Carol W.'s Books: April 2020

How our plants ideally will eventually look

The first week of 2020, when the coronavirus was a vague, faraway story out of Wuhan, China, I began gardening indoors in northern Virginia. Over Christmas I'd read about how to create Forest Air indoors, in "Skogluft: Norwegian Secrets for Bringing Natural Air and Light into Your Home..." by Jorn Viumdal. He proposes creating a wall garden for good health. I set about corralling the supplies, starting with the wall frame from Bed, Bath & Beyond, the potting soil, and
the golden pathos, which Viumdal contends is the perfect plant as it absorbs maximum impurities from the air, with minimal upkeep.

Over several weeks I bought 12 little golden pathos, some from Ikea (not so hardy) Wegman's, a chain grocery store-a little better, until finally the best-and most expensive plants- from Merrifield Garden Center. The plants purchased there in late March were far better than those bought in January. So I started the new year with a more contained garden in mind, less demanding, pretty, but low keyed.
By late February our outdoor garden started waking up from it's winter slumber. First the snowdrops, then crocuses, hellebore and daffodils. Our middle daughter came over and cleared out the tomato and cucumber vines from the four raised vegetable beds. Our thirteen year old granddaughter topped the snowball bushes and son-in-law Abel began weeding the seriously overgrown sections of our garden from a more moribund 2019 gardening year. Their generous gift of labor for our garden prepared the way for a new focus.

By this time President Trump had blocked air travel from China and a nursing home in Washington state had several deaths. Increasingly panicky reports filled the airways then quarantining began. We concluded we should do something different in the garden this year.

To formally kick off this impending change, Abel buzzed through the weediest parts of the back garden, constructed another raised bed, added topsoil plus mulched the surrounding beds, all done during his vacation-that he and our youngest daughter plus their two children had originally scheduled for for a trip to Ireland. Ireland's loss was our garden's gain. The Year of Vegetable Garden had begun.

The first new raised bed replaced the dying azaleas suffering from Black Walnut toxin


March 25th, the new raised bed planted with shallots and yellow onions

When we lived in England every autumn French farmers would sell fat bunches of strung onions. I fell in love with their simplicity. When we lived in North Dakota we had no problem raising enough onions for braiding loads of strung onions that we hung in the root cellar over winter for even new homes in North Dakota have root cellars! We've not repeated that luxury for 35 years. We pray 2020 may re-establish that tradition.