Leaving my Louisiana Garden

"I want to take my neighbors into the garden
and show them: Here is consolation."
 Paisley Rekdal, "Happiness"

I am leaving my Louisiana garden. Tom and I are moving to another state, a state with much less rainfall and a cooler, drier climate. I leave this garden with some sadness, as it has provided me with entertainment and comfort as well as the beauty of flowers, the spice of herbs and the nourishment of food. Perhaps it's for the best that I am leaving in late winter/early spring, before regret can reach full flower in the azaleas of mid-March, the daylilies of May, the zinnias of late June, the tomatoes of July. 

Right now the garden looks abandoned, because it has been since late November. Except for gathering winter greens, I let the garden go for December and most of January. During a sunny spell last week, I began weeding the patio garden, which was full of chick weed, and adding pine straw that I had raked in our north lot. Violets are already beginning to bloom.

The real estate agent who came by on the weekend was very likely not impressed with the winter yard and gardens, as the grass was brown, the ground thoroughly soaked by more than 3 inches of rain; a stinkhorn was wafting its nauseating odor near the edge of the patio (an annual event this time of year); the herb beds were bare of greenery except for the rosemary bush, the bolting arugula, and the pervasive chick weed that no amount of fall weeding seems to curtail; and empty flower pots were stacked near the garden hose and faucet. The agent's effusive compliments over the photos I later sent her of the garden in its summer glory suggested that the contrast had been noticed. 

We have bought and sold several houses over the course of some 32 years --seven houses, counting this one--so we have some experience in preparing a house for sale.  We have re-painted walls and front doors, de-cluttered, re-arranged furniture for staging, swept and mopped and dusted and cleaned. But I can't hasten spring or make the bright annuals I usually plant from seed flower in February.  We will be gone this year before the ground warms up enough for zinnia seeds. though the azaleas may just be budding as we pull out of the driveway. Any residual radiancy of my garden will be for the benefit of strangers as we head to a less hospitable gardening habitat.

rosemary and black-eyed Susans in July

summer abundance, 2014

A New Year: The Garden I Have Now

early January, aloe vera blooming

In April of 2011, I moved to southeast Louisiana to join my husband, who had been hired as a wildlife refuge planner (Natural Resource Planner) for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Tom had already been working in Louisiana for ten months. In the almost four years since I have lived here (twenty-five years ago we lived in another Louisiana town while Tom finished his PhD at Louisiana State University and I taught there in the Department of English), I have really enjoyed year-round gardening and recording my gardening experiences on this blog. I first began the blog in 2007--in a different town, in a different state-- as a way to keep myself connected to the world--to demonstrate to my children that even though I had given up on my career, such as it was, I hadn't given up on living and creating a meaningful life beyond a paycheck. In these past four years, I have been involved in social justice issues (creating and writing a blog for a social justice group, attending meetings of the Louisiana legislature, educating myself and then writing letters to local leaders against allowing hydraulic fracturing in our parish with its sole-source water aquifer, among others) and in helping encourage transparency in local government (attending and taking notes at the Planning and Zoning Commission meetings in our small town and publishing those notes on the Facebook page of our local "sustainable growth" organization). Many of my friends here are far more politically active than I am, but I am happy to have done my part--as long as that part did not take me away from my garden too long.

And despite the very wet weather we experienced the last week of the old year and the cooler weather we're experiencing now, the garden is still producing. Our loofah experiment was mixed. The plants grew very quickly, taking over the bamboo trellis Tom built for them and then spreading past the garden and into the yard. The fruits grew huge, but as they were still green when we had our first frost, we were afraid we would lose the entire crop. However, Tom managed to harvest several large fruits that had matured to the fibrous texture of bath sponges, and he is now trying to cure them out. This requires peeling them and soaking the spongy interiors in a solution of bleach and water. The hot, humid Louisiana climate made them moldy, but we will be able to salvage some of the loofahs for sponges.

loofahs

The arugula, mustard mixes, and dill that I planted in the fall are doing very well. Home for the holidays, our daughter suggested that I make an arugula pesto to serve with pasta. I found a recipe online and was very pleased with the result (recipe below).

arugula, mustard, bronze fennel

dill

Our winter garden also includes garlic, which won't be ready for harvest until June, green shallots (onions), and looseleaf lettuce and mesclun mixes. The radishes we planted did not do very well this year. And while the gourd plants grew very promisingly, most of the gourds dropped off the plants and rotted in the humid Louisiana weather. I managed to salvage a couple of gourds, one which I emptied of its seeds and made into a decorative box for my daughter and the other which I painted and kept intact as a musical shaker.

Usually at this time of the year I begin planning my spring garden, but this year we're expecting some big changes in our lives, and so I am enjoying the garden I have now.  

Recipe: Arugula Pesto (Original recipe here)

4 cups packed fresh arugula
1 tablespoon minced garlic
Salt and freshly ground pepper
1 cup pure olive oil
2 tablespoon pine nuts, toasted, plus 1 tablespoon (I used pecans because that is what I had on hand)
1/8 teaspoon vitamin C (optional) (I did not include)
1/2 cup freshly grated Parmesan

Prepare an ice water bath in a large bowl, and bring a large pot of water to a boil. Put the arugula in a large sieve and plunge it into the boiling water. Immediately immerse all the arugula and stir so that it blanches evenly. Blanch for about 15 seconds. Remove, shake off the excess water, then plunge the arugula into the ice water bath and stir again so it cools as fast as possible. Drain well.

Squeeze the water out of the arugula with your hands until very dry. Roughly chop the arugula and put in a blender. Add the garlic, salt and pepper to taste, olive oil, 2 tablespoons of the pine nuts (I used pecans), and the vitamin C, if using. Blend for at least 30 seconds. In this way the green of the arugula will thoroughly color the oil. Add the cheese and pulse to combine. The pesto will keep several days in a tightly sealed container in the refrigerator.

Pull out before dinner to get to room temperature. Before serving, add the remaining 1 tablespoon toasted pinenuts (or pecans or walnuts).

Recipe courtesy Michael Chiarello


Read more at: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/michael-chiarello/arugula-pesto-recipe.html?oc=linkback

gourd box with a crocheted surround that I made

bottom of the gourd box--I made up the pattern as I went along, so I'm glad the crocheted bit turned out as well as it did.

2015: Preparing for Changes

The new year of 2015 is just hours old, and we have had our annual dish of black-eyed peas. This year, Tom served up the peas (seasoned with turmeric, cumin, fenugreek, ginger, salt, cayenne pepper) with arugula  and tomatoes over rice. This was a very tasty dish and, I hope, a harbinger of a good year. We know it will be a year of changes, some of which we have hints of already, others which remain yet to be identified. Our daughter will finish up a nine-month teaching practicum in environmental science and will be transferring to another university--perhaps to another state than the one in which she currently resides. She has begun to submit applications for further graduate study. Our son will be researching to discover the focus for his PhD work in aerospace engineering. And we have changes in sight, as well, which I will be writing about on this blog as the year progresses.

Several of our friends are preparing for changes, too: our daughter's boyfriend will be moving to the Northwest to work after finishing his undergraduate degree in December; our best friends are hoping to sell their house in the Northwest and move to Texas to be closer to family. 

But the year is yet young, and all of those changes, while visible on the horizon, are for another day's worry. Meanwhile, I am thinking of all the good things I have enjoyed this past year: another year of gardening in a state where gardening is a year-round possibility; another year of relatively good health; another year of travel and of seeing places I had not seen before and enjoying again places I had visited in the past; a year of being involved in social justice projects, of investing time in trying to make this place where we live a better place. 

It has been a good year. I hope this next one will be even better.

Below, a few photos from 2014

from Bayou Cane, looking across Lake Pontchartrain toward New Orleans (our daughter and her boyfriend)

anole shedding its skin on a potted poinsettia at the edge of the patio

Afton, WY

Jackson, Wyoming--view from Teton Pass

Fossil Butte, near Kemmerer, Wyoming

Campo, Colorado