If You Want to Destroy this Bean Pole

Last week my husband stuck his finger in a tiny hole in his tee shirt, and proceeded to tear it from his body in dramatic fashion. If you know Todd, you are probably picturing a Hulk-ish spectacle, but if you know Todd, you are also not surprised when I say it played out more like the Weezer song. We did indeed, hold this thread as he walked away. A long, strange yarn of tee shirt spun from him and I thought "Eureka! Just when I needed some twine!"

You see, my Bean plants are tall--a height betraying their immaturity and the wind was really kicking the crap out them during their "hardening" period. Leaves were ripped from their stems and the plants themselves drooped in depression. These plants were only spending two to three hours outdoors, hence the small pots, but they were clearly not adjusting to the new environment with ease. I desperately tried several supports, binding them to sticks and such, but the little pots would not give purchase.


Lamentation of the Bended Bean
photo: Allison Glasgow

Finally, I consulted the oracle internet...it should be remarked how rarely this occurs to me. I have been computer savy for--uh--upwards of 20 years, mastering a Commodore 64 in the 90's. Yet the bibliophile in me imagines all expertise to be held only in encyclopedic, tangible tomes. Not that I don't love the internet, I just don't think of it. Needless to say, a quick search later I had a very easy, effective strategy, plus an incredible new resource in the form of a square-foot-garden farm blog. Simple, invaluable advice from those who have come before...

http://thewealthyearth.com/how-to-protect-your-corn-from-wind-in-a-square-foot-garden/

The solution appears rather obvious, though I am sure I could not have come up with this on my own. Essentially you build a grid around each individual plant, a buffering wall to butt against but not tip or break. Tee shirt material, while I assume no better than run of the mill twine, is soft and has a fair amount of give, even when taut. There is no chance my beans are going to clothesline themselves on a tee shirt.

Tee-shirt Grid
photo: Allison Glasgow

One week later and limp leaves have woken and sprouted baby greenie-beanie buds!!!!! Yes, multiple exclamations and weird veggie babble needed. I am so excited. Low and behold today in the span of a few hours, there is some sort of mutanty flower-thing springing from the purple and white sprouts. I am so close to my first green bean casserole, I can hardly contain myself. Unfortunately once I graduate to successful farmer, I must also learn to cook said green beans, and perhaps even learn to enjoy them. Baby steps. Baby greenie-beanie mutant buddy baby steps.

Like the Beans, my son Sam is exceptionally tall. People often mistake him for older and therefore more mature, but Sam is three. Barely out of diapers and already I see the barrel chest and large square feet of his Daddy. Like the Beans, assuming he was ready, I introduced him without proper hardening to a new environment--school.

Lucas and Sam
photo: Marrisa Senteno

He has been attending an education-based daycare at my college for about three months now. He goes three days a week and the study time it provides me is essential. From what I can see it is a great place, large staff of teachers and resources, and a rotating gang of very enthusiastic education students attending to the kids.

But Sam is struggling. He often cries, a sad, foreign cry that I had never experienced. Babies and toddlers cry. They cry in need, in pain and in frustration, but the preschooler sob of genuine sadness is a new phenomenon I just can't steel against. It seems so wrong to muse happy and confident as suggested by the teachers, leaving him tear-streaked and lip-quivering on a brightly colored carpet square. When I come to get him, a mere three hours later, I might find him just standing in the room, staring. He resists engagement and he has made no friends with the quite charmed and kind children he shares a class with, despite my efforts to teach him their names and speak to them with him in tow. It is not because they don't like him, in fact each little girl lines up to hug him each day as he readies to go home, but he remains friendless. Outside of school, Sam is funny, independent, and charismatic, but his school-insecurity now carries itself to the playground when he is not accompanied by a trusted friend, like Lucas. This worries me because New York City public schools loom in our near future. If Sam cannot find enrichment in a small group with attentive and supportive teachers, I fear he might not thrive in the overcrowded classrooms of Queens. While I have tooled around search-engines on school blues, ultimately there is no Wikipedia page on Sam. He is brand new, unwitnessed. Wise offerings from friends and family, coupled with Todd and my own insecure intuition must be good enough to harden my sweet little dude without injury. Just the words themselves hurt my heart. Any friendly advice on buffering lonesome little boys would be greatly appreciated.

Thrown From the Nest



Happy Spring!
all photos this post: Allison Glasgow

Cursed, searched and longed for, Spring has finally graced New York City. Not without complication, but rebirth is rarely easy.

Sam promptly rejected the first hints of fresh air with a high fever lasting five days. My husband was out of town, leaving me to spin between late night phone harassing of the pediatrician and detailing snot rashes to my mother all on my  pitiable lonesome.

Somewhat irrationally I wanted to catch this virus, believing it to be the only way to understand what he was feeling. So Sam and I dozed wrapped together like mummies in the dim tomb of my apartment for the better part of a week. Sick baby is my worst heartache. Stress coupled with insomniac monitoring of little-bodied thick breaths likely increased my susceptibility, and when Sam emerged to health, I came down with neon eyes. Not pink eye. Neon, alien, orange... too hideous to speak of really. A condition that left us marooned for yet another week.

Meanwhile the Spinach has been sulking. Coiling and shrugging and ignoring the sun. I read in a gardening book that once the "true leaves" emerge, it is time to begin some sort of plant food. All my seedlings have had true leaves for weeks, most have cheerfully carried on building height and girth in their tiny peat pellets, but Spinach rebelled and demanded new digs. Working from rumor, minute knowledge and impatience, I have declared that Spinach doesn't need much soil and might be the perfect candidate for experimental vertical gardening. I found this very cool You Tube video with a guy growing lettuces out of pop bottles:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-uDbjZ9roEQ

I figured I would give it a try. If you watch the video, you will notice that his bottles are not the typical American 20 oz that I had been collecting from my husband's minor diet soda addiction and there is no way in hecks I am coaxing 2 liters into my life, so I raided our cluttered cabinet for substitutes. I have some concerns about plastic, but these Chinese takeout soup containers have a recyclable code of 5, which I understand means they are reusable and heat resistant. Plus they have lids that will help them stack.

I cut a hole in each of the lids, one on the side, and finally one on the bottom. The bottom hole is very large to allow drainage from each container to the next, and hopefully properly water all the compartments. I realize only now that as per usual, I disregarded most instruction in the video and that large drainage hole is perhaps not ideal. Alas.


Sam checks in a dolly to the Spinach motel!
Note said snot-rash. Poor baby.

Grouchy Spinach perks at a new Home

I also cut two little holes on the backside of each container and thread a zip tie through before adding soil. These containers need to hang on something and I had the foresight--OK not foresight exactly, more concluded through experimentation as Sam's reclamation of the planters as apartments for his little toy friends--that the planters are quite unstable and cannot be expected to hold the weight of the next, so each must be individually attached to the support (in our case, a no longer needed baby gate).

The idea is that the little sprouts will be planted directly into the large opening on the side, but this proved extremely difficult. Do I add the soil first, or just stick the Spinach in and pack around it? Not to mention that these little plants were unhealthy and quite delicate. The giant hole in the bottom proved unwieldy, spilling dirt as quickly as I could shovel it. And I had serious reservations about the drainage/irrigation system. I did eventually plant the Spinach, only to hyper water it, waiting anxiously for the tell-tale condensation of moisture to travel to the very bottom container. 

So the Spinach has been ejected from the comforts of my home. Now that the sprouts are adhered to the baby gate on the balcony, they can't come back in. Of course, I set up this quite fragile and precarious plan and THEN checked the weather...tremendous rain for the next two days. Oops. Even with the forecast promising demise, I decided the Spinach deserved company. Out went the Beans, out went the Tomato and out went the Peas.

"To be fully alive, fully human, and completely awake is to be continually thrown out of the nest.” ~Pema Chodron. 

I am sure of this truth of motherhood. I only hope the same can be said of plants.

The farm dressed for sunshine

  

The farm dressed for rainstorms





A Spring Moon is on the Rise

As we look for signs that Spring is officially here, sometimes you can come up a bit empty handed in the city. This was true when I tried to explain to my four year old that Winter is over. "Why?" he asked. "Well, because the calendar says so." It had snowed a few days prior and we were still wearing our overused down parkas. I did not have a better answer. The sprouts are doing great in their little pods overlooking an outdoor patio from the safety of indoors. Allison and I are trying our best at guessing when things should go outside to take full advantage of sun, rain, and nutrients therein. This applied to both the plants and our kids. So, where in fact is Spring?

"The moon," said my husband. 

photo: Marrisa Senteno

"The moon? What do you mean the moon?" I asked. 

"Yes the moon will tell us when it is Spring. This past moon was a big one, the biggest one, and the next moon is the one that set all growing things into motion. You will see..."

I have learned to listen to my husband when it comes to topics of the moon. He was raised a farmer, his grandfather taught him how to look at the moon to tell him when to grow plants, animals and to a certain extent, children. Well, the children really by extension of the plants and animals. Very earnest, in fact, about the moon that we have set certain important dates by the lunar calendar.

The city is not always the best place to observe the moon. We have started to teach Lucas how to look at the moon and to tell if it is getting bigger or smaller. Sometimes I cheat, I have an app on my kindle that shows the moon phase, because really in an urban setting, sometimes I can't find the moon.

Yet, very few in the city missed this past moon. It was huge, luminous and really entrancing. It was rising directly into my son's window where it would light up the apartment. And again my husband said "You see? That is the moon that says it is Spring. Everything is going to grow now, the trees are going to explode and your little plants should go out soon." So I will take his word for it, the Spring moon is here and none too soon. I hope you all did not miss it, because it was a beauty. Finally, Spring.