#seed box

Garden Report 20.11.28

Not much is happening. Every third day (four if weather permits and not too mucky) I rake out the aviary of the spent straw and give the chickens a couple of flakes to play in (sprinkle some scratch in to make it really exciting!). That equates to a barrow full of muck each event so I am layering in the spent to compost in place around the garden and paths. The eggs are a wee bit sporadic but still getting at least one a day. We are up to getting a couple of bucket of sand every week now to give them something a bit more ‘fluffy’ to dust bath in (it goes under the hutch).

The seeds I saved from the small personal size butternut ... disappointing. Most are not filled. There are a few that are questionable so there is still hope. With winter fast approaching, there is so much moss again. Everywhere. Moss where moss shouldn’t be ...

I am hoping that maybe we can get the fruit trees pruned early this year. Been having a few set backs so I really want that done tout suite and check it off the list. Seeing if I can get a work party together under the covid radar to set those slip forms and stones ... there is no way that is going to be transferable in this frozen air  ... if the damn thing can figure out businesses, curfews and borders it will have the sense to be tucked in and out of the cold n frozen. Guesstimation:  One day frame up and to the place forms. Day Two to place and pour stone and cement. After a week or two of curing, the forms can come down as the roof and glass in frames set. That will probably run into January late as no one wants to get that sort of physical activity over the holidays.

Give a sunny day, a break in the weather and all the nuttiness of the neighborhood crops up! Today was a day I wish I didn’t have ears.  In self defense, I took my samovar out so I could have calming tea without all the back and forth.  It was a wonderful smoky start that toned down a few pest that were near by >;) In all honesty though, I was having a bit of trouble getting it going with all my impatience and annoyance. 

The little birds are ravenous! They have decimated the corn salade (mache), the dandelion greens and the chickweed! If there is any bare piece of ground, it has been thoroughly rototilled and fertilized by the wee bird beasties!  I put up some pvc pipe hoops and will need to get row cover up because if I do put any tender green out or try to plant seeds, its gone!

Spent several hours snipping up brush with anvil shears.  I didn’t want to bring the chipper out because my dove friend is sitting! The male was a little nervous having me out and about but he kept his post while I tried to move slowly and quietly on the other side of the garden. 

I did see one lonely little honey bee today.  I bought another spring primrose in a bright yellow and nestled in next to the one I purchased last week. I think that is about it for buying plants … once Spring fever hits, the prices get jacked up.

The plums are blooming (santa rosa variety and a yellow small plum I grew from a pit off my grandfather’s tree). The Forsythia is blooming. The tays are budding up and the rhubarb is starting to break ground.  The Bloody dock (no, I’m not swearing at it! That’s its a common name of Rumex sanguineuss) is leaping ahead.  The vinca is starting to spread out and become a nuisance as is that damn bamboo (now I am swearing).  I don’t care what any one says, clumping bamboo is/will/does/ always will run! Once its in the garden it then becomes a muckle nuisance!

I have bear britches (Acanthus mollis) popping everywhere! To me they are a weed and almost as much as a nuisance as the bamboo.  You can never get all the juicy tuber roots gone and they are just like bamboo or Bermuda grass in that aspect. One little piece is all it takes to create a zillion. I am going to have to go for that expensive weed barrier to get rid of it I think.

Another nuisance plant in my garden is the calla lily.  I really am not complaining but I’m complaining explaining.  I know people love these plants but a weed is a plant that is growing where you don’t want it.  My gripe with the calla is I use to have a dozen of arm loads a year; Spectacular, long steamed callas. Think Diego Rivera painting calla lilies. You know what they are like after? Yuck! Big slimy piles of yuck that looks like something out of a horror flick. And the amount of slugs and snails they attract are phenomenal! For me, they take up too much room for a moment of glory.  I also have the short stem variety that’s not so messy but I would like to relegate them all to the edge of the garden.  They are not having it. Its a fight of the wills. Plant vs gardener.

Cleaning out my seed box.  Seeds are usually viable for 3-4 years depending on how they are stored and handled. 

My first seed box was uber organized.  Everything was organized alphabetically in addition to having file cards with garden notes on the various seeds/germ/ harvest.

Then I went big. Big gardens. Big seed box (briefcase size) with maps and yearly garden notes that included weather/temps/rainfall/wind/barometric pressure. It was also great for collecting/wildcrafting and swapping. AND lots of notes, notes, notes! I missed my calling as a research naturalist but this would have done one proud! It was appropriate as I was also running a seed and plant exchange twice a year for school age kids and their parents and then once a year for elders (more plants than seeds).  I also was working at a native plant nursery and gave tours of the garden and acreage that surrounded (wildlife refuge).

Now I have a neon green, locking, shoebox size container.  Now I just stuff seeds in after planting. I try to remember to jot things on calendars but that has since gone to the by and by. But I need to at least throw out empty packets and empty the loosies out of the bottom of the box. In my attempt to get back on track, I only kept seeds from last year and this year (I will plant last years first). The rest went into the seed feed bag for the wild birds. I use to compost the seeds but then I get plants in the weirdest place … I mean, I do anyway because I let many of my plants go to seed and collect but that practice of composting seeds just added a bit of more annoyance than awe.  Nothing like having an exotic crop of tender exotic greens start that you paid way too much for a dozen seeds then having rouge parsnips out grow them and compete to the point they just die.

She placed it gently on Hilra's lap and watched as the old woman ran her hand across the smooth lid and then shakily down the sides. Rokra spied little carvings under the other woman's fingers. Pale leaves, curved vines a bright flowers of all kinds.

"Open it for me, Rook," said Hilra, and she did.

At first, the box looked completely empty, but on closer inspection Rokra daw that the bottom of the box was covered in tiny bumps.

"Look," said Hilra, "but you mustn't touch and you mustn't ever lose them."

"What are they?" Rokra asked, leaning forward to get a better look.

"Why, don't act as though you've never seen seeds before, Rook."

Rokra flushed. "Of course I have! Just...just not like these."

"Oo-aye, well, I suppose it has been quite some time since anything like this has been growing." Hilra closed the box with a snap. "These are summer plants, my Rook. Marigold, yarrow, tickseeds and many others that escape me." She picked up the box, shaking it so much that the seeds rattled. "I want you to have it."

"Me?" Rokra asked.

"Yes, you. Take it."

She did. It was cold to the touch.

"When the days get warmer and the snow melts and Aslan returns—"

"If he returns."

"When he returns, I want you to plant each and every one. Do you understand?" There was a strong seriousness to Hilra's frail voice.

"Yes, nan."

For months and months and years and years after that conversation, Rokra wondered if her nan had somehow known. Known that it had been her last chance to give her granddaughter that old books of seeds.

The snow wasn't as heavy the day after. Enough for Rokra to be able to work the ground. It took a while, but eventually she managed to dig up a good, deep hole.

The owl watched her do it.

"Did you know?" She asked once the grave was dug.

((A short short I wrote while trying to get a hand for Rokra's character))

Occasionally, there would be single days with only a few lazy inches of snow would drift from the sky. Only to be followed by months upon months of Mountain upon Mountain of cold.

Rokra had a feeling that the Witch's mood had something to do with it. Or perhaps, it was some twisted game; giving the people of Narnia a taste of warmth and hope only with rip it away. A cruel reminder of her hold over them all.

Regardless, all it meant for Rokra was how much snow she had to shovel off her garden.

Well, if one could really call it that. In reality her 'garden' was nothing more than a mount of snow with the odd stick of skeleton-like branch, most stripped of everything but a few muted leaves. They were bitter, but they were something at the very least.

An owl liked to watch her work sometimes, though it never spoke. Not even a whisper.

On the day of the harshest snowfall of her long life, Rokra looked up from her work to see that quiet owl sat atop a large oak. Just watching.

"Well met!" Rokra called, leaning on the handle of her shovel.

The owl's head moved a little, but other than that it quite rudely ignored her.

Rokra cleared her throat. "Well met!" She said again, a little louder this time.

The owl plucked idly at its feathers.

"Well—"

"You shouldn't be out here," the owl croaked, sending a icy shiver down Rokra's spine.

She scratched her beard (for it is a little known fact that all dwarves, male or female, have some degree of a beard). "What else should I be doing?" She asked it.

The owl cocked it's head curiously. "There is....someone."

"Someone?"

"Someone," it nodded, "Inside." It lifted its wing, gesturing to the entrance Rokra's cave, a little ways past her garden.

She turned and looked over her shoulder. "Oo-aye," she nodded. "Me nan."

"You should go."

"Go?"

The owl clucked and ruffled its feathers before jumping from its perch and flying off.

"What a queer little thing," Rokra hummed to herself.

In the time she'd been talking to the owl her garden had been almost completely covered in snow. So, disheartened and tired, Rokra sucked in a breath, picked up her shovel and headed back towards her cave.

It wasn't a cave in the usual sense of the word—all harsh sone and jagged rocks. Rather, it was a homely little room, with soft rugs and plush sofas. Shoved into the corner of the cave were two snug cots, both covered with thick fur blankets.

In one of these cots, propped up on a pile of feathered pillows, was the frail form of Hilra. Like her granddaughter, she had the blood of red dwarves in her, though she was a good deal older and greyer. The kind of old and grey that only comes when one's skin becomes as crumpled as paper and their beard as white salt itself.

Any dwarf in good health and mind would never dare be caught in bed during the middle of the day. But, much to Rokra's dismay, Hilra wasn't good in either. In fact, she was rather terrible.

Her hands had been the first thing to go. Taken up by and unending shaking and shivering that made any kind of metal work impossible.

So—with a heavy heart—Hilra had moved on from metal work to flowers and herbs, where her jitters didn't cause quite as much of an issue.

Her legs had been the second thing to go. Lost to a right ache in her knees and hip that made any kind of movement impossible.

So—with a heavy heart—Hilra had moved on from flowers and herbs to books held between her knees.

Her sight had been the third and final to go. Snatched from her by the cruel and calloused hand old of old age that made doing anything impossible.

So—with a heavy heart—Hilra had moved on from books held between her knees to nothing much at all.

"You're home early, Rook," she said as Rokra stepped inside.

"Oo-aye," Rokra nodded, hanging her furs on the coat hook by the door. The furnace in her basement forge made the cave a great deal hotter than the forest outside. "Too heavy for gardening."

"Mm..." Old Hilra's pale eyes shifted around to the rough direction on the door. "No good," she said. "No good at all."

Rokra couldn't help but agree. "I think the plants might drown."

"I'd eat me hat if they didn't. Perhaps we could move them all inside."

Rokra winced. They'd both tried growing plants inside the cave many times throughout their lives. Each time all that's happened was a short wait to watch them die. Either the cave was too dry or too dark, perhaps a little bit of both.

"Are any of them blooming?" Hilra continued.

"No, nan." None of the plants had flowers to begin with.

"Aaah. Someday. Someday soon, me bones say so."

"Your bones have been saying that since I was small."

"You still are, cheeky."

Rokra rolled her eyes and settled down on the bed beside Hilra's own.

"Do me a favour, Rook," Hilra said the moment her butt touched the mattress.

Be a good dear and fetch something for me."

Rokra gave a loud sigh and stood up again. "Aye. What do you need?"

"Under me bed there should be a box, only a little'in." She held up her shaky hands and measured a ruler's distance between them. "Fetch it for me."