Endless Knots

What did the hyacinth say to the daffodil?

Bloom, baby, bloom

Ardath Rodale

Sad to learn of the passing of Ardath Rodale, most recently "Chief Inspiration Officer" at Rodale Press. Although I never met her, her husband, Bob, who was killed in an accident while traveling in Russia in 1990, was on the Calvert Social Investment Fund Advisory Council with us (Jeff Stamps and me); her son, David, who died in 1985 of AIDS-related pneumonia, was one of our co-founders ("our" here meaning Lisa Kimball et al) of the Electronic Networking Association; and her daughter, Heather, became a friend. Rodale Press, one of the last family owned publishing enterprises in the U.S., is responsible for so many good ideas--books, magazines, initiatives. Ardie was an innovator in business thinking for decades, served as chair and CEO of the company, and was a fearless AIDS educator before people really understood the disease. Thinking of the whole family today.

A little bit of Japan in Brooklyn

We know a tree or two grows in Brooklyn but who knew that Brooklyn was the home of the first Japanese garden planted in a public garden in the U.S? My hubby snapped this shot of the pavilion in the Japanese Garden at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden on a cold December day, perhaps accounting for the sharpness of the photo. 

For the Birds of Paradise lovers

Perhaps like you, I receive many links to stories and, when I have a second, as I did this morning, I click on them, skim a couple of grafs, send some good writing vibes to the author, and click on.

Today's link to Margot Berwin's story (in Anderbo, which I blogged about some months ago), "Hothouse Flower and the 9 Plants of Desire," an excerpt from her novel by the same name,  quickly removed the mouse from my hand because of my deep and abiding love for the bloom above.

For years, I filled the house with Birds of Paradise whenever we had parties. Friends knew of my affection and brought them too. Beauty, elegance, complexity, exoticity (?), longevity all in one. It never occurred to me to buy the plant itself...so Berwin's story, which begins with her being sold a bill of Birds, caused me to sit back in my seat, fingers off la cliquer, and enjoy.

It's not just about Birds of Paradise and it is. And the novel is now on my list. Original, insightful, and all the Anderbo excerpt lacks is illustration like the picture above that I stole from the City of Stanton, CA, website: "Stanton Women's Civic Club in October 1959, the Bird of Paradise was selected as the City Flower." If the Women's Civic Club is still in existence, they should make Berwin's story required reading.

Ooops, I forgot to mention: Julia Roberts bought the film rights. Nice book cover too.

Who grows there? The annual contest!

What are these little beauties, already making their appearance?

Continuing plaudits to last year's winner!
Ms. Shelley Marlowe!

Here we go!

I'm so thrilled that I'm all exclamation points!
(Admittedly some are not herbs!)



#1



#2



#3



#4




#5



#6



#7



#8



#9 (name the friend)

Beautiful Boston

It was spectacularly beautiful in Boston yesterday, the soft fuzz of early spring turned lush by the 90 degree temperatures of the day before. We had a morning meeting near Government Center and a lunch in Park Square, which offered the chance to walk over Beacon Hill and back. I snapped a few shots of our elegant city.

Swan Boat on the lagoon in the Public Garden

Please take notice indeed - sign at Boylston Street entrance to the 24-acre Public Garden



Can't decide if I love the tree or the wispy cloud more



Make no mistake what's really going on at the State House

A tree blooms in Brooklyn

Park Place between Flatbush and Vanderbilt
Thursday, April 9, 2009

Garden report, April 5, 2009

It's not much to the casual observer but, as the keeper of these little critters, their appearance today seems like a whole huge lot. There'll be more such reports, as continuing readers know, as these are the very same plants you saw last year. Say hello again to our little friends.

Tulips and friends, tiny garden outside kitchen window



Peonies breaking through, front yard garden



Bluebell patch by driveway



Strangest flower of them all, genus unknown

Were you in NETWORKING? Please pass along

In 1982, Doubleday published Networking: The First Report and Directory, Jeff's and my first book.

The story of how that book came to market someday will, or rather, should appear in the annals of publishing -- first publisher (Methuen, a British publisher aiming to break into the US market) shelved its whole list just after we'd submitted manuscript; Doubleday picked it up, offering more than twice the original advance (great agent at time, Ron Bernstein); we got the contract to do the electronic typsetting, making it the first commercial book to be electronically typeset under auspices of the authors, never having been retyped by its publisher; translated into Japanese by that country's Economic Planning Agency, and on and on -- but alas this post is about the treasure hunt that we're launching here today.

Networking was, as its subtitle says, a "report" on 1600 grassroots and nonprofit networks focused on the seven topics listed on the cover, along with a directory of those networks.

Within the book was everything from the theory and practice of networks -- with a chapter-long essay devoted to each topic -- to the directory itself, organized in various ways -- by organization name, by location, by keyword, and by title of the network's publications.

Those listed range from The Sun Magazine to World Future Society to Franz Schumacher's Intermediate Technology Group (now Practical Action) to Tilth to Aspen Institute to CoEvolution Quarterly to Dr. Dobb's Journal to the National Center for Citizen Involvement, now the Open Library (where our two earliest books, including this one are listed) and Boston Women's Health Book Collective, now Our Bodies, Ourselves, to which we devoted a chapter of its own because of its unique networking skills. The fact that it's still going after nearly forty years makes the point.

We did all the research via networking, beginning with one letter (as in type it, sign it, put it in an envelope, attach a stamp, go to the post office - remember that?) that we sent to one person whom we knew to be a richly connected networker, who suggested nine others, whom we wrote to, who in turn sent us other suggestions -- and within 18 months, we'd received the names of 50,000 "networks" around the world. We wrote to 4000 of them and got back an astonishing 40% response rate - 1600 letters, packages, publications, descriptions, many with heartfelt expressions of why their leaders networked and how they did it. Incredible experience, to say the least. No Internet. Limited email (a little because a few of us pioneers were already online). Need I say: No web, no listservs, and, of course, no Google, Wikipedia, Twitter or Facebook. Just the poor postman, who left a trail of whiskey nips along our sidewalk.

So now it's 2009, more than a quarter-century later and we're wondering how many of those networks have survived (I chose the ones above that I could google). Why now? Not just idle curiosity but intense awareness that there are similarities between the early 1980s and today. Principal among them unemployment, as per Paul O. Flaim's, "Unemployment in 1982: the cost to workers and their families:"

The economy entered 1982 in a severe recession and labor market conditions deteriorated throughout the year. The unemployment rate, already high by historical standards at the onset of the recession in mid-1981, reached 10.8 percent at the end of 1982, higher than at any time in post-World War II history.

A few other interesting stats from then: the Dow was, get ready, 776 in August of that year, down 30% from its high of 1011 five years earlier. And, the drop in exports and spending just announced is mere fractions shy of "the 6.4 percent rate drop seen in the first quarter of 1982, when the economy was in a recession that lasted 16 months," according to Lucia Mutukani's "US economy weakens," in the Feb 29, 2009, Boston Globe.

Clearly, we made it through that tough time, not purely because of networking, of course (I'm not that much of a romantic), but in part because people got together and figured out some things they could do themselves. We're interested in how those networks have survived and intend to include them in the new bit of writing we're engaged in, details to come.

So would you please pass this note along to anyone you know who might have been in the book? When we have a spare minute (ha!), we'll scan the whole list and begin publishing that. Thanks in advance! And, Networking networkers, please post comments here.

Dreams of my garden (thanks to Mr. Lea)

 

Sitting here in the 42nd parallel North, snow a foot high on the picnic table outside my window, and lows of 7F tonight (that would be -13C), my mind turns to summer. Turns to summer with a little help, that is, from my friend Doug Lea, whose writing about his many gardens has fascinated me for years (viz. "onions and beans are like dragons in a medieval drama"). Writing beautifully about gardening is as difficult as the gardening genre Doug discusses here. I like this piece so much that I'm tempted to tug phrase after phrase up here, into the intro, but better, I think, to let you discover his lovely turns and his wisdom about gardening yourself. (Someone get this man a book contract.) Last week he posted this great bit of garden-think to his Facebook page; I asked to re-post here. Thus, for all who dig the earth and love mud pies...

Doug with the artist (and his wife) Julie Savage Lea

Intensive Gardening: A Way of Knowledge
By Douglass Lea

For three decades I’ve followed the intensive way of growing vegetables. It’s a hard calling, best taken up by those with an excess of time, friends, and vigor – or by those, like me, with an itch to escape the modern swirl of abstractions and symbols, to connect effort and result more directly, to find a grounding for self in the ground itself.

Loosely defined, intensive gardening describes a set of interwoven techniques that maximize the yield from a limited area and maintain the long-term usefulness of the soil. Needless to say, it relies heavily on organic materials.

What does one do? Begin by digging – and then digging and digging again – until reaching a depth of 36 inches or more. Try, however, to keep removed strata intact, for one completes the “double-digging” process by putting loosened soil back where it came from, each layer in proper order. By raising garden beds a foot or more above surrounding paths, double-digging creates a fluffy texture that warms quickly in spring, keeps a steady temperature throughout summer, drains well with little erosion, retains moisture for dry months, and breathes easily.

Having survived a grueling test, one then mixes the top layers of newly aerated soil with compost, manure, bonemeal, and potash. The catechism here is unequivocal: industrial amendments undermine soil viability, weaken the integrity of plant structure, and invite pests and plagues to make a wasteland. Sir Albert Howard, founder of modern organic farming, said it bluntly: “Artificial manures lead to artificial foods, which lead to artificial people.”

Next, one inseminates the raised beds with the seeds or seedlings of diverse vegetables, herbs, and flowers, combining the varieties that flourish as companions and separating those that attack one another. Basil likes tomatoes, and the two should forever be joined together, in sickness as in health, on the plate as in the belly. But onions and beans are like dragons in a medieval drama, condemned to an eternity of ceaseless battle. Never plant them together.

Companion planting is complex enough, but it is overlaid by the equally strong and precise demands of succession planting, closecropping, and intermixing. Now the fun begins.

In succession planting, one works with an eye focused on the cycle of maturity for each variety, looking to fit the basic requirements and patterns of each into a larger whole. Will the corn planted today grow fast enough to shade the late peas and prolong their season of usefulness? How many weeks before the borage explodes?

In closecropping, one transplants seedlings into closely spaced geometric patterns – chiefly triangles and hexagons – to create, once plants have matured and leaves touched, a microclimate that moderates the vicissitudes of the macroclimate. Skillful closecropping eventually generates a living mulch that protects the soil and its microorganisms and discourages the growth of noxious weeds.

In intermixing, as the word implies, one intermingles varieties as much as possible – given the imperatives of succession planting and closecropping – in an effort to approach the mysteriously productive randomness of nature and avoid the infestations that descend wherever vast stretches of a single crop are cultivated year after year. Assign perfidious monocropping to the putative efficiencies of industrial agriculture, not to the mysteries of intensive gardening.

Having outlined the norms that govern intensive gardening, I think it’s time to grapple with the deviations. And they are legion.

In the final analysis, I’ve learned, the garden only partly belongs to me. Other creatures, both animal and vegetable, seem to have equally strong claims to my domain. And they have been waiting patiently for someone just like me – bursting with ego and determination – to appear and bring forth a newly disturbed patch of ground.

In short, my garden harbors a powerful array of biological and geophysical imperatives that insist on manifesting their own destinies. They resist the geometric overlays of human design; their chaotic patterns and turbulent cycles defy the logic of human control. My garden seems to have a mind of its own.

After three decades, for example, it is quite clear to me that the primeval forest of the Piedmont wants to repossess my little plot. Every spring it lets loose a million helicoptering maple seeds in a relentless effort to impregnate my fluffy beds. Every year I dutifully pull out the rooted progeny of the spring offensive.

The mere passage of time has also changed my garden, almost beyond recognition. Having situated my garden in a low, flat, pristine area, where sun, water, and fertility were plentiful, I fully expected an endless supply of perfect tomatoes, peppers, onions, salad greens, and other components of a healthy diet.

Not so. Gradually, I became aware of the extraordinary vigor of my neighbors’ maples, the shade from which eventually transformed my painstakingly double-dug, richly composted cornucopia into a shady, soggy habitat for moss and slugs. Tomatoes, eggplants, and peppers struggled.

I fought back. I decided to gather wine corks from oenophiles living within a five-mile radius – first, to deploy them as a heat-absorbing mulch to extend the effective length of the day for my sun-loving solanaceae and, second, to suppress the weeds attracted to the disturbed soil. It worked, although I had to wait a few years to be sure that the additional woody matter was not stimulating the expansion of slug populations. It didn’t, apparently because residual wines and tannins in the oak corks are noxious to slugs.

Coping has become my mantra, for change and surprise are the only permanent features of my garden. To make a garden is to manage in the middle. A garden is a living, physical manifestation of the dry principles of compromise. It mediates between nature and culture. Every garden has its own special conditions, its own unique combination of vectors. Climate, weather, soil, water, light, and ecological factors limit the ambitions of human design. One must learn to “design with nature,” the title of a seminal treatise on the harmonizing of human occupation with natural processes.

For me, intensive gardening has become a way of knowledge, a portal leading toward larger understandings of the world.