Some thoughts on sustainability

On Workers Day (1st May) this year I massacred a white briar rose. It was a planned assault.

Let me explain (attempt to assuage my guilt). Unlike the garden which welcomed me back with an ongoing fiesta of flowering, lovely rose amongst the blooming throng, the property expressed its displeasure in my three week absence with a few infrastructure dramas, some of these one could even call a tad passive aggressive.

Before I even entered the house, this yawning snarl of a wrecked driveway fence panel greeted me.

“The wind did it.” said the house, shifting blame with alacrity, but not meeting my eyes. The house next door looked on, enjoying the spectacle of revelation.

Of course it was the wind, but why then was the spiffy brand new, diminutive but sophisticated , on demand hot water heater, installed two days before I left the country, also sneakily dripping from a pipe connection, and the water flow from bathroom sink taps almost non-existent?

We’ve been here before with plumbing tantrums when I dare to turn my back on this needy but truly beloved stone and adobe octogenarian which constitutes my primary relationship. It might be time to have that co-dependency conversation.

The plumber fixed the plumbing issues for free within a few days, and, for a bit more money than I really wanted to spend, a local handyman crew fixed the boundary fence.

But wait there’s more. A few days after my return the kitchen scrap bucket needed emptying. I discovered honey bees had established an impressive colony in one of my compost bins when I received some stings in reprimand for unceremonious and unannounced breech of The Hive That Grew Behind My Back. Some cultures might call them squatters. Ants were enjoying the sweet bounty. We do ants well in the desert.

I remembered seeing a local beekeeper’s contact details posted on the community notice board in the laundromat. After a phone call, a daytime reconnaissance visit and an after dark smokey stealth maneuver which sadly destroyed some budding volunteer papaver somniferum, the squatters were evicted. I can now once more add kitchen scraps to the compost bin without risk of stings/arthritis shots..

Sadly (oddly?) the beekeeper told me as she was leaving, that she would be killing my queen and substituting a purchased queen after the hive had settled. I didn’t ask why but did feel a bit sad that I had organized a death warrant for my queen. Wait. Didn’t the laundromat poster say “Save The Bees”?

So back to the May Day Massacre. I have hard pruned this rose a couple of times in the past, but might have been looking away for a season, distracted by travel plans.

When I gently urged it aside so I could climb onto the flat roof the better to survey the ‘hood, I discovered that the rose was attempting to lift the roof off the shed and also to pull the electrical pipes off the wall (stone and adobe structures require external conduits).

We can’t have that kind of plant behavior. I spent more than I paid to acquire custodial rights for the property on reroofing, rewiring and replumbing between 2018 and 2020. Hence the massacre. The rose fought back bravely. Blood was drawn. I might get some baskets out of the prunings. Or at least some nice bean trellises.

After touching up the paint, I have planted some spineless (they still have glochids) opuntia which I harvest for salads and stir fries in a rockery against this wall. It’s another problem space: west facing so shaded until it isn’t, then it’s baking hot. Especially so in summer when the sun’s arc is higher. I’m hoping opuntia for food will be an all round more sustainable and healthier solution than the maverick briar rose, which no doubt will recover. It’s one of the few plants which were in this derelict dust bowl when I first met the property in 2018 so I know it’s a survivor. My responsibility is to persuade it to grow in less destructive directions in the future. The massacre was horrible even if I did wait for it to finish flowering.

Meanwhile the cereal rye in the front is flowering. I love watching the ears dance in the wind, delicate yellow flowers shimmering.

A semi local person who wrote a book on sustainability scoffed at me for growing rye. “What’s the point? You won’t get more than one bowl” he said. I saved his house from burning down by calling 911 a few months ago when his neighbor’s shed caught fire and he was out enjoying a (free to him) state provided lunch at the local senior center.

Sidebar: don’t get me started on the exclusively NON vegetarian menus (which are published on their website)for this institutional grey slop masquerading as food. The staff and cooks do the best they can with the resources they have to work with which includes their culinary and nutritional training or more likely lack thereof.

Sustainability “author” gave me his book in appreciation of my having saved his house from fire. Authors do that. Give you their books. Even without fire engine dramas.

I don’t know what this self styled sustainability maven wrote in his book because I used it for mulch, then went wandering in my garden and oops! found that I had accidentally harvested a bowl of fava beans.

There’s a steady weekly harvest these days from my winter fava bean plantings.

Steamed, they are delicious added to a bowl of cereals, grains and vegetables, fresh or pickled. There’s possibly even some chewy, bouncy sorghum from last summer’s harvest in the meal pictured below.

There’s definitely stir fried rainbow chard from the garden in that bowl too. It’s been a good season for greens since the ravenous little birds who have destroyed all the chard seedlings in other years, found alternative sources of leafy greens to devour - mainly sunflower leaves and artemisia. Cake umbrella nets helped the seedlings get beyond two leaf stage too.

Fava beans aren’t all I’m currently harvesting. Recently I exchanged two bunches of these beautiful, crunchy, spicy radishes for a delicious vegan chocolate croissant from the best baker at the farmers’ market. The chocolate croissant might not have been as good as those from a bakery in France, but it was heavenly and France is far away.

Having provided me with a steady supply of fresh cilantro greens through the cool season, coriander is mostly all flowering now.

The first coriander seeds are being harvested.

Cafe Paradiso isn’t just for sitting around doing nothing, but also great place for sitting around and doing stuff too. I use earthy coriander daily in my cooking and it is a staple in many of the spice mixes I offer at farmers market.

Another winter green which is currently flowering and making prolific seed packets is the arugula.

While the flowers are a lovely sweet and peppery addition in salads, and young seed pods can be eaten whole like a spicy little snow pea, (can be stringy if you leave them too late) this year I am going to be using the seeds as a mustard seed substitute in my kitchen.

I have way more arugula seed than I can use for the seed bank for future planting. I cannot sell food seeds at farmers market unless they are tested by USDA for germination. I can however sell home grown spices or spice mixes.

Goji berry (Lycium barbarum or Lycium chinense I don’t know which, aka Wolf berry) bushes are flowering and beginning to set berries. They are prolific. Though I personally think they taste soapy, I have dehydrated previous harvests to add to trail mix. I could make a sweet and spicy relish with some this year if I get a good chile crop. Birds enjoy these bright orange miniature fairy lights too, so I don’t feel bad about leaving them for other roommates. Sharing is part of sustainability.

This week I have also harvested the first Navajo tea - Thelesperma megapotamicum . Often called Cota or Greenthread tea it is a refreshing, caffeine free tea traditionally used by Navajo and Hopi peoples. The flavour has been compared to the more well known Chinese native Camellia sinensis green tea.

Readers of the Ann Hillerman mystery novels set in the desert southwest and Four Corners region, will have encountered this as the tea which Dine Detective Bernie Manuelito and her mother drink.

I’ve been nurturing some plants for a few years now. This year I feel they are strong enough, trust me enough, to harvest a small amount for tea for my personal use.

This lovely volunteer opened outback today. I might yet get some poppy seeds for muffins and pancakes though the promise of a big crop in the front disappeared, possibly from lack of water, while I was away.

Sugar snap peas also did not survive my absence. The desert is not really sugar snap pea country: too dry, too hot too soon in spring. To get any, they typically need daily watering, which I have done in the past from rain water catchment barrels. I suspect the hungry little birds too. They were showing high interest in the pea shoots just before I left. What was that I was saying about sharing?