Good Person's Guide to Green: Spring
Patricia Sullivan
June 09, 2008
So you think you want to be green, but donīt know how to get started? Itīs politically correct and trendy and good fodder for water cooler conversations, actually puts the term "water cooler" in new light. Iīve been green all my life, recycling and saving bags and tins and rainwater and ladybugs for the garden. I practice the art of transformation. Iīve always taken old throwaways, leftovers, hand-me-downs and rescued pets, and now Iīm overjoyed that environmental consciousness is catching on. Iīm finally en vogue! Howard Gardner would tell me that Iīve got Naturalistic intelligence. But attributing my habits to intelligence would spoil the fun of all of my critics who have been in my cluttered house and shake their heads at my obsession. Frugality, I call it. Maybe it stems from my never really having a lot of money to throw around. Iīm a firm believer in darning socks, and mending fences.
At any time of the year, my Connecticut kitchen resembles a science lab; there are potatoes sprouting eyes, blooming onions, tiny trays of seedlings from salad tomatoes and apples and peach pits that I hope to plant in the spring. Some of these, I found in the cabinet under the kitchen sink, forgotten shallots or potatoes that hadnīt seen the light of day for too long. On the windowsills and crowded counter tops, pots and saucers and cups and vases bud and promise better days. I have no excuse for the projects growing in the back of the fridge, however.
Three years ago, I sprouted two avocados from the pit by suspending them on toothpicks from a wide and shallow glass of water—just like we used to do in grammar school science class. Remember when? The plants grew so large they had to be transplanted to our outdoor garden. New England winter came much too harsh for these delicate foreigners - so my husband and I hauled them back into the house in large containers, where they stood, sentinels of the next spring, leaning toward our one south-facing window. Out to the garden they went as soon as possible the following year. We always grow tired of stepping over and around all the imports and transplants huddled in every lighted corner of our tiny home. The avocados thrived and branched out and grew to six feet in height.
During the second winter indoors, they didnīt fare as well. My sonīs kittens (he swore he would bring them back to college in the fall) mistook the avocado trees as scratching posts and their pots as litter boxes. Year three in the garden: out one lovely early April day, despite my husbandīs concern about frost. Too soon, he warned, remembering April frosts from years past, so that night we covered the avocados trees with sheets. Through the night they stood like lonely ghosts in the empty garden—and the next morning we were horrified to see a hungry squirrel nibbling off the tips of all new growth. By the time I grabbed the broom and ran out to the garden, the damage had been done. The plants never recovered, but I left them there, tall, black leafless stick figures as a warning to all other varmints: eat anything in this garden and you could end up with a similar fate. We inspected the stalks weekly for signs of recovery, but found none.
But Mother Nature is perennial, and the inventor of hope. Early June: my husband and I are planting and weeding our now-full garden and performing the routine stalk check, bending over, leaning and inspecting, kneeling in the dirt. To our delight we notice tiny pink shoots peeking out from the base of the avocado scarecrows.
Anything can grow or rejuvenate if you give it time and patience and sun and rain and love.
At any time of the year, my Connecticut kitchen resembles a science lab; there are potatoes sprouting eyes, blooming onions, tiny trays of seedlings from salad tomatoes and apples and peach pits that I hope to plant in the spring. Some of these, I found in the cabinet under the kitchen sink, forgotten shallots or potatoes that hadnīt seen the light of day for too long. On the windowsills and crowded counter tops, pots and saucers and cups and vases bud and promise better days. I have no excuse for the projects growing in the back of the fridge, however.
Three years ago, I sprouted two avocados from the pit by suspending them on toothpicks from a wide and shallow glass of water—just like we used to do in grammar school science class. Remember when? The plants grew so large they had to be transplanted to our outdoor garden. New England winter came much too harsh for these delicate foreigners - so my husband and I hauled them back into the house in large containers, where they stood, sentinels of the next spring, leaning toward our one south-facing window. Out to the garden they went as soon as possible the following year. We always grow tired of stepping over and around all the imports and transplants huddled in every lighted corner of our tiny home. The avocados thrived and branched out and grew to six feet in height.
During the second winter indoors, they didnīt fare as well. My sonīs kittens (he swore he would bring them back to college in the fall) mistook the avocado trees as scratching posts and their pots as litter boxes. Year three in the garden: out one lovely early April day, despite my husbandīs concern about frost. Too soon, he warned, remembering April frosts from years past, so that night we covered the avocados trees with sheets. Through the night they stood like lonely ghosts in the empty garden—and the next morning we were horrified to see a hungry squirrel nibbling off the tips of all new growth. By the time I grabbed the broom and ran out to the garden, the damage had been done. The plants never recovered, but I left them there, tall, black leafless stick figures as a warning to all other varmints: eat anything in this garden and you could end up with a similar fate. We inspected the stalks weekly for signs of recovery, but found none.
But Mother Nature is perennial, and the inventor of hope. Early June: my husband and I are planting and weeding our now-full garden and performing the routine stalk check, bending over, leaning and inspecting, kneeling in the dirt. To our delight we notice tiny pink shoots peeking out from the base of the avocado scarecrows.
Anything can grow or rejuvenate if you give it time and patience and sun and rain and love.
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