The Winter Garden

In which our Heroine turns Greenwitch.

Here are a few photos of the indoor garden I’ve been working on, along with a little history in story-book format.  Once upon a time, I had this crazy idea that I could grow some fresh greens and herbs during the fall and winter in Alaska.  “What brilliance!” I thought to myself. “I’m sure I’ll save scads of money on lettuce (which tends to look wilted and slimy in most stores at winter), plus I’ll have a fun hobby, all season long!” I also thought of the perk of being able to start seeds in the early spring to get a jump on those short Alaskan summers.  I thought of the awesomeness of starting something brand new and of doing yet another crazy experiment—an occupation much loved by moi, except for all those times when such experiment fails. 

To continue to tale:  Once upon a time, a beautiful maiden began growing lettuce, parsley, and other such wonders inside her snug cottage.  This mythical maiden was known far and wide for her green thumb.  But she soon found that light was needed as fall faded into winter, and the girl was poor.  Turning to her magic mirror, she cried, “Mirror, mirror on the wall, can you give me sunlight at all?”  Much to her surprise, the beautiful girl was taken up in a cloud of fairy dust and magically whisked into her local Home Depot, where stood a vast assortment of fluorescent lighting as well as some inexpensive shop lights, which she duly set up on wire shelving in a sunny spare bedroom.  But would these cheap lights work?  Only time would tell…

The second day, early in the morning, the maiden arose to check on her seeds and the wondrous new lights.  A miracle had happened!  The dry, hard seeds had been replaced by small seedlings.  How magical.  But in the afternoon, an evil sorcerer sent a plague of locusts (whiteflies and aphids) and the seedlings withered and died.  The maiden would have liked to feel morose and to have a tantrum, but she was too innocent and sweet for such nonsense.  Instead, the lovely girl scattered new seeds and went to bed. 

In the morning, she looked into her little kingdom of flora, and—once again, she found that elves had come in the night and replaced the seeds with tiny plants!  This time, the maiden found a secret potion to keep the evil sorcerer and his demonic minions at bay.  The plants grew and grew until they were large enough to serve in many a magical dish.  And the maiden, her prince Charming, and small fry lived happily ever after. 

Translation of magical objects in the fairy tale and other things of note:

1. The Potion: Brammer’s Peppermint Soap will keep just about any pest away, whether indoor or out in the garden.  I have since learned that my grandmother poured the dregs of her dishwater over her garden plants every morning way back in the day.

2. Magical lights: plain old fluorescent bulbs stuck in 4 ft long shop lights.  It is probable that the really expensive “grow” lights work better, but these work too, as long as the top of the plants stay within 2-4 inches of the bulb.  I use a simple, and pretty ugly system of boxes to put the shorter plants up higher when needed. 

3.Elvin-grown seedlings: I have experimented with romaine, butterhead, Greenleaf, and redleaf lettuces.  The redleaf is best so far.  All herbs seem to work.  Both lettuce and herb get leggy.  My banana sweet pepper is a surprise success, and my bok choi is a steady hit.  Spinach is a fail—I don’t know why—but three tries and its out.  Someday, I will get seeds for carrot, radish, summer squash, etc and will try those out.  I’m really only in the beginning stages of an all-consuming project here.  We’ll see what happens next.

4. “Poor” maiden: Not as cost effective as I would have liked, and the vegetables grow slowly—but it is one of my favorite random experiments to date.  And there’s nothing like having fresh parsley and basil whenever I want it.  I also look forward to having an early start on spring in a few months.  I am hoping that seeding everything myself will save a lot of money!

Rosie the Food Snob Riveter

In which our Heroine eats Vegetables in front of other People 

There are only two words for me these days: Food Snob.  First off, I found a lovely looking recipe for homemade cranberry sauce for Thanksgiving dinner and decided that would be my great offering at the dinner table this year—whether anyone wanted it or not.  As I plugged away at the hour-long process of slowly cooking up pears, soaking cranberries until they popped!, and thinly slicing ginger root, I thought non-stop of how utterly wrong it is that something as potentially beautiful and delicious as home-made cranberry sauce should morph over the years into the molded lump of dull red that slithers out of the can each year during our commemorative meal of bounty.  “When,” I thought, “did it become traditional to slice up a jelly that still has the pattern from the can quivering on its surface?”  (The other and probably less intact side of my brain decided it must have been the Beef Wellington years at the Kennedy White-house.  I have no support for this reason, but some random part of me regards Jackie O as important enough to have influenced decades-worth of Betty Crocker pictures of the Thanksgiving spread in America.) Seriously though, it was my first time ever experiencing cranberry sauce NOT from the can. 

In addition, last week I was at a meeting with some other people during the lunch hour.  The friend who was sitting across from me pulled out one of those highly processed peanut butter and jelly sandwiches that you get in huge frozen boxes at Costco.  Its familiar packaged yumminess called out to me as she broke the seal on the bag and pulled its unnatural white oval shape out and proceeded to eat it.  Earlier she had found a baggie of leftover Halloween candy in her capacious mommy bag.  This is how she began her lunch, but the PBJ sandwich was the real headliner for her meal.  Even with the sight of such ambrosia before my eyes, I held firm (mostly because I had to) and pulled out my own lunch bag.  Unfortunately, I made the mistake of setting it on the vacant seat next to me.  Over the course of the next few minutes I saw every person’s eyes flick over and settle on my brightly colored and see-through plastic bag.  Honestly, its like I was showing my knickers or something, for all the shame I felt at being so openly healthy. 

And open I was.  There is a bit of the devil in me at times like this.  I began with the humble but vivid red-yellow apple, next turning to the perfect green of my crunchy celery stick.  I also had exactly one long and perfectly tapered carrot, which was of course bright orange because they never come any other way.  It was the fresh green beans that did it.  Velvety green and looking like they’d just come out of my mom’s garden, I’d just begun on the pile when my friend interrupted the conversation to say, “Wait—is that a green bean?” as if it were an alien life-form.   Realizing her own mistake at sounding food-snobbish, she quickly added, “Its just that I’ve never seen anyone eat them raw like that before.”  Feeling pity, I explained that this is how they come out of the garden.  Then, to add insult to probable injury, I added, “And they are all organic too.” 

It’s possible that I went too far by peeling my luscious oranges just then.  Juices squirted out from under my fingers, permeating the air with a tang that you just can’t process in a factory or shelve in a supermarket.  Oh!  The smell of a good piece of citrus is mouth-watering, isn’t it?  Is there any other word for me at that moment?  No.  Loud and clear: FOOD SNOB!!!

No, I am not eating perfectly.  When I’m tired, I still pull out the easy food.  I figure that if I’m tired and headachy enough to practically feel the cancer growing, then it is probably okay to just eat a microwave burrito.  But I’m trying, and most of the time I am eating WAY BETTER than before the cancer.  I tell you that I feel so much better!  My big realization for the day is that healthy food is called healthy for a reason: it gives you health!  (I know, my rocket-science is astonishing).  By the way, as you read the health line, you should be picturing strong biceps, like this:

I’d like to muster the proper amount of offended-ness from the PBJ vs. green bean face-off, but my somewhat-intact memory tugs at me, gently reminding me of my own past food snobbery—times when I may have been stupid enough to say something like, “Man, you gotta live… How can you eat that stuff all the time? Mmmmnmmn… (satisfied smacking sounds) All those vegetables are nothing compared to this luscious cheese-cake…”