Nature’s Healing Power
In his essay titled “Why We Need Gardens,” neurologist and author, Oliver Sacks wrote: “I cannot say exactly how nature exerts its calming and organizing effects on our brains, but I have seen in my patients the restorative and healing powers of nature and gardens, even for those who are deeply disabled neurologically. In many cases, gardens and nature are more powerful than any medication.”
Sacks, who died of a rare cancer in August of 2015, explained how he was introduced to the wonder of gardens as a child. And, as a physician in New York City, he took his patients to visit gardens whenever he could, believing that, just like music, gardens were vital “therapy” for people living with chronic neurological diseases. What is it about nature that is so calming and reinvigorating? he wondered, recounting the time a friend with Tourette’s syndrome became calm and tic-free on a hike in the desert. And how is it that patients with advanced dementia or Alzheimer’s disease can’t remember how to do everyday things like tie their shoes. “But put them in front of a flower bed with some seedlings, and they will know exactly what to do. I have never seen such a patient plant something upside down,” Sacks recalled.
“Clearly, nature calls to something very deep in us,” he continued, explaining his belief that nature affects us deeply spiritually and emotionally, as well as physically and neurologically. Had I read that essay before his death, I might have written Dr. Sacks a letter saying that, as a longtime gardener and lover of long walks in the woods, I couldn’t agree more with what he said in that lovely bit of writing. (Which can be found in the posthumously-published collection, Everything in Its Place: First Loves and Last Tales.) I’m not sure how I developed biophilia, an urge to connect with living things and nature, which I suppose progressed over time into hortophilia, the desire to interact with, manage and tend nature. But I’ve got both Big Time. And I know a whole lot of other gardeners who would say they do too.
Like Sacks, I can’t precisely tell you how nature works its mojo on people, but I do remember the first time I saw it happen. I was in college and working nights and weekends at a women’s shelter in North Minneapolis. The shelter had once been a convent for nuns, so the narrow, tile-floored room I used as an “office” had probably once been a nun’s bedroom. Our country doesn’t care about people who are struggling with mental illness, so the underfunded shelter paid me, and several other young women, about $8 an hour to look after dozens of women of all ages who had been diagnosed with schizophrenia and/or other serious mental health issues. Tucked away in their own narrow nunnery rooms upstairs, those women were also often dealing eating disorders, broken hearts, drug-and-alcohol addiction and abusive boyfriends who showed up to bang on the front door at all hours of the night.
Read More»Tips for Growing Food in Cold Climates
- On May 16, 2017
- By Meleah
- In Books, Fertilizer, Organic Gardening, Seeds, Soil, Uncategorized, Veggies
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I’ve been growing vegetables, fruit and herbs for years and I have to say, I learn something new every season. Just when I think I’ve mastered the art of growing beets, I get a crop of teeny tiny ones for reasons I don’t understand. Sometimes the potatoes I plant don’t produce well, and then there are the years when the carrots just don’t grow or the squash just dies on the vine.
While I feel pretty confident in my ability to grow non-edible plants, I still struggle to turn out consistently usable food crops. I’m probably doing all sorts of things wrong, but I’d also like to blame some of the problem on our weather. It’s not easy to grow edibles in cold climates. So when I was asked to review John Whitman’s new book Fresh from the Garden: An Organic Guide to Growing Vegetables, Berries, and Herbs in Cold Climates, I jumped at the chance.
Published by the University of Minnesota Press earlier this year, Whitman’s book offers more than 500 pages of color photos and helpful, practical information, starting with easy-to-understand organic gardening basics and expanding into specifics on how to grow, harvest and store a wide range of edibles. Unlike some gardening books where you can tell the writer has never touched a trowel, Fresh from the Garden offers know-how and advice that reflects Whitman’s 50-plus years of gardening experience. He is also the author of several other books that I use and trust, including three in the cold climate gardening series: Growing Perennials in Cold Climates, Growing Shrubs and Small Trees in Cold Climates and Growing Roses in Cold Climates.
Credit: John Whitman
One of the things I like most about Whitman’s approach is the way he just says what he thinks, citing his own experience rather than repeating things that are commonly said like—you MUST get a soil test before planting. “I consider its value questionable for most home gardeners but worth the cost for mini-farmers,” he writes, explaining that he’s never done a soil test in 60 years of gardening. I’ve gone back and forth about soil tests over the years and concluded that most gardeners I know, including master gardeners, don’t test their soil’s nutrient and pH levels regularly if at all. That said, soil tests are useful if you’re having problems growing something or you want to grow something with specific needs, like blueberries, which require more acidic soil. Soil tests are also necessary, he writes, and I would agree, if heavy metal contamination, particularly lead, could be a an issue where you are planting.
Read More»Great Gardening Books
If I were able to retire tomorrow, one of the first things I would do is read more. I already read a lot: I love books. But I could read a lot more if I didn’t work so, fingers crossed that we win the lottery sometime soon so I can get to the stacks and stacks of books taking up space all over our house.
One of the things I did manage to do recently was catch up on the books I’ve received to review. Here are some of my favorites. First, though, you’ll notice these books are not the latest, hot-off-the-press sort of thing. I read as I’m able and review some of what I like. If I don’t like something, I take my grandma’s advice to “not say anything if I can’t say anything nice.” I figure, just because I don’t like a book doesn’t mean you won’t. Why be a spoiler?
Beautifully Sustainable: Freeing Yourself to Enjoy Your Landscape (Be-Mondo Publishing, 2013), by Douglas Owens-Pike. I met Douglas several years ago when he invited me on a mini tour of some of the Minneapolis gardens his landscape design firm, EnergyScapes, had created in recent years. All of them were lovely and different from most “designed” gardens in the sense that were very natural, consisting mostly of native plants and arranged as if Mother Nature had done it herself. True to his company’s name, the landscapes were all created with resource conservation in mind.
Beautifully Sustainable (which can be purchased here: http://energyscapes.com/book/) is Douglas’ attempt to help gardeners at all levels make their landscapes more sustainable, and his smart, clearly explained ideas and tips are very useful. But I also appreciate how on a more subtle level, his book helps readers think more like a designer when visualizing outdoor areas: What sort of space would I really enjoy? What features matter to me most? What view do I want to see from my living room?
All of these questions seem easy, and they are. But most of us don’t think of them until the patio is poured or the pergola is built in what turns out to be the totally wrong place. “Take time to imagine,” he wisely suggests, before explaining how to create a map of your landscape long before you buy the first plant. Other chapters cover things like how to build healthy soil, create a rain garden, get rid of weeds without chemicals and how to maintain a landscape once its planted. In other words, there’s something for everyone in this helpful, enjoyable book.
For those who want to learn more about growing edibles in our climate, take a look at Emily Tepe’s The Edible Landscape: Creating a Beautiful and Bountiful Garden with Vegetables, Fruits and Flowers (Voyageur, 2013). Emily was doing fruit research at the University of Minnesota when she created an edible demonstration garden and fell in love with growing food.
There are lots of things to love about Emily’s book, but in particular I appreciate the way she accompanies her advice to incorporate edibles into gardens with colorful illustrations that show exactly how that can be accomplished beautifully. While the book is a general primer on growing edibles, the appendix includes an extensive list of edible plants specifically for northern gardeners. I found several varieties there that I’m going to try this year.
Gardeners who want to help support pollinators and other beneficial insects should check out Minnesota landscape designer Heather Holm’s fantastic book, Pollinators of Native Plants (Pollination Press, 2014). While the text sometimes made me reach for my botanical dictionary and refer to the glossary in the back of the book, Heather really did a great job of conveying complex subject matter in a relatable way. Don’t want to learn about the actual process of pollination? Skip to the descriptions of the many different creatures that visit flowering plants. Read up on bees and how they live and work together. Or jump right to the bulk of the book where native plants are described in detail along with the insects that are partial to them. The photos alone are outstanding.
But the information Heather offers about natives for three distinct habitats: prairies, woodland edges and wetland edges, can be used by all gardeners who want to attract pollinators. And isn’t that all of us at this critical time?
Straw Bale Garden Education Day and Macy’s Flower Show
- On April 07, 2014
- By Meleah
- In Annuals, Books, Indoor Gardening, Perennials, Uncategorized
- 2
Spring is almost, kind of, possibly (but don’t get your hopes up yet) in the air here in Minnesota. So let’s buck up and talk about gardening!
First, if you’re a local gardener and you’ve ever wanted to try straw bale gardening—or find out what you’re doing wrong while straw bale gardening—head over to the State Fair grounds on Saturday, April 26, for Straw Bale Garden Education Day.
Joel Karsten, author of Straw Bale Gardens: The Breakthrough Method for Growing Vegetables Anywhere, Earlier and with No Weeding, will be teaching seminars and selling and signing books at this free event that runs from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. in the north parking lot off Snelling Avenue. (Check out this blog post I wrote last year about Joel to find out more about him and straw bale gardening.)
If you’ve got room in your car, Otten Bros. Garden Center will be on site for Straw Bale Education day selling everything you need to start your own straw bale garden this season, including straw bales. Free coffee and cookies will be available as long as they last.
Karsten tending one of his straw bale gardens
Want to win a free copy of Joel’s book? Great! I’ve got two to give away this week. To win, just comment on this post with a few sentences about why you’d like to try straw bale gardening or, if you’ve already tried it, how things went for you. Winners will be randomly chosen since I can’t think of a better way to do that sort of thing, and I’ll be in touch to your addresses.
Macy’s Flower Show
Every year, just when Minnesotans need it most, Macy’s Flower Show opens and thousands of us stumble in, blinking in disbelief after having seen nothing but white for so long, eager for the chance to gaze at plants and smell fragrant blooms and dirt again. This year’s show ended last Sunday, April 6, and if you missed it, make a note in your calendar right now so you’re sure to see it next March.
Yes, the show does take place in the department store’s 8th-floor auditorium. But if you’re inclined to diss this event because it’s in a store, I’m here to tell you that they start in January and transform that auditorium into something truly magical every year. This year’s theme was The Secret Garden and, as always, Bachman’s designed the show’s many displays, which featured flowers, plants and trees from around the world—many of them hardy in Minnesota.
Read More»Straw Bale Gardening
People have been talking about straw bale gardening for years and, I admit, I haven’t really paid much attention. It’s not that I wasn’t curious about the idea. It just wasn’t on the top of my list of things to try until recently when I got the opportunity to talk with Joel Karsten about his new book Straw Bale Gardens: The Breakthrough Method for Growing Vegetables Anywhere, Earlier and with No Weeding
Karsten tending one of his straw bale gardens
Karsten isn’t just another gardener talking about straw bale gardening. He invented straw bale gardening. That’s right; he came up with the idea for a growing technique that has now become an international sensation. And it all started when he was a kid growing up on a farm right here in Minnesota.
Farmers, he told me, have no need for piles of wet, unruly straw. So when a bale would break open for one reason or another and get rained on, his family would push it up against the barn to break down over time. “I always noticed that those stacked up, broken bales would have the biggest, tallest weeds growing out of them, so I knew there was nutrition in there,” Karsten recalls, adding that he didn’t think much more about it until 15 years later.
By then, he had earned a bachelor’s degree in horticulture from the University of Minnesota, and he and his wife Patty had just bought a house in Roseville. After looking forward to gardening at their new home, they were disappointed when they realized that their whole lot consisted of little more than construction debris in which nothing was going to grow well. Then, Karsten remembered those straw bales. “And I thought, what if I just line those bales up and try growing vegetables in them as they decompose?” he recalls.
Read More»Grow the Good Life
I read a lot of gardening books, and though most have something to offer, many just cover the same old ground in one way or another. So I was happy to find a copy of Michele Owens’ book, Grow the Good Life: Why a Vegetable Garden Will Make You Happy, Wealthy, and Wise, at the library recently. It was a rainy, cold weekend and I’d heard good things about the book, so I planned on curling up on the couch with it, and a couple of others I picked out. As it turned out, those other books just lay there unopened on the coffee table because I couldn’t put Owens’ book down until I finished it.
If you’re not familiar with Michele Owens’ garden writing for Organic Gardening and other magazines, you can get a good understanding of who she is and what she believes in by checking out her blog posts on Garden Rant, which she founded a few years back with a handful of similarly smart, funny and straight-talking garden writers. As a former political speech writer and author of several best-selling business books, Owens is keenly aware of the need to do her research before writing and throughout the book she cites the work of many horticulturists, ecologists, microbiologists and others. But all these facts do not a snoozy tome make because she is adept at interweaving studies, facts and figures with her own passionate commentary as an experienced gardener who loves plants, nature and growing vegetables.
Salad greens growing in our backyard last summer.
Because she’s married to a journalist who covers climate change, Owens gets a dinnertime update on just how much stress our warming world is putting on agriculture all over the world. This understanding, coupled with a love of good, healthy food, drives her to motivate people, everyone, not just gardeners, to grow at least some food in their own backyards. Sure, that will help relieve some pressure on the world’s food supply, she writes. But growing things to eat is also just a joyful, uplifting thing to do; just ask anyone who has ever grown even one tomato plant in a pot on a balcony or back patio. There really is nothing like being able to walk outside and pick something you’ve grown yourself and pop it in your mouth, or serve it up for dinner.
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