The Garden Dirt: Growing Home

It started, as so many good things start, with a bean, a cup of wet dirt, and a warm windowsill.

I always wanted to grow food, and I didn't even know it. When I was a kid, I did know that I loved sprouting pinto beans from our kitchen pantry, and growing them into leggy vines in my bedroom. Not only did I marvel at the magic act of germination, I got the strangest feeling from having a green living thing in my window. It felt like I was home in a way I had never experienced before. I used to open my window on sunny days, and lean on the window sill, with the leaves of my bean plant in my peripheral vision, listening to the radio; pretending that I was a grown lady, with her own apartment and a plant on her windowsill, naturally.

Here I am now, with many windowsills, a whole house, a big family, and a massive yard; and I still do the same thing: find a unique sense of home by tending little sprouts. Even before attempting this whole homeo-schooling thing, getting the kids involved in gardening early was a must. How else to get stuff done than to keep the little hands busy?

All you have to do is just break everything down into tiny one or two step tasks, commit to a set up and clean up time, and figure out where to store everything in the meantime. And when you do that, please make a blog about it so I can read it and figure out how to do it myself.

 Chicken observer: optional

Just jesting. I'm actually starting to get the hang of this growing little growers thing. It starts, as many good things start, with a box of dirt. I use one of our large recycling bins, but anything waterproof with a tight-fitting lid would work. The box of dirt is handy for a couple of reasons. It makes a nice spot to fill containers without worrying about a mess. Later, when you need to transplant seedlings, or if something dies and you need to empty the container, you'll be glad to have a place to work, or dump your dirt. Unless they're looking infected with something, all the roots, stems, and leaves of fail plants can also go in there.

Now that you've got the dirt, decide in what you will plant your seeds. Please, believe me when I say, you can start a seed in anything. Paper towels, boots, ice cream containers, yogurt cups, egg shells, your ear, you name it. Different plants have different needs, but, keep in mind, planting in a small container usually means you'll need to transplant to a bigger container soon.

 Yes, a walnut shell.

What to plant? That's up to you. At this time of year, most gardeners are planting onions, leeks, broccoli, hard greens, radishes and carrots, to name just a few. Read the seed packet for how deep to plant whichever seeds you choose. Cover with a little dirt, and water gently until the soil feels lightly, but evenly, moist. As they say, "like a wrung-out sponge." After that, it needs a few days somewhere warm and draft-free. We have a cabinet above our oven that is just the spot. When you see sprouts, set them in a sunny window, and water as needed. What next? Well, sheesh! It's only January!

Here, George uses a salt shaker from our table top, rinsed out well and filled with water, to rain on his carrot seeds.

The last thing you'll need is patience, and a keen ability to harvest the process, if there is no fruit. Playing in the dirt is good for kids, and somewhat difficult for some who like to keep their hands clean.

Seeds require dexterity, and operating an eye dropper or shakerful of water demands an advanced understanding of hydromechanics. Most of all, kids love to work on something that they can tell is important. Letting them try their hand at horticulture lets them see what they're capable of, which cultivates real confidence, regardless of the result.

A few Septembers ago, when I had a new baby on my lap and was staring wistfully out the window at a winter garden that wasn't getting planted, a young Thomas came to me, in need of something to do. I figured I would plug two problems into each other, in hopes of a synergistic solution. I gave him a packet of radish seeds, pointing through the window to the bed, saying, "Sprinkle these all around that dirt and poke each one down with a stick." He dutifully ran out in his little raincoat, grabbed a stick, plunked all of the radish seeds in one dense wet clump, stabbed it repeatedly, and looked up at me through the window, beaming proudly.We didn't grow more than two radishes that winter, but I think I planted a gardener.

The Muddy Kitchen: Subject to Change

Just who do you think you are, anyway?

Are you a lady, or a kid, or a cat who wandered in front of a laptop?

Does thinking about your identity trigger a cascade of memories in .jpg form, all seen through your eyes only?

Or would you answer differently? Would you say, I'm a pastry chef.  I'm a competitive jump rope jumper. I'm a manager of many underlings. I'm a student and a big sister? I'm an iguana handler? Aristotle said, "We are what we do repeatedly." Are we?

The fact that you alone can answer that question about yourself is kind of huge. That means there's one unique story that nobody but you can tell. It's your story, and you don't have tell it in written, oral, or pantomime form, but you put it out there everyday. Just by being you.

Mr. Rogers was right!

If you know who that dude is, you've probably heard all of this before. Just be yourself and make the world a more magical place! Right? But what about....everybody else?

They seem to be convinced that they should just be themselves too. Oh boy. That sounds like a recipe for disaster. How to be me while letting you be you? This is at the heart of  my experience, raising young humans, but it's also the constant challenge for anyone dealing regularly with, well, everyone.

In this house of growing creatures, change is the order of the day. In order to govern lovingly and logically, there must be freedom to be, but there must also be freedom to be something else; to change. To say that that mental potential, to be a princess one moment, and a frog the next, is necessary to our survival, is no overstatement. In the big biogamble that is life on this side of the carbon cycle, flexibility is a highly valuable strategy. Freedom to determine for yourself just who you think you are on a moment by moment basis is crucial; so it stands to reason, allowing those around you the same liberty is only fair.

And it is with that that I make a major, earth-shattering confession. We have changed. Remember? Way back when we first met? And I said I was a vegetarian? Raising li'l vegetarians, with my vegetarian man? Yeah, about that.

We all eat fish now. And crabs. Weekly. We even hope to begin snatching these creatures from their nearby watery homes soon too. That's right, nearly vegan to stone-cold killers in a matter of months!

I don't want be a bore and list all of our reasons for this change, just like I never felt like lecturing the world on why I was a vegetarian for nearly ten years. All of our dietary decisions are based on a complex amalgam of responsibility, convenience, and self-interest. Even though I eat according to ever-changing self-imposed rules, I firmly believe in my tendency to screw up, so I can't assume that others should adopt my way.

You should, however, adopt the following recipe. As a novice, I'm not about to give out advice on how to prepare fish. It's what I add to it that makes it special: a very simple salad that makes undressed fish flesh and cold quinoa taste like a party in your face. I learned to make it many years ago in Ecuador, on a little adventure there. Ecuadorian people from one border to the other, up high in the mountains, or down in the jungle, ate one dish regularly, and fed it to me often. It was a cold chunk of tuna fish, right out of the can, next to a scoop of rice, with a side of what I'm about to share with you. Feeling sorry for Ecuador yet? Well don't. Just:

Slice equal parts tomatoes and peppers very finely.
Add half that quantity thinly sliced red onion.
Drizzle with lime juice, vegetable oil, and salt, to taste, and that's it! Stir and let sit in the refrigerator for an afternoon, and enjoy getting blasted in the mouth every time you use it. Oh, and you will use it. Not just on fish, but on whatever animals and plants you are at peace with eating.

Here's what it all looks like, minus the fried egg. Because, as everyone knows in Ecuador: you want to make sure someone likes their dinner, you slap a fried egg on it.  Plop it right on the quinoa in this case. Just puncture the egg yolk and enjoy the muy rico sabor.


Or don't. It's up to you.