Peas and Dirt and Worms, Oh My

Peas and dirt and worms, oh my
Tendrils climbing to the sky.
Peas and dirt and worms, my word,
Winter's gone and Spring's occurred.

Little worm digs deep to hide,
Last year's straw mixed deep inside.
Little worm churns dirt and rubble,
Making soil from all that stubble.

Broken soil now wet and cold,
Clods and clay and loam and mold.
Broken soil to hold the seed,
Grow the crop or grow the weed.

Soon the peas come bursting out,
Growing, stretching, flowers sprout.
Soon more peas will fill the pods,
Sun-kissed by the garden's Gods.

Continuing my pattern of the past few years, I waited until well after the traditional St. Patrick's Day target to plant spring crops.  For Midwest gardeners of this latitude, the 17th of March is the day that our fathers told us to plant, but the delayed Springs of late have me reaching deep down within for patience before I put hoe to ground and plant my own.  This past weekend however, the rare conditions of afternoon warmth and personal energy and spare time all collided in a whirlwind Saturday of planting and pruning and cleaning.  There will be other days like that to come, of course, but my vegetable garden is now squared away for the season; new strawberries started, peas and potatoes properly planted, and empty trellises placed to await tomato vines.  
These peas look happy, pre-soaked and plump, ready to be covered by soil and to begin the cycle of replication once again.  The ground temperature in my garden was 46ºF when I planted them, proving once again that one of the most essential tools that a gardener can own is a soil thermometer.  The ground here is still pretty cold for peas, even though it was March 29th when I planted them.  The Kansas Garden Guide, from K-State Research and Extension, is an excellent resource for vegetable planting, and it tells me that I may still be planting peas too early.  Other Internet sources, such as the University of Vermont Extension, suggest that soil temperatures around 45º are adequate for pea germination.   I've come to the conclusion that I can plant peas and potatoes on March 17th and then wait 4 weeks before they come up, or I can plant them 2 weeks later and wait a week for germination and not have to wonder if they've rotted in the ground.  Maybe Global Warming can get us back to planting on March 17th, but for the near future, I'm staying near April for potatoes and peas.  

Donkey Droppings

There were times this winter, as I trudged through bone-chilling early morning winds and snowstorms to feed the cats and donkeys, that I wondered if deep insanity had prompted me to adopt these money-burning parasites or if I had merely been prey during a weak moment.  Today, however, I was reminded why I took on housing of the donkeys, Ding and Dong.  It was all about their poop.

I trust that many of you who read this blog followed your normal Sunday routines this morning, perhaps coffee and paper with a loving spouse, or time spent in pursuit of spiritual knowledge or experience. ProfessorRoush, however, was not engaged in such high-minded or polite endeavors.  I was loading donkey crap into a cart shovelful by shovelful (as pictured above) and then, as any self-respecting rosarian would, unloading it in measured fashion as more shovelfuls onto my roses.  Four carts of donkey dung were distributed among approximately 200 roses by early afternoon, interrupted only by a minor drip in the basement ceiling and by personal time to rehydrate.  I threw donkey poop onto the feet of 'Charlotte Brownell' and 'Maria Stern'.  I cast manure onto 'Queen Elizabeth' and at 'Madame Hardy'.  I even tossed a little donkey crap on 'Jeri Jennings'.   I should apologize to the latter since it is entirely possible she could run across this blog entry, but Jeri is an outstanding rosarian of great reputation and I'm sure she will understand my transgression.
  
Four heaping carts of donkey crap may sound like a lot of work, but I'm a long-time feces-slinger.  When I was the tender age of 12 or 13 or so, at the end of our first year with registered Polled Hereford cattle, my father decided the barn needed cleaning and bade me to load the accumulated manure into my grandfather's 2-ton manure spreader.  "It'll only be a couple of loads," he said.  Two weeks and 28 tons of manure later the barn was clean and Dad and I had reached an understanding that he was going to buy a front-end loader for the tractor.  Today's job was not nearly so taxing as that, and this afternoon I have a garden that looks like the bed pictured at the left, roses surrounded by piles of donkey poop.

There were learning opportunities today, as always.  After some period of applying donkey-based fertilizer, it dawned on me that Mrs. ProfessorRoush was not going to be happy about the aroma in the vicinity of our house after the predicted rains later this week.  Additionally, based on personal experience, I can now recommend that those who shovel donkey excrement into the face of a Kansas wind gusting up to 41 mph should take care never to exert themselves to the point of breathlessness and open-mouth breathing.  Such inattention to detail may have dire consequences, the least of which is the likelihood that Mrs. ProfessorRoush, upon reading this blog, will subsequently withhold any affections until she forgets or at least stops gagging at the thought.  The latter is, as stated, the least of my problems because after shoveling, unshoveling, and aspirating dust from four cart loads of donkey muffins, I could frankly use the rest.

Encore! Encore!

I'm sorry, Mother Nature, you must have misunderstood me.  I was not shouting "Encore!  Encore!" in hope of seeing winter continue.  I was shouting "No more, no more!"  Not even the best available weathermen and scientists predicted yesterday that I would wake up to more snow from you this morning. When will it end?

You are getting old and hard of hearing, aren't you? Fighting to stay when you should be welcoming rebirth and youth.  Now look where we are, my crocus babies shivering and buttoned up to hide from your icy touch.  Trust me when I recommend that you let those last tired, cold, and scrawny bones of Old Man Winter splinter and crack back to dust.  Let winter go.  I'm done with it and you should be too. Stop trying to cling to last year victories and move on.  Please.

Let Spring cover naked limbs with fresh new wood, sprout plump buds that seep sticky sap, and ripen flowers that open to sunshine.  Let light green leaves be your epitaph, shiny new skin to cover the tortures of winter.  Let roots warm and stretch beneath the soil to welcome rain and feel the embrace of earth.  Let fruit swell and blush and drop for the nourishment of all.  Fight not against life's end, but welcome at last the cycle of renewal .  Live again as moonlight and warmer winds, as brighter sunshine and as dewdrops.



Oh my beautiful snow crocus, mere yellow streaks now, memories of the glorious palette of creams and yellows from only yesterday.  Will you come back?  Encore, crocus! Will you wait out the frozen rain to bloom again this year?  Encore, crocus! How much more can you take?  How much more can I take?       

Hollyhock Hunger

Friends, I really miss my many hollyhocks.  Yes, I pine for peonies and rave on roses, but today I'm thinking only of light, cheery, woolly hollyhocks.  They bloom at the end of the roses for me, staring down the barrel at the coming heat of summer, but they've never failed to brighten up the borders as the early garden wanes. 

Stubborn and unknowing gardeners lump hollyhocks with other heirloom plants and disdain their contributions to today's gardens, but our grandmothers, as always, were sound and wise with the few ornamentals they chose to trouble with. 

Alcea 'Black Beauty'

We garden today with a multitude of companion plants for roses; of the value of clematis for complementing the bloom of a rose, of the tidiness of phlox and verbena and bulbs to extend the flowering season of a rose border, of the solid background of an ornamental grass.  But many have forgotten the lowly and coarse hollyhock in their rush to modern garden design.  Forgotten the height and structure and texture contrasts that hollyhocks provide against the shiny new rose leaves.  Forgotten the bright blooms that open wide each sunny morning and then fall cleanly to the ground a few mornings later.   








I sing today of the wonders of my hollyhocks.  I sing of the ethereal beauty of those cupped blossoms, translucent against their backgrounds but colorful and substantial in the border.  I sing of the large light green leaves, fuzzy and rough, hardened against drought and wind.  I sing of their rapid reach skyward, to tower for a brief time in the sunlight, to fade into the fall background of foliage and seed.  I sing of their carefree nature, self-seeding themselves into the perfect niche to complement a rose, requiring neither deadhead nor cultivation for procreation or survival.

Witness the delicate membrane of petal, fragile as glass.  Notice the feathery stamens and glistening pistil, aching to join forces. See the play of form and color between rose ('American Pillar') and hollyhock as pictured to the left.  Hail the vibrant crimson of 'Charter's Double Red' to the right.  Alcea all, rosea some, tough and proud faces turned to scorching sunshine, defiant and strong to wind.

I choose and covet my hollyhocks by their survival and their deep color.  I have long friendships with  'Charter's Double Red' and 'Black Beauty' and a beautiful pink variety whose name I've lost to the depths of time.  I've been briefly acquainted with more fickle visitors such as 'Charter's Double Yellow' and 'Queeny Purple', who have disdained my hospitality and faded on.  But if they live, they stay, and if they stay, they serve.  What more can I ask of a plant that can outshine a rose?