How much should a stalk of celery cost?

 How much should a stalk of celery cost?

There they are, piled high in the produce section of your local supermarket, celery plants: a tight collection of fibrous stalks and leaves offered, usually, at so much a pound. I think the price is usually rather cheap, though you may beg to differ.

To follow the development of a celery plant, or any other plant, from seed to a ‘marketable’ commodity, is a stress-strewn epic journey whose story is beyond the time I have available to explain. But consider: for a seed to be viable, and true to type, it must be grown and harvested under very controlled conditions. And as celery is a biennial, for a plant to set seed it has to be maintained for two years. Then, should the selected plants have produced a quantity of seed sufficient to justify harvest, there is winnowing and cleaning, testing for viability (germination percentage), and then there are the packaging and advertising and handling and transportation costs to consider. Finally, perhaps, we have celery seed available to the market suitable for planting.

Now, the farmer who has elected to grow celery for the consumer market must prepare beds and fields appropriately. And that is just the beginning. The process of growing a plant from seed to a product suitable for sale is long, expensive, and often very complicated, or at least time consuming. From greenhouse seedlings to field planting; timely watering and fertilizing, pest control - of insects, rodents, small omnivores, ungulates, and others that trespass in the dead of night. Then there is the spring/fall worry about a late or early frost (alarms at three or four am that cannot be ignored!). And there are a myriad other devastating things, beyond the imagination of the grower, that can and often do take place. One mistake in this journey/folly and an entire crop may be rendered worthless.

Try growing celery from seed in your backyard garden to get an idea as to what I mean. In fact, try growing almost any vegetable from seed to an acceptable standard of size, color, quality etc. and I think you will find that produce is cheap at almost any price.

Who might be standing in the checkout lane today?

 Who might be standing in the checkout lane today?

Ever wonder if the person in front of you, as you wait patiently, or impatiently, to check out of your favorite store with your groaning shopping cart full of goods, is a Nobel Prize Winner? Or maybe the recipient of a Pulitzer, or The Booker Prize, or perhaps the Palme d’Or, or even a recipient of a statue from The Academy, or a Golden Globe, or perhaps they may have qualified for a Fields Medal, or the Turing Award, or even the coveted Most Popular in my Neighborhood Award?

Yet, while it’s not beyond the mathematical and statistical range of probability it is highly unlikely they qualify for any of the citations mentioned, especially since the award for ‘Good Neighbor’ has yet to be established.

Small pleasures for winter days

 

It's that time of year

Time to whittle down the list of seeds I would love to grow and face the reality of my physical and financial limitations. Some species demand specific conditions to germinate; others take two or three years to break dormancy, and all the time they need to be kept at specific temperatures and levels of moisture. More than once I have forgotten/neglected seeds planted in pots and placed in my seed refrigerator and when discovered found them etiolated beyond redemption. For some I don’t think I have time to start over, but probably will.

Never-the-less I still manage to snatch an occasional moment to muse, reminisce and jot down idle thoughts.

As a teenager I was smitten by one or two classmates, but also fell in love with Chinese and Japanese poetry, to wit Li Po, Tu Fu (Du Fu), Basho and a host of others. Their influence is undeniable. Just finished a new biography of Li Bai (Li Po) and jotted down:

The three hundred cups of Li Po

must have been small.

All I can manage is 7

before I can no longer count the stars.

and a haiku

So many stars tonight

Where is the full moon hiding?

Look! in your wine glass.

Thinking of tackling Finnegan’s Wake yet again.

Powers beyond our comprehension

 

So, fifty years ago in California I carved a piece of volcanic stone into a facsimile of an Easter Island moai. It was subsequently placed in the garden and then moved periodically as vegetation dictated.

In 1974 we moved to Oregon where the environment was much less tropical, or even Mediteranean, but as several species of bamboo fared quite well above the 45th parallel, an area was developed where the Moai didn’t look particularly ‘out-of-place’. The statue was moved a few times in the eighties and nineties as the garden changed but then seems to have been forgotten/lost. For the past twenty or more years I have not entertained one thought about this volcanic rock artifact.

Now, this is where things get ‘strange’.

Yesterday, for a reason beyond my ken, I suddenly found myself asking: Whatever happened to that tiki you carved so many years ago? My memory was a complete, complete blank.

Now, to put things in perspective, I try to walk through most of our gardens once a week, and the sudden realization I could not recall seeing this statue for many, many years was a little disturbing, I even thought that perhaps someone had appropriated it for their own enjoyment years ago.

Today, and don’t ask me why, (‘out of the blue’ is a phrase that comes to mind) I had a compelling urge to trim back a particularly agressive patch of Pseudosasa japonica and sasaella masamuneana ‘albostriata’. So with shears, secateurs, loppers and a formidable mattock in hand I began.

After only a few minutes I felt like Howard Carter discovering the tomb of Tutankhamun. As I cut back the bamboo I suddenly stared face to face with my (lost) ‘tiki’.

Witch Hazel: Arnold Promise vs Pallida

 Witch Hazel: Arnold Promise vs Pallida

A short note regarding Hamamelis x intermedia ‘Arnold Promise’ and Hamamelis japonica ‘Pallida’.

Both grow quite well here and their late winter/early Spring blooms are pure delight. But, if I could plant again (I’m too old now to plant too far into my future) I would definitely plant more ‘Pallida’.

While there are many other cultivars that seem equally, or even more desirable, [and I may add one or two of those in the next year or two], for now ‘Pallida’ has my five pale-green thumbs up.

The colour of the bloom is a vibrant yellow, especially compared to “Arnold Promise’, and this year it has been blooming, as of today, for at least two months, or is that three? The branches are floriferous.’

Arnold Promise’ is now displaying its red calyces, which are quite nice, but ‘Pallida’ blooms on, as if it has been told aging is a myth.

I think I am displaying my own gray calyces, and I’ve discovered aging is definitely not a myth.

Arnold Promise [background]

Pallida [foreground]

So many poems, so many poems and only myself to listen

From a Ben in the Cairngorms

The Hebridean sheep

are gone from the braes,

even St. Kilda is silent.

Last years Bluebells are gray -

nod silently -

they have set no seed.

Much too late

for a nip of single malt

to bring them back.

The copse of Rowan is leafless.

Calunas have lost their purple haze.

Wind from the loch

brings nothing

but decay.

You dare tell me

this is not the end of the world?

Perhaps not,

but it is a good beginning.

It Might Take

I’ve found

it might take a ‘Rocket Scientist’

to get us

out of this.

Reading Too Much Bukowski

I’ve been reading too much Bukowski

lately

and drinking too much wine.

Perhaps it’s time

to read Billy Collins

instead.

At least I’ve never had a weakness

for the horses.