SPINACH GOES ALL THE WAY

Despite what whoever else thinks about spinach may think, spinach has its own life purpose, if only an evolutionary one, and it deserves to fulfill that purpose whenever possible, is my humble opinion, especially since I planted so much of the stuff and nobody here is eating much spinach this year, other than me doing my best, which explains this greenish tint. 

Our weird Spring weather is too chilly for daily family salads and anyway there's only two of us living here now, so it must've been in a spell of zombie gardening that I planted a lot of greens, out of habit acquired from years of more mouths to feed, as I'm sure happens to empty-nester gardeners all over the world, we are united  in this are we not, though no one at the forums ever talks about this type of overabundance; there should be an international distribution system for surplus vegetables. 

In any case it's not easy to rationalize all that succulent, flavorful and nourishing vegetation growing so high and leafing out with abandon, gaining fiber in the natural process of going to seed (a noble idiom, wasted on humans), which is what spinach originally evolved to do and has never forgotten how to do; and now, for the first time in who knows how long - no one I know keeps track of these things - some righteous spinach is getting a chance to go all the way, so who am I to put my foot down? 

Yes, who am I to tell a nourishing vegetable friend what to do-- or even more hubristically, cut a beautiful and licentious plant into compost simply because it's useless to me and is interfering with the artificial comfort parameters of my life, such as what will my gardening neighbors think of me for letting this happen (an interesting variation on Veblen's concept of conspicuous non-consumption, btw), for letting spinach walk all over me as it were, and for not tastefully maintaining my spinach bed. There seems to be a moral aspect trying to assert itself in here somewhere...

Speaking frankly, though, I have never seen spinach have so much fun, or look so wanton and passionate with life, so-- fulfilled in its true mission, spelling itself out in max green leaves on rising ruby stems and the beginnings of seeds; it's almost erotic, except it's a plant, so nothing goes on actionwise other than slow intense growth and general vegetative lasciviousness, which I suppose could be arousing to a more passionate gardener. Nothing salacious, though; it's not like Caligula or anything. Still, what are the neighbors thinking of all this verdant intimacy? No one has said a thing yet... 

Not to be all that be humble, but I here and now assert my wish to not have, an eon or more hence, a plaque of thanks in the Leafy Hall of Fame, when Spinach descendants gratefully and capably rule the world... 

It was nothing, really.

SEEDS INTO THE WORLD

We had the traditional turning to Spring a few days ago, Echo doing the soybean-tossing ritual late at night; therefore we think of it as Spring already... So there I was, out in the late Spring afternoon today, thick curtains of snow in the way far north, that's yukiguni (snow country) up there, where it looks like it's still winter, but here it's perfect chill Spring weather for splitting firewood, and so I do. I have a new camphorwood splitting stump, which the landscaper down below left for me by the roadside. He left two of them. Perfect they are: sleek, heavy, fragrant, immune to decay...

The pauses are splendid too, I stop and rest the axe on the sawdusty ground, look up and see a blueing sky, the sun touching all with gold every now and then, and between me and the sky the lacework of the old chestnut tree, its limbs bare but for a few stubborn dun leaves and a last dozen or so spiky husks, now wide open as though shouting to the sky "I did it! I did it! I sent my seeds off into the world! To become big trees! I did it!" And right they are. Emptynesters know that feeling.

Working near the garden, thoughts of seeds naturally germinate into ambitions... Gonna try some tromboncino this year - heard the stems are too tough for the weevils to poke into... and some radicchio too (up here on the mountain? gotta try it!) and a zuke variety not so dependent on insect pollination, more like ad hoc immaculate conception; sounds interesting too. And some different kinds of basil in the new herb bed; more seeds waft on the mindwind...

The sky is getting bluer as I work, even as it gets colder, the split oak stacking up until the barrow is full, then it's wheeled over a ways and added to the cord-to-be, all those woody triangles a richening shade of pale gold, wooden ingots of wealth in the blue of the sky; then suddenly there are, all over the place - what must be - yes, they are: big fat flakes of snow, plopping straight down through the still air onto the split wood, the axes and me, the ground all around turning white, where in heaven did they all come from? It’s blue up there! Winter again!?

Not for the whole rest of the day, I hope.

SEED

You go outside just as the sun is beginning to clear the borders of night, out into the morning and to the herbs, in this case oregano, which at mid-July is just beginning to form its tiny white flowers, now covered with dew, the best time to capture the magic of flavor that can be got from such a simple and unpretentious plant.

As you go along the herb bed and with a jeweler's eye select from among the tallest, healthiest and so most flavorful gems of oregano plants to cut for sun-drying now, letting the rest keep growing to cut later, in time letting some of the very best grow on to seed so that this richness will go on as we hope all good things will go on-- which is what seeds are for, after all, from our brief but deep perspective.

Doing this of a cool summer morning of what will be a hot day is in its own way a seed, a seed of experience, for as you go along accepting this green and fragrant gift of a year you are planting a seed in yourself that will quicken, grow and flower somewhere in the future-- and not only your own future, if you give to others.

As for yourself, when you later fashion a salad or a pizza, or create a Sauce Bolognese from scratch (for a few simple examples), such scratch will ideally include your own-grown tomatoes and onions, to which at last you add the savor of oregano, dried in the sun that shines even now on this endeavor, this seed for which you are the garden.