Country Roads: Feel it in the air

You can smell it in the air, feel it in your bones, see it in the beginnings of color change — summer is ending and with it the tremendous energy force of Mother Nature’s race to produce food. The food’s consumers are more than just human. They include the animals that share our planet. Hence, the seeds of weeds and trees feed the birds. Melons, winter squash, and tree fruit fill beaks and stomachs of hundreds of creatures hiding in nests, burrows, blackberry brambles.
All around us the end of summer appears as flowers to be dead-headed, rotting fruit needing removal, dry leaves to be raked. Scraggly petunias and suffering roses remind us that much energy has been expended and there is needed rest, even death, in the near future for the plants in our busy gardens.
Yet, we are very lucky that in Sonoma County fall doesn’t mean the end of growing flowers and food. It merely changes to other plant families that enjoy cooler temperatures and shorter days, namely the cruciferae or mustard family. Included in this huge category are kale, cauliflower, cabbage, Brussels sprouts, broccoli, pak-choi, turnip, radish, mustard greens, to name a few.
Weeks ago at the farmers market a young mother was disparaging her own gardening skills because bugs were destroying her broccoli and cabbage. I suggested that she not give up her gardening venture but plant again in September or October. She had planted cool temperature loving cruciferae in warm summer — not a good idea.
Farmers have planted seeds over the last weeks in order to provide for a winter garden to sell at those few markets that keep open year ‘round. There is a good feeling in removing dead and dying summer plants, tilling up rows, adding compost to rejuvenate the soil, stretching out new hose lines and planting young seedlings for harvest in winter and spring.
I felt pride today in knowing that we had purchased a few six packs of the cabbage family and that we were also preparing to plant a couple of flats of our own broccoli seedlings. The pride dissipated when my neighbor at Santa Rosa market commented that he had planted five thousand cauliflower plants.
“I got a little carried away,” he stated.
Where will those five thousand customers come from when he begins to cut and pack those beauties? Will they tear themselves away from Saturday football and a warm fireplace to come and buy a stalk of broccoli or a head of cabbage? Isn’t it easier to buy pizza?
Easier, certainly. Sitting around, toddling over to the refrigerator to grab another slice of store-prepared fast food for you and the family is easier. In the long run, however, it is deadly. Teeth, muscles, brains need exercise, air, real food from Mother Nature. Children should be learning every day from their parents where food comes from and what it looks and tastes like and it isn’t from a mac and cheese box.
Getting back to that garden, which is where we all need to be, no matter how large or small the garden or the gardener, it will do wonders for spirits and the bodies that house them, to plan a winter garden of flowers and food.
Nurseries at this moment have both. A word to the wise: I purchased a set of six-packs of cauliflower yesterday and discovered no less than seventeen plants in one six pack. Take the time to separate them into individual plants and give each its space. This is happening more and more when I buy store bought plants. Somebody out there isn’t being careful at the nursery/seeding step.
It is imperative to water young plants daily until fall rain arrives, taking over the chore. Watch for chewing insects and birds and protect seedlings with row cover until the plants are large enough to sustain a bite or two.
It’s astonishing that bird brains and those miniscule organs of thought in tiny beetles or aphids understand the benefits of broccoli but humans with their superior cerebellums cannot figure this out?
They feel it in their bones, smell it in the air, note color change and they are energized. Let’s copy those beetle-brains!
Renee Kiff weeds and writes at her family farm in Alexander Valley.