Graveyard Dirt: Two Worlds and In-between

July 11th Gardening

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I'm SUPPOSED to be braiding freshly harvested garlic right now because we're leaving tonight for a few days to let our hair down in town. (I LOVE MY SLICE OF EDEN THAT I'VE CREATED, BUT ONE MONTH OF STARING AT IT EXCLUSIVELY - BECAUSE YOU HAVE NO TRANSPORTATION WHATSOEVER, SO YOU CAN'T GO ANYWHERE OR DO ANYTHING - CAN GET BORING. THANK GOD FOR CHEAP HOTEL ROOMS FOR A CHANGE OF SCENERY.)

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I should be braiding garlic because I still need to SHAVE and DEEP CONDITION MY HAIR and WASH and STYLE MY HAIR and PUT ON MY MAKE-UP FOR TONIGHT and GET DRESSED and PACK and MAKE A RESERVATION FOR DINNER and FIGURE OUT IF IT'S WORTH WALKING TO THE MOVIES IN THE RAIN and...well, you get the point.

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I've wanted to be more active here, but I just can't find the motivation to sit in front of a 600X800 screen when there's the botanic gardens bursting with life out back (complete with swarms of bumblebees and frisky cheap-cheap birds and crows who pace back and forth on the roof of the outside room, waiting for a chance to attack the pile of peanuts I've left for them). I suspect, with how vacation's been going this far, that my attitude's probably not going to change anytime soon.

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I AM more active on Livejournal right now, though. (It's a terrific place to post "LOL @ THIS!" entries and, also, pictures of my ass. <- YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.) If you have an account please feel free to look me up and friend me (I'm msgraveyarddirt), and if you DON'T have one that's cool, too, because all of my entries are public (so you can read them without having to create an account for yourself). The link, if you're interested, is: http://msgraveyarddirt.livejournal.com/

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I didn't plan on any major gardening yesterday (it's been gray and cloudy for days now; in fact, I've actually had to wear CLOTHES - including pants! - due to the temperature drop) but when I heard that the weather was supposed to take a turn for the worst I knew I needed to haul ass to get the elderflower heads I needed to jump start my homemade hooch and get my witch's garlic out of the ground to cure. What started as a simple mission to collect 7-10 heads of blossoms eventually ended in butchering part of our hedge and pulling moss encrusted wooden planks off their fence posts. (It was just one of those days.)

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OH, GOD, I ONLY EVER SHARED ONE PICTURE OF MY BRAND NEW RAISED BED PHALLIC WORSHIPING GARDEN ALTAR, DIDN'T I? (I have an entire folder just sitting on my desktop next to a billion other folders that I haven't touched since transferring them from camera to computer.) Sometime last week I created the Shango (Bone) Tree Altar; it wasn't something planned or even considered, it just sort've happened (thanks to a pile of bricks and stones sitting right next to the tree).

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I planted dill in the raised bed knowing that it'd do better in kind've partial shade than basil (which got planted elsewhere). And thanks to another patented moment of Ms. Graveyard Dirt brilliance I also inadvertently planted birdseed. (Long story short? After the last brick was fitted, after the last firming pat on the earth, after the last dill seed scattered, after the fitting of the balls (YOU WOULD NOT BELIEVE THE EFFORT IT TOOK TO FIND TWO STONES THAT WERE CLOSELY PROPORTIONAL AND THE SAME COLOR, SRSLY), after hammering in our Midsummer signs I filled and hung Shango's bird feeder - directly above the new "garden" I had created. <- DUMBASS, I KNOW.)

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Not 100% satisfied with dill (and, uh, birdseed) - MORE, MORE! I WANT TO GROW MORE! I WANT TO SEE MORE GREEN! MORE NEWNESS! MORE LIFE AND TENDER SHOOTS! - I planted early maturing peas in the holes of the bricks and transplanted homegrown parsley. (I REALLY, REALLY WANTED TO PLANT BUNCHES NEXT TO MY PHALLIC MONUMENT FOR PUBIC HAIR, BUT I KNEW THAT WITHIN WEEKS IT'D DWARF AND THEN COMPLETELY OBSCURE MY STONE COCK. SIGH.)

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I weeded what I could (thankfully the birdseed hasn't completely choked the dill along with an EXCITING MYSTERY BAG OF UNIDENTIFIED GERMINATED SEEDS*) and picked through the earth to remove any twigs and leaves - you know, general altar clean up activity. (* Are they pot? Are they tomatoes? WHAT THE EFF ARE THEY? <- Stay tuned to find out when we find out!)

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The Shango (Bone) Tree broke free (Mr. Awesome, my father-in-law, used wire to "stake" the tree to the fence behind it, but during a recent bout of gusty Scottish wind the binding popped) and has begun dropping some of his bones and gifts (feathers found in the yard, a bulb of early garlic that got accidentally pulled when I was weeding) I've painstakingly wedged between branches straight onto the altar top. I'm not entirely sure what I'm supposed to do with the second life gifts so everything got gathered and placed around my V. erect stone monument for safekeeping.

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(Lord only knows what my in-laws are going to think once they come back from their American sabbatical. <- I WILL ALSO KEEP YOU POSTED ON THIS SO WE CAN BOTH LAUGH AND CRY //TOGETHER//.)

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A lot of the gardening I do is intuitive - I'm too lazy and proud to read books or on-line tutorials (JESUS, READING - WHY?!) so I go with my gut feeling and learn through trial and error. The system works okay with NON-CHTHONIC vegetable and plants (BRIGHT, SOFT, SCENTED? TIME TO PICK!) but anything truly (and deeply!) underground is a whole new game.

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The great and wise INTRANETS told me that it's time to start harvesting garlic when the exposed plant is 1/2 to 2/3 withered'n'dry. (LOOKS ABOUT RIGHT, YO.) And, also, that it's best to stop watering them about two weeks before picking. (IT HASN'T RAINED IN THAT LONG, BUT WE WERE SCHEDULED FOR SOME - WHICH TURNED OUT TO BE TRUE SINCE I WOKE UP TODAY AND IT'S BEEN RAINING NON-STOP FOR THE FIRST TIME IN WEEKS - WHICH MEANT I NEEDED TO GET THEM OUT OF THE GROUND PRONTO.)

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With my elderflower champagne fermenting and the Shango (Bone) Tree altar cleaned I knelt on dry earth and dug my fingers into the course, sand-like soil and lovingly uprooted every single bulb of garlic until there was nothing left except a vast expanse of empty, black dirt. (MAGIC, BABY, PURE, WONDERFUL "I MADE THIS!" MAGIC.)

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Now to get those mofos braided together and curing...

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I steal what I can get away with. Since outside is still considered my father-in-law's territory I can't do any overt or deliberate gardening - if I want to grow something it has to be in a container. I've watched small patches of ground, over the course of several years, either succumb to the V. MUCH HATED trash heap phenomena (WHY CAN'T HE JUST THROW SHIT OUT? WHY DOES HE HAVE TO CREATE MINI-PILES OF TRASH THAT CLUTTER UP THE GARDEN?) or become completely abandoned until there's nothing left except an exposed section of earth with absolutely no growth whatsoever.

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Last year, around October, I stole a neglected, narrow stretch of land directly beneath our office/computer room window. Without asking I turned and prepped the dirt as Mr. Awesome suspiciously spied on me in the distance, and without asking, I planted cloves of hardneck garlic around Midwinter. (PLANT AT MIDWINTER AND GATHER A MIDSUMMER!) This year I properly stole his plum tree (aka The Shango (Bone) Tree) and created an altar at the base. And then I stole even more land - two small, raked over sections on either end of the wooden beams that he's left outside to rot. (AND ROT THEY HAVE, DEAR AND GENTLE READERS.)

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I gave him a chance, though. Early on in the year - hella early on - I weeded the jungle of a rock garden and removed two small trash piles and left the cleaned space to see what'd happen. And after four months of "nothing" I claimed the land and promptly planted a variety mix of basil. (I MEAN, WHAT'S HE GOING TO BITCH ABOUT? THAT I PLANTED SOMETHING THAT EVERYONE IN THE FAMILY CAN ENJOY IN A SPOT THAT WAS ONCE DEDICATED TO GARDEN TRASH? SRSLY, WHAT COULD HE POSSIBLY BITCH ABOUT? THAT I'VE STOPPED THE EROSION PROCESS THAT'S BEEN EATING AWAY AT THE GROUND NEXT TO THE "POND"? THAT I'VE HIDDEN DIRT BENEATH A BLANKET OF VEGETATED LIFE?)

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I wasn't sure if the seeds would germinate and the plants take since I literally raked up the exposed soil and sprinkled a thin layer of compost over it, but, HOT DAMN, they did which is crazy evident with the V. liberal sprinkling of butterfly winged seedlings. (MY FAVORITE ARE THE PURPLE ONES, AWW!)

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(One day, when I have time and the inclination to feel my blood pressure skyrocket, I'll tell you guys the story behind the garden's "pond". <- ANOTHER ONE OF MR. AWESOME'S PROJECTS THAT HE STARTED AND NEVER FINISHED. THE INCOMPLETE POND IS NEARLY - IF NOT - TWENTY YEARS OLD.)

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OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOH, SO //THIS// IS WERE I "STORED" THE HYACINTH BULBS I NABBED FROM MY MOTHER-IN-LAW'S BIRTHDAY PLANT ARRANGEMENT! (Uh...whoops?) BUT IT'S COOL AND AWESOME AND OKAY BECAUSE I'VE ALWAYS WANTED TO MAKE THIS PARTICULAR SABBAT WINE THAT CALLS FOR FRESH HYACINTH FLOWERS AND HOW FUCKING COINCIDENTAL IS IT THAT IT BLOOMED AGAIN JUST AS I BEGAN MAKING HOMEMADE ELDERFLOWER CHAMPAGNE? CLEARLY IT'S A SIGN. (<- A sign to pluck every little hyacinth flower off the stalk and drop them into my fermenting moonshine, which, naturally, I did.)

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I totally regret not getting a BEFORE and AFTER picture of this effort. (I can still get the AFTER but it's raining right now so that particular photo's going to have to wait.) The wooden fence that runs along the hedge between our yard and the street has begun falling apart, literally. And since "home repair" now falls on us we decided to tackle the problem ourselves which involved prying off all of the boards along the section in order to prune back the undergrowth pushing against the wooden planks. I think we spent several hours pruning, cutting and clearing and the only picture I have to record the monumental change is a small portion of the hedge we cleared.

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The "stolen" and "narrow stretch of land" that runs beneath our office/computer room post-garlic harvest and post-weeding. (IT LOOKS SO SAD AND DEPRESSED WITHOUT ANY PLANTS! I'm planning on creating a proper witch's garden in this area (it's too shady for garlic which I'm going to grow in containers and in the local graveyard), but in the meantime I think I might fertilize the soil and sneak in a long row of early maturing pea plants...)

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MY LINE OF WITCH'S GARLIC HAS OFFICIALLY BEEN HARVESTED! (That calls for a harvest celebration, right? RIGHT? <- ANY EXCUSE TO CELEBRATE!) I need to braid these guys together and let them cure in a dry, dark place. Once they're cured I'll take pictures and write up an entry tracking the entire WITCH'S GARLIC process. (WATCH THIS SPACE!)

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We ended up gathering WAY, WAY more elderflower heads than needed. (I SWEAR ONE OF THE CHAMPAGNE RECIPES CALLED FOR 1 1/4 LBS OF ELDERFLOWERS!) The skankiest portion's been dried for bath use (I'm going to make a batch of industrial sized tea and add it to a SEX BATH for Italics and I), the nicer portion's being dried in my in-law's bedroom for medicinal and cosmetic use, and the best, most fragrant and beautiful heads were added to the champagne bucket. (<- I STILL NEED TO GET A PICTURE OF OUR FERMENTING VAT. <- "FERMENTING VAT" = ORANGE BONG BUCKET. I KNOW, I KNOW, THE LULZ.)