Starting in 2005, my sister Sally took over a small farm in northern Maryland, part of an inheritance from our parents. Sally had never farmed full-time before. Her lifelong interest in gardening was scant preparation for this late-middle-age career transition from more sedentary work. Especially the first few years, Sally struggled. She wanted to run the farm as a biodynamic one, paying special attention to the cycles of seasons, sun, and moon. Gradually, she got an acre or two into biodynamic production. She rented the rest of the land to nearby more conventional farmers. She built up a cadre of part-time volunteers. Her work was more than full-time, with scant occasions for the travel she had enjoyed earlier in her varied careers. Her internet access was spotty at best, so we kept in touch through phone calls and letters.
For a biodynamic farmer, “cross-quarter days” are especially important in deciding harvest and planting schedules: Halloween (Samhain), Groundhog Day (Imbolc), May Day (Beltane), and mid-summer, around August 1 (Lammas).
This November, I’m posting six years’ worth of cross-quarter day letters, through multiple changes in government, a global pandemic, and major changes in our respective personal circumstances. Please read along…
Sunday, May 1, 2022 (Beltane/May Day); from Jinny in San Diego, CA to Sally in Taneytown, MD
Dear Sal,
Happy May Day! Happy gardening! A garden plot at the giving garden did indeed open up, and I’ve been working on it intermittently since late February. For each plot, the renter pays a flat fee of $150 per year. The gardener agrees to keep his/her plot in good shape and to put in at least 6 volunteer hours over the course of the year helping maintain the common areas. It seems a good bargain to me, especially since water is included in the fee. Gardening has always been partly therapy for me. The previous worker of my new-to-me plot did a pretty good job of enriching the soil, but there are still a fair number of rocks. I dig them out, then shift them from this “hillside garden” plot to border areas in our yard at home to help provide erosion control and garden accents.
At first I planted a cover crop mix of mustard and buckwheat that was available from the garden shed for the taking. We had enough rain in March so I didn’t have to water much. Once the cover crops had started to bloom, I spaded them under and then prepared the soil for warmer weather plants.
Each year, it seems, Carolyn starts flats of tomato and pepper seedlings in the garden’s small greenhouse. She sells them for $1 each, with the proceeds benefiting a drop-in center in downtown San Diego for low income folks. I have bought a few tomato seedlings of different varieties, along with a couple of peppers. I’ve also planted string beans from seeds. They’re struggling. Trying to avoid providing “bunny food” is a continuing challenge. Several of the nearby garden plots use upside down metal mesh wastebaskets for plant protection, the kind you can sometimes find at the Dollar Store. I haven’t found any yet, but will keep trying. You would probably laugh at my puny garden efforts, but working the soil does help “ground” me, both literally and figuratively.
The world seems in serious need of grounding at the moment. It seems to me as if the final homeward flights for Beijing Winter Olympic athletes had barely taken to the skies when Russia launched its full-scale invasion of neighboring Ukraine. I’ve attended a couple of rallies at San Diego’s Balboa Park in support of Ukraine. I’ve learned that there is a substantial Ukrainian diaspora in this area, with a local Ukrainian church processing donations of cash, clothing, and emergency supplies. I try to contribute some cash for Ukraine, but to focus most of my efforts locally. The ripple effects of the Ukraine war in the global economy may turn out to be substantial. The war is also likely to further complicate efforts to bring the pandemic under control. Probably a good time to be living in the American countryside and relatively isolated, though I doubt the U.S. will be directly impacted by this flare-up in Europe. Do you still store home canned goods in the bomb shelter Dad included at the Ruggles Road house, I wonder?
I’ve gotten involved in a food distribution project here that a member of the local UU church started shortly after the beginning of the pandemic. Once schools shut down, many of her elementary school students were food insecure without school breakfasts and lunches. Maureen taught in a part of San Diego county near the Mexican border. She arranged for a weekly food giveaway at a satellite UU campus in a small strip shopping center close to her school. Families can come for meat, dry goods, baked goods, and fresh produce each Saturday, no questions asked. Someone has devised a minimal registration and timing schedule to reduce congestion in the small parking lot. I’ve been going early in the morning a couple times a month to help break down the pallets full of apples, potatoes, onions, squash, or whatever other fruits and vegetables show up that week. We work outdoors, and wear masks and gloves, so it’s fairly safe pandemic-wise. The program keeps growing.
The regional food rescue group that supplies the produce and much of the baked goods seems to do a pretty good job of diverting “near expiration” edibles from the landfill to actually feed people in need. Seems a little like the effort you started at the farm to get fresh produce to people who needed it once pandemic shutdowns took hold.
We’ve had our first out-of-town guest in our new place—a solo visit from “Joey,” who helped us keep our computers functioning during the year when we taught in the small Chinese city of Ya’an, Sichuan. It was great to see him, if only for a couple days, and to swap stories. Since coming to the U.S. around 2014, he’s gotten additional computer training, gotten married, and made plans to start a family. He worked for several years in the New York City area, living in Brooklyn with his Chinese-American wife. We’d seen them a couple of times when we lived in Cary. Joey recently got hired on at Google here in California. We hope to be able to visit with them once they get more settled in the Silicon Valley area and this blasted pandemic abates. Their “coast-to-coast” move turned out to be even more complicated and awkward than ours. Joey and Lu Wei had nearly gotten stuck in China in 2020—they’d gone back for a visit and barely got out before lockdowns started there. First they were nearly stuck in Ya’an, then they were really stuck in Brooklyn. Joey has asthma, but seems to be all right. A somewhat challenging time to be alive.
This morning I attended my first “in person” worship service at the local UU church. Rather than an indoor venue, the service was held on an outdoor patio, with distanced chairs. It had an earth-centered theme, with related music and a very graceful dancer who did a sort of single person “May Pole Dance.” Perhaps I’ll start learning more about the traditions surrounding “Beltane.”
Enough of my nattering. Lots of virtual hugs. Please take good care!
Love, Jin
