A Good-Sized Garden in the Woods

Cycles rule.

Happy Solstice!!

Wow, what a spectacular spring we’ve had here on the micro-farm. I’m replacing the word “homestead.” Since the English language is so limited, I’m having a hard time describing a small farm that is not really a farm. It’s a good-sized garden in the woods. An Ojibwa man enlightened me to the term being offensive. “Pioneers” came here and took land in the name of “Homesteading” - land that already belonged to people who lived with and stewarded the valleys, rivers, and mountains for thousands of years.

We grow up with words that are given to us, given to our parents and caretakers. I’m grateful to live in a time, in a country, where we can question the “norm” and choose different words, thoughts, and actions. It’s a tiny thing. A raindrop in an ocean. A word. But it matters. There is always more to do, but today I am doing this - adopting micro-farm until I invent a better word for a good-sized garden in the woods. 

There is so much to tell you! Flowers are exploding, albeit late here, with our gloriously cool temperatures and rain this spring. Yes, we got rain in June in Southern Oregon!!! Lots of rain. The grass is six feet tall in places we don’t have the gumption to mow. Flowers bloomed in waves. The earlier blossoms are gone - crimson clover, iris, daffodils, tulips. Now the yarrow, Sweet Williams, bachelor buttons, penstemons, salvias, poppies, and wild daisies are feeding the bees. 

I went berserk this spring buying flowers to fill perennial beds - Gerber daisies, dahlias, delphinium. I’m a sucker for showy blooms. The garden area is large and contains a lot of native plants, but I have four cultivated beds for whatever my heart desires - froufrou flowers. The bees concur, and I dare say there are more buzzers this year than last, which means my ploy is working. I have a few empty hives in the shed. Once the garden is flowery enough, I’ll set them out and invite the Melissa - a nymph who discovered and taught the use of honey and named the bees. Every good-sized garden in the woods needs - a Melissa.

I’m purposefully not telling you about the greenhouse, which a month ago was flush - lettuce, arugula, mustard, mesclun. Neighbors frequently stopped by to cut salad greens, and still, we couldn’t eat enough to keep up with it. Then one day, it warmed up to 80 degrees, and the narrow rows became a jungle of unruly bolting spikes. Pollen blew, and everything went to seed. It looked like chaos like the greenhouse was totally neglected and being overtaken by nature - and it was. We sowed a couple of salad beds outside to extend our greens season. Then one warm afternoon, hell-bent, I yanked the tangled mess of spent greens out of the greenhouse and mulched the beds thick with rice straw - put the beds to bed - until we sow fall/winter greens again. 

Cycles rule the universe. Birth - death. Winter, spring, summer, fall. Seed, sprout, grow, harvest, flower, unruly spikes, decay - yanked. The garden teaches me how exactly like the arugula, mustard, mesclun I am. My house right now most certainly resembles the greenhouse, with unruly piles of laundry and dishes. Each night I say, “This too shall pass,” and figure the chores will get done one way or another. Then one day, I wake up feverish with the cleaning bug and furiously stuff the laundry compost pile into a basket and toss it into the washer - suds, rinse, spin - and just like that! A new crop of work clothes lay like seeds in the closet, waiting to sprout again in the dirt of this good-sized garden in the woods.

Three days from now, it will be 100 degrees. Yuck. The upside - more time to write to you. The downside - get up even earlier to tend, pick, weed, and water while it's cool. Soon the greens will give way to tomatoes, cucumbers, basil, potatoes, and the sunflowers will be seven feet tall. By then, a few mid-day naps might be in rotation in the hammock I dream of hanging between the big Doug Fir trees in the yard. 

May your Solstice be filled with light, laughter, froufrou flowers, and snappy clean clothes whipping in the breeze on the line. I leave you now to go fold mine and turn a few shoulds to coulds before the day runs out on this good-sized garden in the woods.

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Photos by Author

© 2022 Michelle McAfee