Helen Help Us!

Posted on April 8, 2012 by Julie-Ann Baumer

I know I should be writing about tomatoes, lettuce, or napping.  It’s Easter Sunday.  It’s also my mother’s birthday and since she has finally decided I could write about her on this blog, I’ve spent more than a few hours composing my thoughts.

Before I decided I would be a farmer, I thought I might be a professional organizer.  Not a union organizer or a community organizer, but a person who helps disorganized people get organized.  I thought of starting a business “dedicated to lightening your load and getting things done for you.”  My promotional materials said “Julie-Ann learned the art of organization from her mother, Helen, who loves to say ‘Everything in its place!’”

It wasn’t my time to have such a business, but it’s true that I learned everything I know about being organized from my mother.  I learned a lot of practical and important things from her, too, like how to say “The Lord’s Prayer” and what the Fifth Commandment means.  She took me to the Lisbon Falls library before I went to kindergarten so I could get my first library card and she taught me to say “please” and “thank you” and carefully explained the meaning of the word “tact.”

There are so many stories I could tell you about my mother, but today is Sunday, a day of rest.  Here’s a short list of some of the posts I’m thinking about writing in the future:

Horticultural Helen
A brief history of Helen’s plant sales and which perennials in Lisbon Falls are related to ones that started in her garden.

Hell On Wheels
A humorous story of how my father taught Helen to drive at the age of thirty-five.  Some profanity.

Saint Helen of Immaculata
Cleaning tips and routines for a spotless house and sparkling clean laundry.

Helen’s Neighborhood Crime Watch or To Stop a Thief
Helen takes the law into her own hands and confronts a plant thief attempting to steal plants from my “surprise garden.”

Dr. Helen
Helen studies health and disease and provides advice for vibrant wellness.

Helen Rocks The Votes
Helen recounts 20 years of working as a poll clerk in Lisbon Falls.  No write-ins, please.

Sellin’ Helen
Helen helps everyone to increase their sales of books, Girl Scout cookies, and raffle tickets and puts even Zig Ziglar to shame with her grassroots selling techniques.

Queen Helene
Helen explains how to stay married to the same stubborn German man for more than 50 years.

Ah, my sainted mother!  She’s been an inspiration to me my whole life, even when I didn’t want her to be.  Happy Birthday, Mom.  Thank you for being a mother, wife, daughter, sister, aunt, grandmother, and friend.

(Delicious and beautiful birthday cake courtesy of Sweet Dreams Bakery, 100 Portsmouth Avenue, Stratham, New Hampshire.)

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Friday Pillow Talk – Betsy Shags A Meatball

Posted on April 6, 2012 by Julie-Ann Baumer

April is the busiest month in New England.   Everything happens at once and it reaches a point of mania just about now.  Tulips are coming up, forsythia are blooming, the ground is thawed and ready for working, and at least three sports teams are playing in “trophy town.”  It’s all I know, but I can’t think of any other sports market where so much intensity is crammed into such a small geographical area.  “Peak sports” arrives in New England at about the same time as “peak spring” and if you’re like me, nothing is going to get planted without some way of listening to the games while you’re in the garden.

Thursday was one of those “peak sports” days in New England.  The Red Sox travelled to Detroit for their season opener, the Bruins were in Ottawa for play-off hockey, the Celtics were in Chicago for play-off basketball, and the Boston College men’s hockey Eagles were in Tampa for the Frozen Four.  A friend from work, Mathilde Murdoch (we call her Tildee) asked me if I could “check in” on her middle-aged yellow Lab, Betsy, after work while she went to a “Green Drinks” mixer for young attorneys in Concord, the New Hampshire state capitol.  Tildee loves anything green; I wasn’t surprised when she told me she needed to attend a “happy hour for earth-friendly professionals.”

Betsy’s pretty green too.

I don’t think Betsy really likes me.  It all started one cold winter night early in 2011.  I was “checking in” on her while Tildee did something important.  Betsy and I had taken a walk, I’d given her the requisite dish of kibbles and 3 peanut butter-coated Wheat Thins.  On the recommendation of a friend, I was reading Gogol’s “Dead Souls” and decided to read a few pages out loud to Betsy.  It didn’t go over very well and after a few paragraphs, she got up from the couch and walked out of the room, casting a disgusted look at me out of the corner of her eye.

Since then, I’ve “checked in” on her a few times.  I never bring Russian novels any more.  She will tolerate Jane Austen and she perks up even more if I’ve got a box of Triscuits or Wheat Thins with me.  She’s just a little bit sneaky about snack food.  Of course, I’ll throw snacks at her and laugh when she jumps up on her arthritic knees; it’s the cracker she tries to weasel out of my hand that makes me question her commitment to British novels.

On Thursday, there were no books to read to Betsy because we were both going to watch the Celtics game.  I could tell she was a little down because the Red Sox had lost their season opener to the Tigers.  It was a heartbreak of a game and Betsy wouldn’t even eat a Triscuit after her kibbles.  She just sat down on the floor in front of the Tee Vee and sighed.  I plugged in my MP3 so I could listen to Sean Grande and Cedric Maxwell call the game while watching it.

Maybe it was because it was almost a full moon or maybe it was because I was on sports overload, but I started nodding off about 5 minutes into the second quarter.  The last thing I remember hearing was Max saying “kiss the baby, she’s crying!”

The next thing I knew, I was walking Betsy down Yawkey Way and through the Gate A turnstiles.  She was on her leash and we were going to a Red Sox game.  But it wasn’t the Fenway Park of today.  It was Fenway before John Henry started selling bricks, before there was a State Street Pavilion, and before private escalators silently whooshed fashionable fans up to the EMC level.  It was smelly, sticky Fenway with beer-soaked peanut shells and cigarette butts under our feet.

Betsy knew where she was going and she was yanking on her leash, slyly eying low-hanging pretzels and hot dogs.  It was crowded and smoky, but the throng parted as Betsy headed through the concourse and up the aisle towards the field.  I won’t be the first or last person to write this; something strange happens when you see the green Fenway diamond for the first time.  It’s surreal and striking; it’s even more so in a dream.

Suddenly, we were in the dugout and Bobby Valentine was scratching Betsy’s head and she was sneaking sunflower seeds from Dustin Pedroia’s glove.  Our presence in the dugout didn’t seem to surprise anyone.  Catcher Jared Saltalamacchia had suited up and was standing behind home plate, waiting for the pitcher.  In real life, pitchers warm up in the bull pen, but in a dream, they can warm up anywhere they want.  All of a sudden, there was some motion in the bullpen as the door opened; the cheering crowd rose to their feet and Uncle Bob came running out, wearing his Robert’s 88’ers uniform.    Seriously.  Uncle Bob did play for a season in the Cape Cod League in the late 1950’s and he was inducted into the Maine Baseball Hall of Fame last summer, so he looked good taking his place on the pitcher’s mound at Fenway Park.

Salty got down into his crouch and (I kid you not) he and Uncle Bob started lobbing meatballs back and forth.

I was in the dugout, filing my nails, and Betsy slipped away, trying to chase the meatballs.  No one seemed to notice that each time the meatball would go from pitcher to catcher or catcher to pitcher; it would be slightly smaller because Betsy would jump up and take a bite out of it.  This went on for a while until finally, Bobby V. motioned Uncle Bob back to the bull pen and Salty ran into the dugout.  Betsy was left alone on the pitcher’s mound and she sat down and sighed.

I went out to the mound and snapped her leash on.  I tried tempting her with a Triscuit, but she had obviously shagged just a few too many meatballs.  I pulled and tugged on her leash with no luck and the crowd grew restless.  Finally, a Boston police officer ran out to the mound and we both struggled to move Betsy.

I don’t know how it all ended because I woke up when I heard Betsy’s collar jingling as she rolled over on the floor.  I’d done my “checking in” duties; she’d been fed and occupied for a few hours and I left Tildee a note outlining Betsy’s good behavior and her lack of interest in snack foods.  I didn’t write anything about the meatballs.

The next time I “check in” on Betsy, I’ll remember to bring my copy of “The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon.”

Are you growing any Betsies this year?

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Sea Road

Posted on April 5, 2012 by Julie-Ann Baumer

This is Sea Road in Rye Beach, New Hampshire.  It’s beautiful.

There’s a house for sale on Sea Road but it’s too big for me.  I don’t need that much space for my aprons and my tomatoes.

My dream dirt road is pretty, too, and it runs from the bottom of my heart to the top of Mosquito Hill.  Look up; I’m waving to you!

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Digging In

Posted on April 4, 2012 by Julie-Ann Baumer

Tuesday’s weather was just right and it seemed like a good day to work in my Hampton Victory Garden plot.  I forgot my apron (grrr…) and didn’t bring any “garden clothes” so I had to stuff my fancy pants into a pair of rubber boots and put on the old fleece jacket I had in my Jeep.

Bad Girl Scout.

My Hampton Victory Garden plot is about 14 feet wide and 20 feet long.  It’s in a shady part of the garden and because it’s conservation land, I can’t borrow a chain saw and remedy the problem.  We have had some trees removed, but the thing about trees is they keep on growing; I’ve accepted the dappled sunlight.

I have some perennial flowers, bulbs, and groundcover planted in the back third of the garden, along with my compost tumbler.  I hate throwing out vegetable scraps, so I’m always trying to make compost.  I’m getting better at it, but I have a lot more to learn.  Did you know there is a compost school just up the road in Maine?  Ayuh, sure is.

We’ll see.

In the front portion of my plot are two raised beds.  One is an old particle board bookcase my friend Jaxon gave me and the other is a real and true raised bed my father built for me.  I grew my lettuce in the bookcase and some tomatoes in my Daddy-oh raised bed.  For the last two years, I’ve covered the rest of the plot in landscape fabric to keep the weeds down and focused my energy on other garden projects.

Now that I have a blog and I need lots of material to write about, I don’t think rows of landscape fabric are going to make very good content.  It doesn’t even photograph well.  So yesterday, I took off the landscape fabric and turned the dirt.

The Hampton Victory Garden is located on what was, once upon a time, a chicken farm, so the soil is thick and rich, with lots of worms.  The dirt is more on the clay side and my spot slopes down a little bit; in the past, I’ve brought in more dirt to level things off.

I took a shovel and turned the formerly covered areas by hand.  There were a lot of worms in the dirt, big ones!  I opened up a couple of bags of compost and turned it into the dirt with the shovel again; then, I hoed it a bit.  I don’t think there is a right or a wrong way to prepare your soil for planting; I like to put a lot of energy into it and give my arms a workout.  Farm Arms are my goal, so my last few minutes were spent raking the whole area level and smooth.

In past years, we’ve had manure delivered to the Hampton Victory Garden, but someone who knows told me that fall is the best time to apply manure, or at least 60 days before planting to make sure it is adequately composted.  Some Victory Gardeners might remember all the gourds that grew in our gardens from last year’s manure and this was probably because the manure was not completely composted.  So no manure for my garden this year; just nice bagged compost from a good source.

While I was working, a few people stopped by to say “hello” and asked when the water would be turned on and when Mr. Young would roto-till.  Like a recess bell, the questions reminded me there was a lot of work to do and spring seemed to be creeping up in my rear view mirror, closer than it appeared.  I guess it’s time to step on the gas.

What’s the dirt about your dirt?

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Dan-vizz Carrots

Posted on April 3, 2012 by Julie-Ann Baumer

I had my biennial eye exam yesterday.  Maybe I tried too hard during the exam; how could I still have 20/20 vision?  I thought I might need some real glasses, but no, I just need a pair of “computer bi-focals.”  Thanks to a tip from reader Bernard Saint, I’m going to skip right over to Eyelook Optical in Portsmouth and get a pair this week, right after I plant some carrots.

I love carrots; they’re bright orange (like a Moxie can), they’re crunchy and delicious, and they’re good for you!  Maybe the reason I still have good vision at my age is because I’ve eaten a lot of carrots in my life.  Carrots are full of Vitamin A, which is said to be a preventer of eye problems.  I’m not a doctor, so I don’t know about the eye-curative claims of carrots.  I do know that almost everyone, including me, loves eating carrots.

But when I ask other gardeners about growing them, I get a crop of negativity.  I hear things like “they’re too much work” and “why grow them when you can buy them in the store?” and “I’ll never grow them again.”

Where’s the love now?

According to my packet of Seed Savers Exchange “Danvers” carrot seeds:

“Sow seeds outdoors 3-4 weeks before last spring frost or as soon as soil can be worked.  Tamp soil firmly; keep bed moist until emergence.  Germination is slow and uneven, so be patient.”

This is what Carla Emery has to say about carrots in “The Encyclopedia of Country Living:”

“Carrots are easy:  quick to grow and mature, productive in a limited space, unscathed by diseases and insects (at least in my garden), cheerfully colored, delicious, and nourishing.”

Let me summarize and translate all of this for you:  “You can sow some carrot seeds right now.  They’re easy to grow, but slow to germinate.  Good luck to you, Miss Impatience.”

I suppose there is a lot more I could say about carrots; I could tell you the now-funny story of the day I choked on a carrot in my first corporate gig while everyone was at lunch.  Who doesn’t have an “I choked on a carrot” story?  It’s such a regular happening in my current office, when we hear someone crunching and coughing, we just shout out “hands up!

All choking aside, I’m putting “planting carrots” on my “to do” list for this week.  It’s time.

Are you planting carrots this year?

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John Deere Green

Posted on April 2, 2012 by Julie-Ann Baumer

My brother and I planned to spend some time together on Saturday, writer to writer, and we planned to meet in Uncle Bob’s garden.  My mother gave Uncle Bob the head’s up that we were coming, to which he said “what are those two up to?”

As it turned out, Uncle Bob wasn’t even home when we got there, so we ding-toed around and I said “hey, take some pictures of me with a pitch fork.  I’ll be right back.”  I went into O’Pa’s barn and then I remembered the pitch fork wasn’t there; it was in the little barn where Uncle Bob keeps his dump truck and O’Pa’s 1937 John Deere model AO tractor with the stove-in radiator.

Except O’Pa’s tractor was gone.

I felt like someone had kicked me in the stomach and I panicked for about 10 seconds.  I know I’ve had a nightmare like this before.  Then, composing my thoughts and straightening my apron, I got the pitchfork and exited the barn.  We goofed around with various pitchfork poses, but my heart just wasn’t in it.  Uncle Bob had sold my tractor.

As we finished up examining the garlic and the rhubarb, we heard Uncle Bob pull in and we went around the house to say hello.  I could hardly hold back the tears when I said “Where’s O’Pa’s tractor?”

Uncle Bob explained that he had sold it to a man who restored vintage tractors.  He said it had taken up a lot of space in the barn and the parts and tools needed to restore it were beyond the scope of his own fix-it abilities.

“But Uncle Bob, I’m going to be a farmer some day and it was my dream to use that tractor on my farm!” I said.

Cool as all get out, Uncle Bob responded with “you didn’t tell me that was what you were planning.  Besides, we’ve got a better tractor in the barn.  One that runs.”

With the spark plugs and power take off in my brain hearing “you can use my Massey Ferguson tractor someday” I decided to let it go.

“OK, you’re right; I didn’t tell you about my dream.  But in the future, make sure you tell me before you decide to sell anything else.  Like pitch forks and cultivators and sauerkraut slicers.”

Uncle Bob agreed to let me know the next time he was in the mood for selling stuff and we parted company.    I spent the rest of the weekend doing the things I do when I’m at home, trying to keep that tractor pushed into the farthest recesses of my mind.  My father and I laughed about what a bad driver O’Pa had been and the number of times he’d come chugging around the corner and driven right into a pine tree.  I’d seen it once myself.  That old man was notorious for ignoring the stop sign at the end of the Edgecomb Road and merging slowly on to Main St, not even looking to see if there was any traffic coming.  He’d just cruise right through the stop sign and say “So what?”

The lesson for me in all of this was the importance of verbalizing my dreams.  If something is even remotely possible, talking about it gets it from my brain to my mouth to someone else’s brain.  No one is ever going to help you achieve your dreams if they don’t know about them.  I just don’t want you to wake up one day with an empty tractor barn and your own Uncle Bob saying “so what?”   Start talking.

What color is your tractor?

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Word To My Cousins

Posted on April 1, 2012 by Julie-Ann Baumer

Today’s post is “word” to my cousins, wherever you are:

“The rhubarb is coming.”

I know one of my cousins reads my blog (thank you very much, Kaye!) and I’m hoping she’ll tell a few of my other cousins, via the magic of the internet, this very good rhubarb news.

For the sake of transparency, I wanted to let you all know what I’ve been up to in O’Pa’s garden, which is actually Uncle Bob’s garden now.   I’m not exactly sure when it was, but a few years ago I decided a “Green Acres” life was what I wanted and these types of things are hard to accomplish in a 750 square foot “garden style” chicken coop condo.  When there’s a See-Mint pond in your front yard, not much is going to grow.  So Uncle Bob graciously offered up a little bit of his garden to me and it’s been one thing after another.  First I planted a few tomato plants, then I wanted a rain barrel.  A little lettuce and some melons.  How about trying drip irrigation?  By the end of July, we’ve got almost all the makings for BLT sandwiches; just no bacon.  But I’m working on it.  Be patient.

It’s hard to describe what it feels like to kneel in the dirt and dig up little pieces of things and wonder about the past.  I’m always asking “do you think there was a garbage pit back here” whenever I dig up a little piece of a dish or a cup.  Everyone denies it; I can’t help but think burying garbage in the back yard was acceptable in those days.  Why not?

One spring day, I walked into O’Pa’s barn and the smell of 90-year-old dirt hit me square in the face.  I started crying because I could see that old man in my mind’s eye and I knew there was a reason I had been carrying a picture of his grave stone around in my planner all these years.

I wanted to remember.

And I remembered that I had read somewhere that the foods we ate when we were in our mother’s wombs might very well be part of our genetic make-up and I walked out of the barn and I looked at the row of rhubarb my grandfather had planted before I was born.  I thought to myself, my grandfather planted this rhubarb to take care of me.  The fact that he thought of me before I was even born and planted this for me and my cousins seemed like an act of love.

Maybe my mother ate some of Nana’s rhubarb sauce when she was pregnant with me.  When I start imagining this might have happened, I am quite happy to think I have been eating the dirt of O’Pa’s garden from before I was born, when I was just a twinkle in my father’s eye!

If you’re one of my Baumer cousins, the chances are pretty good you’ve got rhubarb dirt in your DNA too.  O’Pa was thinking of you when he planted it.  Word to all of you:  The rhubarb is coming.

We’ll save some for you.

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Friday Pillow Talk – Lilacs, Tulips, Daffodils, and Daisies

Posted on March 30, 2012 by Julie-Ann Baumer

I’ve gone to Maine a lot lately.  I went to the Portland Flower Show, I went to Portland again to retrieve some forgotten gloves, and this week I had to go to Brunswick for a funeral.  Two weeks ago, while zipping over Tukey’s Bridge, I thought I could smell lilacs.  It’s not possible that I could smell real lilacs, though, because the forsythia are just starting to bloom and they arrive before the lilacs.  Still, it was a strange and wonderful remembrance of the lovely flowering plant which I had somehow forgotten would arrive this spring.

I’m glad I had the strange scented experience again today as I was driving north of Portland, through occasional blasts of rain and snow.  A good college friend was burying her mother and the hint of spring made the situation seem less sad.  Her mother had been a sweet and lovely lady and not just because she ran a candy store.  She was kind and patient and she always called us “hon.” She was like a lilac, although she preferred white daisies.  Some members of the old college gang were there and I’m glad I was able to take the day off to bear witness to my friend’s loss and sadness.  It’s probably all we can do sometimes.

Since I was so close to home (9 miles) and it was only three o’clock in the afternoon when I said good-bye to my friend, I decided to skip over to Lisbon Falls and visit my parents.  On the way through town, I took a look at my “surprise garden” and noticed my tulips were throwing off their leaf blanket.  Oh, how I worry about them all winter long.  I’m always so relieved to see that the plow truck never accidentally knocks them out of shape.  Thank you, plow truck drivers.  One of these snowy winter nights I’ll ride shotgun with you.  It’s my last municipal vehicle fantasy, since I’ve already had a ride in a fire truck.  But that’s another story for another day.

My parents just happened to be “resting their eyes” when I got there, but my father graciously offered me the couch.  “Are you sure, Dad?”  It didn’t take much to convince me that an impromptu nap by the wood stove was a little slice of paradise pie, although perhaps in the back of my mind I knew I was arriving at just the right time for such a thing.  Apparently, their nap time was over and they sneakered up and went out for a walk while I curled up on the couch next to the wood stove.  It was really just a cat nap; I didn’t have any freakish dreams for once.  All I remember was a fleeting vision of lilacs, tulips, daffodils, and white daisies waving in the breeze.  It seemed like a split second and then I heard the door knob turn and my parents were back from their walk.

My mother insisted on packing up a container of her latest casserole and I waved good-bye, knowing I’d be back again in a few days.  I stopped at the Extra-Mart for a “throwback” soda, secretly hoping I might see a few familiar faces.  I was not disappointed because that’s how it is when I’m at home.  In no particular hurry, I drove back to New Hampshire and I swear I heard nothing but 80’s songs on the radio.

It was still light when I arrived at the Coop and getting out of the Jeep, I took a deep breath.  Spring was in the air.  I could smell it and I could feel it.  I hope my friend could smell it and feel it, too.  It reminded me that everything was going to be all right.  Maybe not all at once, but eventually.

Yes, everything is going to be all right, just like lilacs, tulips, daffodils, and white daisies.

Beautiful.

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Here’s One Reason

Posted on March 29, 2012 by Julie-Ann Baumer

To grow your own food…

or know a local farmer.

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Eau De Garlic

Posted on March 28, 2012 by Julie-Ann Baumer

When I got home from work yesterday, I smelled garlic.  Rich in sulphur, garlic gives off a pungent smell right about this time of year as it starts to rot.    I looked in my garlic basket, squeezed the disintegrating cloves, and wept.  It was time to say good-bye to the few remaining cloves of garlic I had grown last summer.

This will be my third year of growing the fragrant bulb, although I have been concerned about the source of my garlic for much longer than that.  Ten years ago, I saw a teeny tiny sign hanging over some garlic, sourcing it from China.  I scratched my head and said to myself “you mean we can’t even grow garlic here anymore?”  It seemed absurd and impractical that garlic should have to travel 7,500 miles to please my taste buds.  Is a passport required?

The good news is that garlic is pretty easy to grow.  Break up a bulb, plant the cloves in the fall, heavily mulch the spot with hay or sea weed, and you’ll be greeted by green garlic sprouts in the spring.  Remember it is a bulb and it likes to sit in the ground over winter to produce a fat crop.  Some people plant their garlic in the early spring with some success, but I haven’t tried it.  Don’t worry if you didn’t plant any garlic last fall, though; it’s a popular crop among local farmers and you can still find some good, local garlic at the farmer’s market.

I’m a purist, so when I can’t find any local organic garlic, I wait until mid-July to harvest the garlic I planted the previous fall.  But I’m also impatient, too, so garlic is teaching me a good lesson in learning to wait.  The old saw about “good things coming to those who wait” may not be true about everything, but fresh garlic in late summer is grrr…great.

Are you growing any garlic this year? 

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