Susiej

The weekend was all set. Dad was taking a few teenage boys, and their Dads, up to the lake for some winter-wonderland playtime. Ice Skates were purchased by all parties.

Then, the snowstorm arrived.

Not in time, however, to give them a snow day.

The departure time was moved from Friday afternoon to early Saturday morning at 7.

The next morning, they were off. I fell back on my pillow and collapsed. Until 9:30. Unheard of.  When I woke, I rented Pillow Talk, and A Touch of Mink — for later. I whipped up some pancakes for the little boys, and the neighborhood came over and they were busy building snowmen and forts.

I planned to get them all to bed early and paint my toenails while watching Doris Day.

Around 11:00, a.m., my cell phone rang — just about the time they should have arrived — except, I heard, “We’re turning around.”

“You’re turning around? What is this? Some kind of joke?”

“We’re stuck. There are trucks all over the road, stuck in ditches, and now we can’t get the Pilot out.”

They had only driven 60 miles, and the way was paved lots of wind, drifting and snow drifts mingled right on the roads.  One guy made quite an impression. “He sat in the middle of the road, stuck in a snow drift, reading the paper.” In the city, where the streets are plowed almost immediately, we forget what it’s like to be in the country, and we take things for granted.

While it was the prudent thing to do, turning around, especially while out in the middle of nowhere, it just blew up my whole Doris Day weekend. Instead, we gathered together with the wives, ate the food the guys prepared, and they all talked about what “could have been.” One of the Dads, a gardener, talked me out of starting my watermelon plants so soon. “Do you have any idea how big those vines will be ?” (Really, so what if they’re big? I’ll be eating my own watermelon on the fourth. But have decided to wait a couple of weeks.)

I pinched myself, realizing now, how grateful the boys were all OK. Still, I couldn’t help but notice how this impromptu night was so familiar to those nights I spent at my parent’s friend’s house, as a child, running around in the basement — just like my kids were doing. Those nights from the past that pop into my head and visit me. Do they have a message? They are nights, I now realize, that are timeless gatherings that ease their way in to dot each generation.

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Last summer, my salads never had quite enough radishes, basil, parsley or arugula. The cucumbers and zucchini vines always spread their wings just enough to pipe down the shoots of my salad seedlings so that the little veggies could never take off and spread out and stand up like proper vegetable soldiers.

Photo, my future garden, courtesy of Sunset Magazine: For the names of plants, click here:

So, that exciting day when I planted my garlic last fall, I spread out more newspaper and leaves and expanded my garden. Still, I wanted more space, but I didn’t want the place to look like a farm. Since then, I’ve learned that the problem with garden space lies in the rows. Straight vegetable beds, with rows for walking, take valuable space away from the plants. For example, a traditional row garden of 13 square feet only provides 3 feet of plantable area (when factoring walkways) – a waste of 75 percent of the garden space.

A keyhole garden, is a circular garden, with a walkway up the middle, and has no rows. This consolidated garden allows you to harvest your plants from one spot, as you work your way around from the circle in the middle. If a keyhole garden takes up over 29 square feet, (size is up to you – this is for an example) it has a plantable area of more than 19 feet – 75 percent productive land, versus only 25% plantable land with a row garden.

In addition, the keyhole garden design lends itself to planting your seedlings densely, which does minimize weeds, allowing you to plant more, and encourages the roots to go down deep to the water, rather than spreading out. In short, it’s for the lazy gardener.

I was worried about having enough stones and rocks to build up the walls. Then, I found this simple efficient design from the Urban Oasis Project.

I can certainly find enough rocks for this garden. Besides, the rocks are an excellent way to help build up heat in the garden for the vegetables.

It’s not that I am a lazy gardener – far from it – because working the soil is relaxing for me. But, I am unable to be there to tend to my garden as often as I like. This brings me to the next feature that I love about the keyhole garden. It’s self-sufficient.

The key (no pun) to this keyhole garden is its inner fuel tank – a constant source of water and fertilizer is the compost bin that sits in the inner basket of the garden. This is where you put kitchen scraps, grass clippings, and leaves, and organic material (no meat or dairy). As this material decomposes, it provides water and fertilizer as the material turns into compost. The compact design of the keyhole makes the turnover from potato peel to dirt happen very quickly.

The central basket means the garden survives with no to low watering and no fertilizing. In fact, this is a method specifically designed for those in parts of the world who suffer from low rainfall. The keyhole garden takes all of the effort of watering and when-to-fertilize out of the equation for me – perfect for those who say they can’t grow anything. I might be able to grow two gardens. One for the lake, and one for home.

Traditionally, the keyhole garden is a circle, with a path cut into the middle in one place to give you access to the garden. But, mowing around circles is a problem. My solution will be to keep the garden bed in its rectangular shape, and to fill those triangular pockets around the corners of the circle with something else. Such as bean fort teepees, or tomatoes in cages, or dry herbs, such as rosemary. The possibilities are simply endless.

Instructions for this keyhole garden are coming.

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The water is a solid rock. Un-malleable to our touch. Once, this mass was liquid, yielding to our bodies as we dove in, or ran our fingers along the surface. The response was ripples, as the water gave way like velvet.  Even the moon is in a different place. A dichotomy only Henry Wadsworth Longfellow can cover.  Here is his poem, Woods In Winter.

When winter winds are piercing chill,
And through the hawthorn blows the gale,
With solemn feet I tread the hill,
That overbrows the lonely vale.

O’er the bare upland, and away
Through the long reach of desert woods,
The embracing sunbeams chastely play,
And gladden these deep solitudes.

Alas! how changed from the fair scene,

When birds sang out their mellow lay,
And winds were soft, and woods were green,
And the song ceased not with the day!

But still wild music is abroad,
Pale, desert woods! within your crowd;
And gathering winds, in hoarse accord,
Amid the vocal reeds pipe loud.

Chill airs and wintry winds! my ear
Has grown familiar with your song;
I hear it in the opening year,
I listen, and it cheers me long.

Where, twisted round the barren oak,
The summer vine in beauty clung,
And summer winds the stillness broke,
The crystal icicle is hung.

Where, from their frozen urns, mute springs
Pour out the river’s gradual tide,
Shrilly the skater’s iron rings,
And voices fill the woodland side.

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The earth took a beating this weekend. With temperatures hovering around 9 degrees (in the sun), even the ice on the lake didn’t know how to cope. What was once a frozen tundra, suddenly started heaving and cracking, creating wet spots on top of the solid mass. How could anything liquid here stay liquid without freezing solid?

The biggest casualty of the weekend was my tin of Badger Rub. The boys said it made a perfect hockey puck.

Nothing but a winter wonder.

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When cold winds move across long expanses of warmer lake water,
clouds build over the lake and eventually develop into snow showers and squalls.

The intensity of lake effect snow increases when higher elevations downwind of the lake force the cold, snow-producing air to rise even further.

This effect occurs in many locations throughout the world, but is best known in the populated areas of the Great Lakes of North America.

If it wasn’t so cold; it would have been raining.

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Last weekend I cleaned up the garden, folded in some leaves to mulch the soil for next spring. Then, I pulled out the shovel and started planting my garlic – yes I know – should have been planted weeks ago, but life happens. While raking in the leaves, I noticed big white seeds – about the size of the Jack in the Beanstalk seeds.

This is exactly what they looked like — taken earlier.

As I dug, I noticed more seeds, so I picked one up. These white things were not seeds. They were eggs. One egg had fallen under the blade of my shovel, and was opened. (I will not elaborate on this point — but just ask my kids — they’d love to tell you all about it.) Then, I realized that these were turtle eggs. I was standing in the midst of a huge turtle bed.

I quickly buried the baby turtle. “The garden is far, and uphill from the lake. Far from the lake,” is all I could think to myself as I worked. “Why did she climb all the way up here to plant her babies?”

The man who trimmed our trees two years ago said a large turtle snuck up on him. “That turtle could have taken the leg off on of your sons,” he said. He caught the turtle and threw her back into the lake.

Here’s a picture of the turtle. Yes, you can say it — she’s ugly, and she is armed and dangerous.

You can see her size by looking at my husband’s wrist. (Which is still attached to his arm.)

Now, her babies are buried throughout my garden — along with the garlic.

I’ll admit — I’m a bit nervous about planting next spring’s garden.

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