Garden Chat
By Jean Lundquist
At least there wasn’t any purslane Another year of gardening ends with my least favorite chore
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n a recent weekend morning, I was feeling pretty full of myself. It was before 10 a.m. I had unloaded the dishwasher and the sink strainer. The laundry was clean, dry and put away. The kitchen floor swept, the living room floor vacuumed, and the furniture dusted. I had some clutter I wanted to clear up as part of my fall resolutions, but I felt pretty full of sunshine. Then I looked out the window, and my spirits fell like a load of bricks. I still had that most unhappy chore of all ahead of me. It’s almost worse than taking down the Christmas decorations, when you realize the festivities are behind you, but most of the winter is ahead of you. I’m talking about clearing out the garden. I dread this chore. I hate it. I detest and abhor it. Frost has long since turned most everything in the garden to a crispy, dead brown, and I think that’s what I find so depressing. Yet, there’s no sense ripping plants out when they’re green and producing, I suppose. I’ve tried putting it off long enough to see if Larry will do it for me, And while that has happened on occasion, I’ve found it’s really not worth it. After weeks of Larry riding me to do it, he does it, but in something of a crabby way, if you know what I mean. This year I found the journey from a garden of mostly crispy brown, dry plant material to a clear, dark surface to be bitter, but also sweet I always plant heirloom or open pollinated tomatoes, so I save seed from 20 • november 2012 • MANKATO MAGAZINE
them. This year, I also had planted an eggplant I could save seeds from, as well as a green bean. I haven’t done that since I was a kid, before hybrids were so common. As I was ripping and tearing plants from the soil, I reflected on how gardening and farming have changed in this respect. My parents used to take us kids for rides in the car on Sunday afternoons, to see what was new in the neighborhood. The neighborhood included the areas where both of my parents grew up, as well as where we lived in town, and where all our friends lived. We’d marvel at the corn fields where every plant was the same height, and surmise that farmer Hankensiefken had planted a hybrid that year, and what a beautiful sight it was. The next year, though, we wondered what had happened to his corn. It was more uneven than ever, and many stalks had no ears. We were all learning that many hybrids don’t grow true, meaning that you can’t save the seeds from hybrids and expect to get what you’ve grown before. I know, it seems like a long time ago, doesn’t it? Hybrids are consistent in yield, taste and texture. They are disease resistant. In some crops, taste is given up, which is why I grow non-hybrid tomatoes. But anyone wanting to ship hybrid tomatoes any distance would find they are not up to the journey because of thin skins. So, I know that in many ways, hybrids are a good invention. Another thing I thought about as I was pulling out my garden was what a bane those open pollinated plants will be to me when I try to grow a nice, clean garden again next summer. I knew when I planted it last spring
that planting borage in the garden was a bad thing, but I did it anyway. Borage is a lovely green plant with beautiful periwinkle blue flowers. And the best part is that it tastes like cucumbers, but never makes me burp! The leaves are a little fuzzy, but in a salad or a sandwich, I barely notice. So I planted about three feet of the seeds I bought. I’ll never be rid of it. I harvested about a dozen seeds this fall, and in the spring I will plant them. In a pot. Far away from my garden. And I will battle borage in the garden for years to come. But I can beat borage — it’s not like purslane. As a final note — I had one other thought while clearing out my garden this fall. I was reading about the problems
farmers and gardeners had with the drought last summer keeping their subscribers to Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) plots supplied. One gardener resorted to providing his subscribers with purslane. The article didn’t say what his subscribers did with it. He advised them to put it in salads, I guess. I’d have put in a non-leak bag and sent it back with him. That stuff will grow anywhere. But in my arid garden, if there is one good thing about pulling everything out this year, there was very little purslane.
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Jean Lundquist is a master gardener who lives near Good Thunder.