🌞 IT'S CLEAN SLATE TIME 🌞

garden thoughts on competition, buddhism, and being your whole self.

what’s up party people -

you may notice that this issue of floricult looks different! ✨

i have switched to substack in my efforts to streamline, minimize, eliminate the fluff in my life. it has very few design elements to distract me from what i really want to share: my words and photos. see ya later, mailchimp. 🌻

thank you for following this past year as i dipped my toe into the newsletter waters. i learned a lot and i am SO PUMPED for 2022. 💪🏼

this is my absolute favorite time of the year [”dead week”, thank you atlantic]. 🏴‍☠️

one of the things i appreciate most about myself is how motivated i always am to ‘try again’ even though i fail every year at achieving my goals. “dead week” is the week that re-centers me, re-organizes me, and brings piles of clarity. without fail, my better self shows up to push me back on track — to give me creativity and vision and hope.

case in point, i just told a whole bunch of strangers what i love about myself. we should all be doing more of that this year.

there are three commitments i’d like to make to this newsletter in 2022.

1. being more me. growing food is a deeply personal practice that both requires and feeds your Whole Self. it is a beautiful circular relationship and as such, i am feeling the urge to put more ME into this newsletter. i will share what i am learning about myself in addition to the growing / gardening / permaculture / inspiration / teaching goodness. if i want to write a poem AND show you how to build a compost bin, i will do that. ✍🏻🔨

2. avoiding the second arrow. in buddhism there is a parable called the second arrow. the (loose) idea is that being hit with the first arrow is an unavoidable human experience. for example, my First Arrow may be that become overwhelmed one week and do not write a newsletter when i plan to. the Second Arrow is the one i shoot at myself: i didn’t follow through again. i can’t keep my commitments. i’m not a disciplined person. i suck. gardening is FULL of failure, mistakes and small tragedies. you are welcome to join me in practicing avoiding the second arrows together. 🏹

3. just doing it for the reward of doing it. “it’s not worth doing unless you’re the best” is a disease we’re all infected with and just do it anyway seems to be the only cure. this idea that everything is competition and we’re all needing to be ranked among our own kind is particularly unique to humankind. the rest of nature is full of networks, communities, packs, herds, mycelium, all working together to survive and build. 🤲🏼 what does it mean to feel “i must be the best” when your belief is that every single person should be able to grow their own food? what does it mean to think you must be working on “building the best brand” or “doing X in a differentiated way” when you believe that growing food is the most universally shared human experience, necessary even to our own way of living? 🌱

// photo from the summer - i miss it already. //

and now for some actual current garden things:

1. i finally got a timer for my grow lights. gardeners.com has one for $40 but i found this one on amazon for $25. pick your poison. 4 outlets can be set to a timer, the other 4 are permanently off or on. i have known for years that sunlight routine is VERY important to seedling health and i hope this strengthens all the new babies.

2. i got more hoops up! i built a 4x12’ and a 4x7’. i use 1/2” pvc that is 100 psi. (100psi is important - this is what keeps it bendy enough to arch. they may be in a different area of lowes than the rest of the pvc.) they are sold in 10 foot long pieces and i don’t cut them. each hoop is a 10’ arch. i use the 2’ long 3/8’ wide rebar. i use 10’ wide agribon ag-19 cover fabric from johnny seeds which protects plants down to 28°. you can also get ag-50 which protects down to 24° but is usually only sold in commercial length (like 500’ feet long).

   • the rebar is $2 each and pvc is $5 each.

   • total cost was $30 for the hoops and $24 for the rebar.

   • fabric is about $30 for 50 feet of beds depending on type. you can swap freeze cloth for insect or shade cloth in the summers!

3. chijimisai is the winter winner again! if you don’t grow this YOU MUST. super cold hardy, ultra nutricious, and is sweet and crunchy. it’s like a lighter, sweeter, crunchier spinach in the bok choi family.

   

   

4. winter root veggie growing. it’s been unseasonably warm so i planted beets and carrots under my hoops. i will keep you posted if they come up. i planted kyoto red carrots which are specifically for winter growing.

5. pruning roses. i still love my climbing roses and am learning to care for them. in the winter when they are dormant, clip all the off-shoots of the primary stem and use zipties to run the primary stem horizontal along the fence or trellis. new shoots will grow vertically in the spring! here is a nice video to watch. warning: this will feel like brutal murder the first few times.

lastly, i feel compelled to put into the universe that clean slates are real things, good things, important things. to whomever needs to hear it today: it isn’t silly to want this. plants and gardens get clean slates every year. you can have it too. you can erase something in your life or just give it a good scrub.

take the permission you need to create a clean slate in whatever area you need it this year. 🛀🏼

thank you for reading my newsletter! if you know someone who would also enjoy it, please take a moment to share it with them.