught them laughing together a few times, telling each other invented jokes that always have something to do with a chicken and a road. Feeling quite proud of myself, I was beginning to have the sort of summer Michael Chabon would approve of, not wandering in the wilderness of childhood exactly, but at least giving my children some time to explore, and relax, and have fun without having a reason to have fun. The end of June was how I envisioned the real Camp Korbey: long days getting wet, changing clothes, then getting wet again if you felt like it.

But because of my full days, I didn’t have much time to write – a few evenings filled with scribblings I eventually tossed  – but I knew that school was coming. Secretly, I was counting the days. And now, those days are finally here.

A lot more happened this summer, we took two trips, to Nashville and to Maine, and actually ended up harvesting some of the food I planted, and I’ll get to that later, but the important part is that my children’s time to be free is over for now, and tomorrow it’s back to school for them and back to writing for me. Camp Korbey, for now, is officially closed.

Hallelujah.

 

Take That, Mother Nature!

It has been so long. Hasn't it? I have been away from the blog for a couple of weeks, for a humbling concoction of reasons and excuses that have to do as much with x-rays and casts as they do with avoidance. Not to mention torrential downpours that went on for so long that I thought that my husband would one day arrive home from work and announce that God had told him to build an ark. But just in time the sun has arrived, along with the Texas that I am familiar with (hot and humid), and look what I found in my garden today!! Just look at those tomatoes.

Before we get into what a wonderful gardener I am, and what a generally lucky and blessed person I am, and how much people like me and ask me to tell them funny stories, and how when I saw these tomatoes growing on the tomato plants that I grew myself with no help from anyone I felt like I no longer had deep, deep lines running around my mouth like Fred Flinstone, or how the skin around my stomach that sagged a little from birthing two enormous children suddenly felt taut, or how I realized after staring at those greent tomatoes for just a few seconds that I do have an extremely green thumb after all. Before we get into all that, let's just go back for a moment, to the 90% of the vegetables I planted in those deliciously humble veggie bed boxes my husband so graciously gave up his entire weekend and built for me, the zucchini and the squash and the carrots and the radishes and the onions. Remember those? Let's just get right to the point: they're all dead. Dead. Everything that I thought might have gone wrong - not enough sunlight, sub-prime soil, lack of fertilizer, too much effing rain, all those things conspired together, I believe, to create the perfect storm of infertility, and, under the strain of all those clouds and all that moisture, my weakened little plants just threw up their stems and said, okay, we give up. We're tired and we don't want to do this anymore. I took them at their word.

The cantaloupes and the tomatoes, however, are doing quite well.

Now, let's take a look at these little green tomatoes! Look how robust, how tight their skins are, wrapped around whatever soon-to-be-juicy insides are swirling up and down inside there. Since they are grape tomatoes, I had my little two-year-old gently put his chubby little hand next to one so you could see their actual size:

 

But still! Even if they are very small, they look full of life, and I grew them, and I'm sure they will taste delicious in a side salad next to my main course in an upcoming meal. I am just sure that they will.

In my last post, the last sorry post before my short break, I mentioned to you how depressing, how desperate it is for me to stick with something for a long stretch of time without receiving any feedback that it's going well (I'm a recovering actress, remember). These tomatoes, however, these little blooms that make me feel both young and fruitful and old and wise simultaneously, have done just that. It's like the universe just gave me a standing ovation.

And, to you, Mother Nature, I take my bow.

Ah, Wednesday

Those were the days, everything so green and new.

After the fifteenth straight day of rain, the newness, the excitement of the garden is beginning to wear on me. It’s hard to do as Milli Vanilli says, however, because I do this with nearly everything I have ever attempted in my life - with or without the rain to blame. The once shiny anticipation of feeling tingly and alive in nature, of watching food grow, has slowly turned itself into a dark, thick rag knotted in the pit of my stomach, dragging at me. I don’t go outside that much. I’m bored with trying all the fixes – how to fix the yellowing leaves, the bugs nibbling the spring onions (what are those bugs, by the way? I have no idea. I’m too ambivalent to care). When I peek out and see the occasional squash-blossom giving it the old college try, I feel like it’s trying to cheer me up in the midst of my personal pity-party. I want to tell her, go away, not today, I’m looking to replace you with something a little more fun. I’m tired of worrying and fretting over every little detail.

I wander around the house, humid and sticky from all the rain, when I should be writing, or pitching, or weeding, or composting, and think of new projects. Something immediate and fresh would satisfy me right now, something that wouldn’t take lots of time but yield a large result. Like spraypainting. I’ve been thinking of things around here we could spraypaint - and there are many - and it would be so fun. Turquoise blue, white, and red. It would be quick and smelly and I could use my arms and really get into it. I could do it in the garage, in the middle of the day with all the lights on, the plum-purple skies threatening thunderstorms yet again, and again tomorrow, and again and again forever until I consider talking to my husband about moving to Seattle, and forgetting sunny Texas. We rarely see the sun anymore.

How many times have I had this feeling, this ache, to just dump what I’ve got and start over: apartments, wardrobes, careers. I look out the streaked windows of our sun room, the rain room I guess it is now, and wish the garden would go away. I wish it would get up and walk out of here and leave me alone, leave me to my overly messy house with bikes and bike helmets and bits of crayons and chewed-up doggie bones scattered helplessly in the shag carpet, the shag carpet that once looked so cool to me but now only looks dirty and sad. How many times have I abandoned a perfectly good project and walked away and never looked back just because things got hard. Or boring. I wouldn’t say vengefully, but maybe more like spitefully. No regrets.

The thick, glommy Texas mud clings to my veggie boxes and pots like a stalker. I consider in short bursts going out and at least cleaning them off with a spray of the hose, making them look more attractive to my wandering eye, but it continues to rain, making it pointless. Other more pressing tasks beckon. Suddenly washing the dishes looks too good to be missed. I organize the boys’ clothes in their closet according to season, then color. I know I’m avoiding.

I try to think of a way in which this despicable aspect of my personality turns out, Oprah-like, to be the one thing I really need right now. The ability to get up and walk away from what’s not working: how can I use it? What amazing problem will be solved with this mountain of impatience I’m too bored to climb?

Don’t answer that. I don’t want to know.

The Possibility of Untimely Miracles

Dear birds and squirrels, you will not defeat me.

After three more days of drenching rain, I stepped out into the mud-soaked garden this morning, and looky looky what I found: cantaloupes!

Evidently, the birds that had feasted on my large and healthy cantaloupe seeds had missed a few. And here they were, sprouting up, all healthy and vivacious and dark glossy green, right on the hills where I'd planted them. The way they stand up so straight, with those proud little leaves and short chubby stems, reminds me of my little boys. They seem to be saying, in the same manner as when my boys actually eat their vegetables, hey, look at our muscles! I like the way the cantaloupe seedlings look - healthy. Sturdy. Corn-fed. Survivors. I can't help it, I'm Midwestern, and I am so proud of them.

My two-year-old and I performed a victory dance right there in the mud, this kind of jumpy, kicky dance, with him punching his arms in the air, kung fu-style, and I was jumping straighat up and down with my knees nearly locked, like I used to do, many years ago, every single time I heard the Violent Femmes (I love dancing. It's a sickness. I don't understand why there aren't more opportunities for adults to freestyle dance in the world.). It was, in every sense of the word, a miracle, and if all goes well I will eat cantaloupe this summer from my own backyard. With salt.

Funny, I was about to tear down the hills where I had assumed all the cantaloupe seeds had been robbed from me - I was going to use the soil and compost for another planting project. But, I didn't. I decided - for once - to wait a few days to try to decide what my next move would be, and that's when the sturdy little seedlings popped up with their muscle shirts on.

This makes me wonder about miracles. Because I didn't do anything. I mean, I did do everything - I used the right soil, the premium compost, the right spot, the right water, everything. But I didn't do too much. When I realized the birds had come and had lunch on my seeds, I did not rush out and tear down the hills. I let them sit for a while. I thought about what to do next. And mostly, I didn't think. I just let them sit, and I looked at them, and pictured all the possibilities.

The miracles: they show up in the unlikeliest of places.

The Arrivals

Thank you everyone for all the wonderful emails and comments about my last post. Here is more from the annals of Midwestern Girl Meets New York City. Above: little bitty green onions.

A friend reminded me last night (and you know who you are, Wendy) that it is, after all, only April. She was asking me about my vegetable garden, and how it was faring. I said, “Well, they’re not dead, but they’re not exactly growing like crazy, either. I’m so anxious, I want something to happen, I need a vegetable to arrive.” She laughed. “Remember, it’s only April,” she said gently. “We’ve got a lot of sunshine coming, a long way to go.”

Huh. It had not occurred to me until just then that we had such a long way to go before a vegetable arrives. In typical impatient person’s fashion, I had awakened every morning since beginning the garden in late February thinking that today was the day, the Day Something Would Happen. Yet nothing ever did. And just like that, standing in a swarm of mosquitoes at my son’s soccer game last night, it hit me: it is only April. We have a long way to go before anything arrives.

I arrived in New York City September 9, 1995, a little more than a month before my twenty-third birthday. I vividly remember turning to see my family’s outline at the large windows of the two-gate airport in Evansville, Indiana as I walked out to the tarmac, standing like statues in their wholesome summer clothes, their hands waving wildly. Inside, they had wished me luck, and given me hugs; my mom had mentioned “going for it,” forcing a smile. I had said I would be back soon to visit, and I meant it. I turned away from the windows to board, and carefully climbed the stairs to the tiny plane. I crouched down low and scooted down the aisle, finding my seat. The door slammed shut behind me, and in an instant, a metal barrier separated me from the cornfields, the fresh faces, the smorgasbords - I was alone. The Midwestern air, warm and billowing under me like a pillow, cradled the airplane into the sky and I floated upward, onward: headed East.

When I landed at LaGuardia many hours later, it was a humid, dark purple twilight full of strangers. I unloaded my large, awkward, single duffle bag off the carousel, and wandered out through tired-looking automatic doors to the outside of the terminal, which looked like it had been dipped in rotting food containers and grit. I was not sure where I was going.

To the right, I saw a long line of cabs that swirled around the corner of the terminal and into infinity, yellow after yellow after yellow. I walked toward them. Inside the pocket of my pink gingham sundress was a slip of college-ruled notebook paper with my new address on it: 5-24 49th Avenue, Long Island City, Queens. I had spoken to my future roommate, Leslie, the afternoon before, and she’d given me the address. “Tell them Long Island City, take Vernon Avenue.” She had sounded so confident, having taken many cabs, so many cabs, in the three months since she’d been in the city. “No problem,” she said, and I believed her.

I waited for forty-five minutes in the line for a taxi, and when it was finally my turn I was relieved. The driver hopped out when he saw my giant bag and threw it – literally threw it like a baseball – into the trunk of the car. The inside of the cab smelled like incense and onions.

“Allo. Where you go?” I pulled out the paper and carefully unfolded it.
“5-24 49th Avenue.”
“Where’s that?”
“Long Island City.”
“You going to Long Island tonight? I do not go to Long Island.”
“No, it’s in Queens.”
“Oh, Queens. Okay.”

And with that, with the word ‘Queens’, which seemed to make everything okay, the driver, with his aubergine skin and a missing front tooth, slammed his foot onto the gas pedal and we were off, Formula One-style, into the night. Smoke poured out the tailpipe into my first night in New York.

The windows were down as we boarded the crumbling highway, and the wind whipped around my head like strong ropes. Without turning around, the cabbie screamed at me, “How do you want me to go?”
“What?”
“How do you want me to go?”
Was he playing with me? What did he mean?
“Excuse me.” I leaned forward, the wind blowing so hard around my head that I thought I couldn’t hear him. I leaned into the front seat, next to his right ear. “I don’t know what you mean.”

He laughed nervously, and turned his head away from the highway to look at me. “Which highway to take?”

“I don't know.” I don’t know. All I could think were those three words, I don’t know. I have no idea. Leslie had said he would know how to get there, I’d told him all the information I knew. “I don’t know. I just got here, I’m not from here, and this was all the information I was given.”

He said, “Uh-oh.” My heart started doing little rabbit-jumps. We pulled off the highway at the first exit and pulled onto a crusty street overflowing with people and businesses, McDonald’s and a 7-11. As soon as we were stopped, he turned around to look at me. “I am a new cabbie. I do not know where 5-24 49th Avenue is. I will call my friend.” He got out of the car and put a quarter into a payphone. He left the meter on.

I watched him from the backseat of the taxi, this stranger who’d only said about 15 words to me, the most forceful of which had been “uh-oh,” talk on the payphone to whoever he was talking to, laughing and nodding his head vigorously. This was the first time I’d noticed how large he was, how strong and wide. My knees began to shake a little. I had no idea what to do.

After a ten-minute phone conversation, he got back into the cab. “I know your address,” he said confidently. He pulled a toothpick out of the ashtray and stuck it in his missing front tooth.

We drove around what I believe to be Queens for another 45 minutes. It was completely dark by now, and the streets we circled over and over were 36th, 37th, and 38th Avenues. But after 38th, the streets changed from numbers to names, and there were no forties at all. I was in full-blown panic, I didn’t know where I was or how to get there. I could imagine this man easily lifting me out of the car for some unutterable horror, tossing me over a bridge into a river when he was through with me. Stealing my money, taking my bag, rape, murder. The list of things to worry about, being a fresh-off-the-plane Midwestern girl driving around in a taxi in Queens with a stranger who doesn’t speak English or know where he’s going, is endless.

“Stop the car!” I yelled to him when I saw a payphone on an unknown corner. He turned the wheel hard and threw the car over to the curb as if it were a toy. “Let’s call my friend, she’ll tell you how to get there!”

It seemed like my last hope. Please Leslie, please know how to get me home. “Les? This is Holly, the cabbie doesn’t know how to get me there…” Always in charge, Leslie asked to speak to him. He put the phone up to his ear and listened and listened. He handed the phone back to me.

“Holly, he’s lying. He’s taking you for a ride. How much is the fare?”

“Sixty-nine dollars,” I whispered.

“Drop him. Find another cab and get in.”

“Did you tell him how to get me home?”

“Holly, I don’t know where you are.” She paused. “I don’t know anything about Queens, I just know Vernon Avenue and 49th Ave. That’s all that I know. If you find another cabbie, a good one, he’ll know how to get there.”

I stood there.

“Holly?”
“Yes.”
“It will be okay. I’m so sorry this happened. Find another taxi. We’re all waiting for you.”

I looked around the blighted corner and the pitch-black street. It was ten o’clock at night in the middle of Queens – there were no people, much less taxis. My only choice was to get back in and pray for my life.

Driving around the industrial area of Long Island City, lined with bleak warehouses near the East River, in the middle of the night with a strange man who did not know where he was – or who was trying to trick me – sent the kind of powerful fear into my bones that I was terrified would happen when I left my cozy, comfy nest in Indiana, surrounded by people who loved and admired me. It occurred to me then that this was the reason I left, for this kind of feeling. The reason I left was for a rush of unknown, the reason I left was to experience life. And now I felt like my life was about to be over just as the rush had begun.

In the very next second, the cabbie, who could maybe sense my tension as I clawed his headrest and kept repeating please take me home, took a strong left over a low bridge. For the first time, I saw Vernon Avenue.

“There! Vernon Avenue! Right THERE!”

Standing on the corner, waving their hands wildly just like my family back in Indiana, were the Midwestern arrivals: my friends. I had never been so happy to see people I knew in my entire life. My breath bled with relief in hot gasps, and for the first time all day, tears leapt to my eyes. My friends, ten of them, just arrived in the city themselves, separated from me by only a few weeks or a couple of months. Yet there they stood, so worried about me, jumping up and down at the sight of my taxi, so happy to see me, and to see me alive. I leaned my head against the back seat of the cab, exhausted.

I had made it, and I knew then that this was New York: although I was here, I knew there was a long, long way to go until I had arrived.

I want to hear your stories! Go to the comments below and tell us your New York stories while we're waiting for the veggies to arrive.

The Veggies, Van Morrison, and Me

A squash blossom, about to bloom.

The days bleed together; the sun comes up, it gets warm – lemon yellow, Texas spring-like warm - and then it recedes, slowly, back under the covers for a warm night.

The garden grows, but slowly. Too slowly for my taste. I spend time every day thinking about all the things that might have gone wrong, why the shoots are still tiny, why the leaves are pale green – the placement of my bed boxes, which I believe may not be getting enough sun; the tremendous amounts of rain we’ve received; the late-start fertilizer. And yet the leaves continue to get larger – almost imperceptibly, it must be millimeters, if I actually know what those are – and the squash and zucchini blossoms continue to come, and bloom, and dry up, and fall off. It’s a waiting game, and re-thinking the strategy every ten minutes is boring, and gets me nowhere. It’s like doing a cake-walk where the music never stops playing.

To divert my attention, I have been thinking lately about my first years in New York, when I was living at the very edge of Long Island City, two blocks from the East River, near the Vernon Avenue 7 stop. I worked at a café around the corner from my apartment, a hipster joint with lots of artists, and actors, and writers around. I arrived for work around 6 am, placed a freshly-ground filter of coffee into the coffee maker, and opened the doors. I usually stayed into the evening, either to work or to hang out. My bosses, who were also my friends, and I would spend the whole day and night joking, baking, washing dishes, and waiting on customers, all of whom soon became our dear friends. The café became for me a magical place, an all-white box with tile-top tables and Italian cement floors, filled with dreamers and executives and waiters and contractors, eating sandwiches, drinking coffees, waving their hands around wildly in conversation. Every day, I watched them, all these interesting faces, all these beautiful minds, come together over a fruit salad and a Pellegrino. It was here, baking banana bread at this café, that I first felt New York inside me. All my life, I had felt that I was watching life take place behind thick glass; it was during this time that the glass fell away.

On Tuesday nights, I sang at the café. I had a friend, Phil, a fortyish guy who became my accompanist and music-arranger, and together we knocked out every song I’d ever wanted to sing: Johnny Cash, Linda Ronstadt, Stevie Nicks. He pushed me to do “Hotel California” along with a pre-recorded track on his synthesizer, but I declined, thinking the hip audience, with their scruffy brightness, their makeup-less faces, would think it was cheesy. The song was too long, anyway, and not my personality. So instead, we performed standards - “Don’t Get Around Much Anymore,” “Blue Moon,” “It Had to Be You” - and I sang loud and clear and bounced every note off the shining little halogen spotlights that shone softly on the bare white walls, like little pinballs in an art museum. My songs, heavy with vibrato and a mezzo I cannot shake, drifted out onto the dark street, where families walked by with tiny dogs and babies in strollers and stopped to listen. I would look out the windows at their faces, dark blue in the twilight, and wonder if they liked me.

I fell in with a group of Bohemians who hung out at the café. I worshiped them, and began walking like them – hips forward, shoulders back, and slouched, like you don’t care – and wearing my clothes like them, wildly pieced together and wrinkled, jeans rolled up with a big wide cuff. Wisdom hung off their every careless word, and they shared their New York secrets with me about the best sushi, and the best dance clubs, and the Barney’s Warehouse Sale. We drank beers at a cop bar until 2 am; we danced to Van Morrison in cramped railroad apartments. (How do you dance to Van Morrison, by the way? It’s a twisting, snaky kind of dance, with some jumping. A few slow turns, and crossover feet. There are lots of hand movements, some that shake down by your sides like you’ve got bugs, and a few in which the hands twist between themselves skyward, like a butterfly you might imagine after inhaling a crystal at a Heart concert. Dancing to Van Morrison, any kind of Van Morrison, is pure joy, a dance to God.)

Eventually, the Bohemians got real jobs, and I moved to a different neighborhood; my friends sold the café and moved to Italy. I have not seen them in many years, yet I wish I could tell them all what an impact they had on me. I wish I could show them what they’d done. It was at the café that New York opened itself up to me, and I crawled right in. It was then, for the first time, that I felt at home in New York. The glass fell away, and what rushed up to meet me, like a hurdy-gurdy, like a tsunami, was life. And it swept me away.

Waiting for a garden to grow is not so bad. I think I’ll go turn up the Van Morrison.

Not Too Shabby

I think it's fair to say that it's human nature to focus on the negative. And, gardening-wise, there's been quite a bit of negative in my, er, field of dreams lately. But I do not want to give you the impression that it's all going bad (or that I'm a total loser). There are things growing in my backyard garden, several things, and I thought that tonight maybe we could focus on those.

There in the red pots, those are the grape tomatoes potted in the Ikea $1 trash cans that I drilled holes in the bottom for drainage. As you can see, they are thriving nicely, I've got them tied up to a stake so they can grow up. In the grey pot next to them I seeded basil, and although too tiny to see in this photo, they are popping up, and very green and leafy. In the light grey squarish pot behind that is my aloe vera, which took a beating from that gushing rain we had for three weeks. The whole plant turned this kind of sickly pink color, which I was positive was not a color aloe vera should be, but now it's been consistently warm and sunny outside and warmer at night, and the Pepto-Bismol aloe vera is slowly fading to something quite lovely and bright green.

On the little black table are succulents that are doing great, and I've got no names for them, so I'll call them Sprouty, Spiky, and Bulbous. They are amazing colors of neon purplish-pink, neon orange, and deep deep forest green.

And, on the other side of the smart red chairs, more things are growing. I'll show you a slightly more close-up view, so you can see the details:

In the grey pot, that's another Spiky, then back there in the white pots are the bluebonnets, and the terracotta pots hold, left to right, the Tatsoi and Italian dandelion, leafy green lettuce and mesclun mix. They all look to be green and thriving, don't they? I even ate some of the lettuces tonight, and they were tart and peppery and delicious just as I imagined them to be (never mind I bought them nearly that large at the gardening store last week; I think it's important to note, since we're being positive, that, although I didn't grow them, I haven't killed them, either. baby steps).

See? I'm not a loser. I'm not a loser. I'm a gardener.

Say it with me:

I'm a gardener.

I grow things.

I talk to plants.

Birds sit on my shoulder and I sing to them.

I make food from my own hands.

Ah, well. I don't know if I'm a gardener, but I sure am giving it everything I've got. I guess at some point, you've got to just let the sun shine down and see what happens.

RIP, Cantaloupes: 4/10/09 – 4/13/09

Do you come back to this blog every three days or so to see how my garden is doing? Do you come back to see if the vegetables are really going to make it? Or, dear reader – and you are a dear reader, if you are out there reading - do you come back with a morbid curiosity, like viewing the spewed plastic and metal of a recent car wreck, to see if it’s possible for me to screw up any more when it comes to vegetable gardening?

If it’s the latter, then you are in luck.

On Friday, Good Friday, I spent the entire day outside planting a couple of grape tomato plants in plastic trash cans I purchased from Ikea. I had also bought myself some bags of mushroom compost, with the word “premium” written large across the fronts of the bags, which gave me a solid feeling about them, like buying raisins from Whole Foods. I spread compost, I planted the tomatoes (I drilled holes in the bottoms of the red, modern-looking trash cans for drainage, then filled them with soil and compost, followed by the strong tomato babies; I’ll take a photo for you, they look so cute, and the cans were $1), and composted the lettuces and the baby seedlings. After that, I had a ton of soil and mushroom compost left over, so I got a brilliant idea: it was time to plant the cantaloupe.

(Let me interject a word or two about how I feel about cantaloupe. To say it’s my favorite fruit in the world is not underestimating my love for it one bit, because it is the sweetest, muskiest, orangiest, and tangiest delicioso fruit that I have ever tasted. I have a hallowed respect for cantaloupes that are perfectly ripe, and last August, being exposed to the South Texas cantaloupe for the first time, was a near epiphanic experience for me and for my taste buds. Ripe South Texas cantaloupes, when sprinkled with a little salt, are orchestra seats to a Broadway musical, they are Carroll Park, Brooklyn, on Saturday afternoons in June; ripe cantaloupes are divine and holy.)

Why couldn’t I grow cantaloupes from seed? I had the organic soil, and I had the premium compost. I had read up on their planting, and I knew to spread the seeds 6-8 of them to a 12” hill. I was ready. This time, I was prepared. I chose a sunny spot and created 6 of the most beautiful hills, perfectly rounded breast-like hills, rich with rotted organic matter and little bits of wood. I dropped the seeds into little 1/2” depressions I made gently with my finger, just like the seed package said. I covered them with soil and tamped them down lightly. I showed the kids: Look what mommy did! She followed instructions this time – we are going to have some delicious cantaloupe come August! They nodded their heads agreeably. They looked down at the hills.

“Looks good to me,” spoke my five-year-old sagely.

Early Saturday morning, I ran out to see the cantaloupe hills, looking so fresh and full of burgeoning life, and I sighed. I dreamed of eating ½ a cantaloupe sprinkled with salt for breakfast, just like my grandfather had done every summer morning of my childhood. I dreamed of eating slices wrapped with pale-pink prosciutto, or with a scoop of vanilla ice cream like the seed packet had suggested.

Sunday morning, yesterday, we received a great deal of rain and wind, so I covered the hills with my tarp to protect them. As I gently propped up the tarp with stakes and held down the sides with rocks, I imagined a sign over the hills reading, “Please do not disturb! Germination under way!”

Yesterday afternoon, the rain clouds parted and the sun came out. I lifted the tarp and let the little seeds drink up the sunshine. My mind couldn't help but drift again toward eating the future cantaloupes: sliced up with oatmeal, cubed in late summer fruit salads.

This morning, Monday, I awoke to a beautiful day full of sun. I walked out to the garden to view the progress. I glanced over at the hills. While still round and hilly, I did notice that something was different: in each hill were 6-8 little holes poked into the surface of the dirt.

I stepped closer, into the hills. I got very close, peering into the little holes, perfectly round little indentations that were spaced evenly around the tops of each hill in symmetrical patterns, like a sign to aliens. At first I thought that it was just the dirt sinking it little parts, due to the rain and the… settling? Is there such a thing as dirt settling?

I don’t think so. After close inspection, I had come to the conclusion that birds had come and eaten all my cantaloupe seeds. Then I remembered: we had seen the birds in our backyard yesterday while we were inside, watching “Grease” with our kids. My husband had poked his head out of the cushiness of the sectional and said, “Hey, will you look at that? Look at all those birds!” There were about ten of them. We had all walked down into the sunroom, watching them hop, hop, hop all around the yard, flipping their heads from side to side. They seemed to be enjoying themselves; a few were singing. There were a couple of male bluejays, even.

“Huh. We’ve never had that many birds before,” I said.

Squash Blossoms and Such

This is the first squash blossom to appear in my vegetable garden. It has given me hope.

Well, I know I said the next post would be about the correct way to plant carrots. Unfortunately, I think the carrots are no longer with us. They've turned kind of scarlet red around the stems, and the fragile, snowflake leaves, looking pretty unsubstantial to begin with, are now just heaved over and yellow. The carrots, with their weak stems and colorless leaves, are telling me to move on. And, you know what? I'm going to listen to the carrots.

Instead, I'm going to revel in joy. Look at that squash blossom! It's perfect, bright, fully-colored, fully-formed, not one bit touched by malfunction of any kind (kinda makes you wonder if I grew it, right?). I cannot express how proud I am of this blossom. And, from the pregnant little buds popping up on the rest of the squash and the zucchini, there appears to be more blossoms on their way. I think I'll read up on squash and zucchini - I have no idea whether or not the blossoms portend what kind of crop I'll have, but the fact that the flowers exist, and I grew them, is enough for me now. For today, I am choosing to revel in the squash blossoms. (And, if you want to really revel, here's a great recipe for fried squash blossoms on The Inadvertent Gardener.)

I also think I'm on my way to fixing my general low-wattage vegetable problem. First, I bought some high-quality mushroom compost (that smells like manure) to add to my veggies - my guess, after a ton of reading about the illness that ails them, is that the soil on clearance at Albertson's might not have been the best choice for growing vegetables (my herbs and flowers that I used it for are doing quite well). I'll start there and see if I make any progress.

And, finally, dumb as it may sound, I'm planting more seeds. We're going to try cantelope, tomatoes, and pumpkins in the big bed with the new "good" soil and see what comes of it. Okay, don't worry, this time I read exactly how cantelopes, tomatoes, and pumpkins like to be planted first. 

However you celebrate the precious and tear-inducing rites of spring renewal, awakening, and rebirth this weekend, have a great one. I'll be back on Monday.

How Not to Plant a Radish

Radishes: King of the hill

Whew. Sorry I’ve been away for a while, I’ve been working on some new essays and pitching them here, there, and yon, which takes a lot of time. Also, there’s nothing much new to report with the vegetables. In all honesty, they look about the same as they did last week, before I ran out and got the instant-gratification lettuces – pitiful (the lettuces, which I bought nearly full-grown from the garden shop, however, look wonderful). I can’t figure out what I’m doing wrong.

I’ve got several theories as to why the veggies aren’t looking any greener, or bigger, or badder, based on everything I’ve looked up on the internet: 1) it’s still a little early for them to be outside, and maybe the ground just hasn’t gotten warm enough for them to really take off and start growing; 2) their poor little roots are still waterlogged from the three weeks of pouring rain; 3) the really nice lady at Redenta’s suggested I use some seaweed fertilizer – is it bad to say fertilizer hasn't even entered my mind up to this point? 4) this is difficult to admit, but I don’t think I planted some of them the right way.

Ooops.

(I’m wondering if I should just change the name of this blog to “Ooops.” It would so much better describe what the hell’s going on around here.)

So, because of my limited brain function, for the next few posts I am going to go back and spell out the correct way to plant some of the vegetables I’ve already planted, which will be a huge boon for you if you live anywhere north of Dallas, because chances are you are just getting started and could really use the info. I, on the other hand, will be gingerly digging up seedlings in many cases and just plain ol’ replanting them and hoping for the best. Please don’t use me as your sole source of info (I can hear cyber-laughing through the wires), but you know what I mean – check up on this stuff yourself before you get out your shiny new spade and start digging away. Remember: this blog is about life, not about gardening. Gardening is just the tool. And in this episode, Holly learns a valuable lesson about impatience and the importance of reading up on each vegetable’s needs before she goes out, buys a bunch of dirt on clearance at Albertson’s and sticks them in the ground. Got it? Good.

From what I've gathered, here is the semi-correct way to plant a radish:

Radishes are the coolest of cool weather vegetables – I read that in many parts of Texas they plant radishes in December for winter harvest. (Go ahead and say it: ooops.) But, I planted mine in March, so chances are they’ll be a lot like my lettuces: they’ll peter out by June when the weather goes completely off-the-charts hot (I read that warm weather actually makes the radishes taste bad). That’s why I’ve chosen to re-do radishes first – they’re the ones that will be finished the earliest.

Most sites said radishes need to be planted in a 4-6” dirt hill about 2” apart, not straight into the dirt in rows. I am confident in saying that I knew nothing about planting them in hills. In order for the roots to sprout their tart, peppery veggies (my absolute favorite, by the way) the soil must remain loose and airy, so the hill provides the space for the root vegetables to branch out.

Ooops.

After I read the bit about planting radishes on a hill of loose dirt, I ran out and gently, very gently, transplanted them, again (the first time being from the seed starter kit to the ground). I dug the radishes out of the dirt in the veggie beds carefully, using the side of my spade and scooping out the widest portion of dirt around the little seedling so as not to disturb its roots. I laid the radishes on their sides, side by side, while I made the little hills, being sure to pile the dirt up loosely and to the proper 4"-6", and then filled the hills with fertilizer water. Radishes back up, at attention, filled the soaked holes I'd made for them perfectly. I tamped them down, erect, with more dirt. Then I ran back inside to read more about radishes, feeling wonderful about going out and making the tender, aerated hills for my little babies, and found that radishes hate to be transplanted, and hardly every make it – that’s why one never sees little radish plants in a garden store. According to the experts, the seeds are supposed to be dropped into the hills, covered lightly with dirt, and nature allowed to germinate and take it from there. Well, look people, I did more than transplant them, I transplanted them twice. That should leave you with some kind of feeling as to who you're dealing with here. Obviously, someone who's mentally deficient - someone who runs out and takes action after reading one paragraph without reading the entire article. Take this information however you want, but if you take it as some sort of personality essence, or even worse, a life lesson, I think it's safe to say: please do not ever let me cut your hair, or take care of your children.

Okay. Okay. I'm trying to think this is not a big deal. The radishes may well be kaput. So maybe I’ll not have any radishes this year. Okay. Maybe I’ll only have very green and vibrant-looking radish tops – providing they keep looking so green and vibrant-looking after the second transplant.

Tomorrow: carrots.