By Elizabeth Statmore
Writers are gardeners. We sow seeds and cultivate worlds. Every writing practice I do is a seed I hope will germinate, but I have to approach it with no expectations. Seeds, like words, are happily indifferent to my intentions. They force me to learn over and over how to follow their process without hope or expectations.
I keep a seed-starting station on the bookcase in my bay window sill. I face it while I do writing practice on the couch. It has fifteen deep cells, each planted with a different hope for my garden. Actually I sow in multiples. Right now I have two each of flat-leaf parsley, winterbor kale, lacinato or dinosaur kale, speckled trout lettuce, and Merveille des Quatre Saisons lettuce, among others. I have three cells of an heirloom ruffled pansy I am nuts about — chalon suprème purple picotée. The flowers are ruffled confections of deep plum and violet and mauve and golden yellow and white. They’re not easy to find. I have to order the seeds online from a web store in England.
As with writing practice, there are no guarantees. You make positive effort, but you can’t know in advance what will root and take off and what will refuse to cooperate in your plans.
My parsley cells have gone crazy. Same for the two types of kale. This year the pansies have agreed to participate. Some years they just refuse to release their secrets.
One of the White Boston Lettuce cells has sprung magically to life while the other has stayed mum. The seeds just refuse to get started. They sit there beneath the surface of their sterilized germinating mix, lips pressed stubbornly shut. They squint up at me when I inspect them. They dare me to plant over them.
The seed-starting system is a miniature greenhouse, with an opaque bottom tray and a clear plastic domed top. The top has two green louvered vents that can be opened once the first seed leaves poke their noses up out of the ground.
I placed the tray on a large baking sheet to catch any drips that overflow out of the sides. Germination is a moist and messy business. I have already had to refinish the top of the wooden bookcase once.
Below the baking sheet is an electric warming mat. It’s like a special heating pad for sprouting seeds. They respond to the warming temperature of the soil they are planted in, like words in a writing practice. They only start their work once I’ve warmed things up.
The other key to the seed-starting station is an old little desk lamp I’ve outfitted with a fifteen-watt greenhouse bulb. It’s a compact fluorescent that emphasizes the blue rays of the light spectrum, the ones that seedlings respond to.
I’ve learned all this from library books. I was not raised as a farm kid or even a gardener’s kid.
I am struck by the familiar combination of artifice and natural conditions I have to create to get things started. Some of my non-writing-practice writer friends feel this way about my reliance on writing practice. They ask how I can ever get projects done when I give over so much of my writing energy and time to wandering aimlessly across the pages of my Spiderman notebooks.
I’ve tried to explain it to them, but it’s like starting a garden from seeds. If you don’t do it this way yourself, it’s tough to wrap your mind around. How can a bunch of specks in a paper envelope turn into fragrant pasta sauces or salads? One person’s mystery looks like another person’s madness.
Elizabeth Statmore is a San Francisco-based writer and gardener. She is a long-time practitioner of Writing Practice, which she learned from Natalie Goldberg, and she recently finished her first novel by using Writing Practice as her foundation.
A frequent contributor to KQED-FM, Elizabeth’s last piece for red Ravine—Writing The “Remembering Grace Paley” Piece—was a step-by-step tutorial on how she turned a raw piece of writing into a finished radio commentary. Elizabeth was also one of our first guest writers, contributing the post Abandoned Is…. All doodles © 2009 by ybonesy.
Elizabeth, I just came in from doing an hour of practice in my front yard. At the first week of the writing intensive, I added a gardening practice of at least 30 minutes a day in the yard. This piece spoke directly to me having just taken off my gardening gloves and adjourned to the writing room to write.
Yesterday I noticed as I raked fallen leaves that some plants waited under the leaves to burst forth if they could push the leaf cover apart. I helped. Seems like I do the same thing when I write. I uncover the idea and let it take me where it’s going.
The other thing about your piece that I appreciated was how we plant ideas/seeds and sometimes they grow and sometimes they grow into things we hadn’t envisioned. That’s one of the greatest pleasures of writing/gardening.
Thanks for this great piece of writing.
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Bob, Isn’t it amazing how complementary the two practices of writing and gardening are? I marvel over and over at how well the instruction of “Don’t Think” applies to the garden. It seems like the more I think, the less control I have. Gardening practice definitely offers us grounding.
I liked your image of pushing the fallen leaves aside and discovering what volunteers from underneath. If that’s not a metaphor for connecting with the unconscious, I don’t know what is.
Good to know that there are other souls out there finding solace and grounding in the dirt.
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I love the wisdom of this piece, Elizabeth. How both Writing Practice and gardening require patience and discipline, and most of all, faith.
When did you begin your seed-starting gardening? And this is purely curiosity about your particular garden: after the seed-starting, where do you plant your plants? And is the size of the seed-starting operation perfect for just you and your family? In other words, not a lot of wasted produce or produce you have to give away?
Re: the artifices and how some of your non-writing practice friends question your use of writing practice, do you ever question the investment of so much time and energy into it? And how much time exactly do you dedicate each day?
I feel like I’m pelting you with questions. Hope you don’t mind. 8)
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Elizabeth,
I’ve just started reading a book by May Sarton called The Journey of a Solitude. Your writing reminds me of hers, or at least what she was doing in that book. She grounds very solidly in her physical world, and from that springs quite remarkable insights. Thanks for your post.
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Elizabeth,
Anyone that grows Mr Foggergill’s pansys has got to be totally cool. I don’t know about writing, but one of the 2 thumbs I currently sport, is a fairly good shade of green. Maybe there’s hope for a Seuss/ Bombeck type book in my future! I’ve never thought it from your point of view…very clever girl!
Great sketches yb… adds so much fun to this piece
You know, since you-all are writers…someone told me last week to get a book by Stephen King about writing. I’m not a big fan of his…but did wonder about this one. I think it’s called “On writing”? Anyone read it? Green thumbs up…or down?
H
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ybonesy- I never question the use of writing practice because I really do view it as my investment in keeping the machinery greased and functioning. Frankly, it’s the only thing that gets me through the dark times that inevitably come in the writing life. I’m going through one right now, but as Natalie says, doing this practice really does give a writer an enormous amount of artistic stability. My pen keeps moving even when I’m just spewing out garbage. The law of large numbers is really on your side when you just keep spewing. It really is inevitable that if you keep the pen moving, something good will come out of it.
I have to say, I have a lot more basic trust in writing practice than I do in seed-starting. I only began starting my garden from seeds last year, but each time I sow some seeds, I feel really dubious about the little specks that come out of the envelope. I sometimes find myself thinking that somebody has really pulled one over on me this time. But it really does work if you trust the process.
The two little beds in front of our house are now flowered entirely with seeds started in the seed-starter. We have only a postage stamp-sized garden in the back for vegetables, so I have to choose high bang-for-the-buck plantings back there. Also we live in the fog belt. So much of what I grow are herbs, greens, and raspberries — things that are ridiculously expensive at the store (for the size of what you get) but that are very easy to grow.
This year I’m excited to be starting potatoes to grow in the garden. Potatoes are an amazingly efficient system. You can grow them in these “grow sacks” which don’t take up much space but give a high yield. You layer the sprouted seed potatoes into the bottom, then fill it with about four inches of dirt. Then as the plants peek up out of the soil, you add another four inches of soil and compost again and so on. The potatoes grow in layers below the soil level, so as you raise the level of the soil, you are allowing a new layer of potatoes to grow there.
Come to think of it, this is a lot like writing practice too. I just keep dumping more manure/compost on the pile and eventually stuff begins to flower (or grow below the surface)!
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Sinclair- Thank you for reminding me about May Sarton. Her prose is just lovely and, as you say, extremely grounded.
I am honored to have my words compared to hers!
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Elizabeth, this was a great post & I enjoyed the way that you intertwined planting seeds with your writing practice.
I’m thinking Spring now, so a few weeks ago I began saving those empty toilet paper rolls to start my seedlings in (recycle). Very easy & a trick I learned about on a website. Simply cut them in half & then make 1/2 inch slices on one end & box that end up just as you would close an open box. My husband is making me a wooden box, that I will line with foil, sit my pots in, fill with potting soil, & sow the seeds. I bought my seed packets last week. I have Sweet Italian Basil, Oregano, Munstead lavender, Hollyhock, Delphinium, English Daisy, Zinnia, & Green Salad Bowl lettuce.The paper rolls will simply go into the ground after the seeds have been sprouted & temps get warmer. I hope to get started by the end of the week.
In addition, I received a call today to send my resume to a Company that I have been interested in working for, but they had no openings until today.
So, I suppose I am sowing many seeds this week! Thanks for the post & love yb’s doodles! D
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diddy, your method sounds great. I fell asleep last night thinking about all the flower seeds I have and how I could set up seed starting trays in the greenhouse and be that much further ahead when we get to May 1, which is when we are pretty certain we’re over the frost. Usually I just sprinkle the seeds into the ground, and talk about hit and miss—my hollyhocks never came up last year, nor one other flower I planted by seeds.
Elizabeth, the potato bags sound cool. Potatoes are one thing Jim really tries to buy organic because they absorb so much of the pesticides normally used by commercial growers, I guess since they have such thin skins and they’re a root.
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Heather, green thumbs up on On Writing. I read it on my December trip to Vietnam and loved it. Part memoir, part writing advice. We’ve talked about it in other posts on red Ravine, and I keep threatening to do a post on it, but I threaten that about a lot of topics. 8)
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Elizabeth, I read your piece again over morning coffee and it gives me such a sense of joy and peace. Also hope, since it’s -2 here this morning and we are in the middle of a wicked and windy winter storm in Minnesota!
In the past, I haven’t had the patience to start seeds indoors but your piece inspires me. I do love having a yard and a garden though. I lived in a small apartment in Nordeast Minneapolis for about 14 years with no yard whatsoever. When I moved in with Liz, I totally dug into doing the yard work with her and maintaining our little flower gardens. It’s something we do together that’s very nurturing. There is nothing like the smell of raw soil!
Of course, being the question asker I am, I have a few, too. You mentioned ordering your seeds from England. What place is that and how did you find it?
You also mentioned that you learned to seed garden from library books, that you weren’t raised a farmer’s or gardener’s kid. Any books come to mind that you might recommend to red Ravine readers?
I love the way you compare Writing Practice to seed starting. And it’s true that some are critical of the practice. I remember Natalie talking about one time when she sent her book to another writer (who will remain unnamed) to see if they would write a blurb for the cover of one of her books. The writer wrote back and pretty much said, if you have to practice writing, you shouldn’t be a writer.
What a strong reaction to the practice of writing. It reminds me of what a strong skin you have to have to be dedicated to writing. And also, when Natalie relayed that story, it made me so aware of how much Writing Practice (and other practices I do like haiku or mandalas) help get me through the tough times, the times when I’m insecure or down.
What you said about germination:
Germination is a moist and messy business. I have already had to refinish the top of the wooden bookcase once. Maybe that’s why some are afraid of Writing Practice. You never know what’s going to come out. And it isn’t always pretty. But so many seeds are planted there!
One last thing — I have Spiderman notebooks, too. And I love them. Where do you get your Spiderman notebooks? 8)
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Oh, Heather, a HUGE thumbs up from me, too, on the Stephen King book, On Writing. I read it long before I ever called myself a writer and it was gritty and inspiring. Like ybonesy said, it’s part memoir, part guide to writing. And being King, he doesn’t pull any punches. He’s pretty honest in that Writing Practice kind of way. Isn’t afraid to let people know his opinions. I also found his writing advice to be sound. Something I keep coming back to lately is that many writers have a morning routine that takes them to lunch time. Maybe 4 hours dedicated to their own projects. I’m really wanting to explore that practice.
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Sinclair, I agree, a wonderful tribute to Elizabeth to compare her words to May Sarton. What a grounded writer she was. Along with Alice Walker, she was one of the writers whose work I read when I first wanted to become a writer. She spent so much time in solitude in her gardens.
I have another friend who is also reading May Sarton and she sent a couple of quotes. Here is one of them that relates to seed starting:
“It is only when we can believe that we are creating the soul that life has any meaning, but when we can believe it – and I do and always have -then there is nothing we do that is without meaning and nothing that we suffer that does not hold the seed of creation in it.”
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QuoinMonkey- The potato bags are from gardeners.com where they are about $12 each. My purple picotée pansies are from eseeds.com , and they source the seeds from wherever they can find them. One time I got Mr. Fothergill’s, as anuvuestudio found, but I’ve also gotten them in a plain brown wrapper, as if they were too obscene or pornographic to be shipped with an actual photo!
My Spiderman notebooks come from the dollar store in the Mission, where I also get my Simpsons notebooks. I now wish I had gotten more Spidermen, but there must be some reason why I only bought two at the time.
I will make a short list of the books I’ve found most helpful on gardening and post it later today.
Also, I think I will take the dog and get a bag of fresh soil from the garden center so I can put the potatoes into the ground.
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Sounds like a great way to spend the day, Elizabeth. Say Hi to Fromage! The space-saving method you mentioned of cultivating potatoes sounds like a winner. I love potatoes but have never grown them. I also wanted to mention, didn’t you say you found a variety of tomato that was named StripeyPants? Or did I make that up? I did tell our cat Mr. StripeyPants about it. He felt honored. 8)
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BTW, I noticed when I was adding some links to the types of vegetables you mentioned in the piece, Elizabeth, that some of the seed vendors were in England. In fact, the pansy link defaults to the British pound for currency in the shopping cart.
But I was going to say, it did strike me that you’re growing some exotic plants. I’m curious as to how you came to know these varieties.
Jim for a while grew chile, and mostly he grew the New Mexican standards — Big Jim and Sandia. But this guy I used to work with was into exotic chiles and peppers, and he ordered the seeds and/or seedlings from growers all over the world. He gave Jim a chocolate chile plant from Ecuador, I believe, and some dragon-hot chiles from Thailand. Wow, we were up to our ears in all shapes and sizes and colors of chile, which we sold at the growers market, but always with the caveat that some of them could blow your brains, they were so deadly hot.
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Elizabeth, I held off raking up the fallen leaves because of the danger of frost. Yesterday afternoon I found myself in winter coat and gardening gloves placing mounds of raked up leaves on tender shoots I had exposed. The low last night dipped below freezing. Today’s high isn’t suppose to rise much above 32 degrees followed by nighttime temperatures in the low 20’s and then warmer on Thursday and Friday with lows slightly above freezing. We are on the March weather roller coaster. I may keep a pile of leaves for these emergency cover-ups.
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This is something I don’t understand about flowers. Some—like pansies—seem to have no problems with frost. I planted pansies in about four outdoor pots February of last year, early in the month. They got snowed on, went through hard freezes, and still their petals stayed soft and full of color. How is it that they’re so hardy while others will wither and die in the freezing weather?
I’m going to plant a couple of trays worth this weekend, maybe even more, because I love them. They also reseed and come back each year.
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Elizabeth — I really enjoyed reading this piece. I like the flow from words, to gardening and back to writing with the lovely transition, saying you learned to garden from books.
I especially liked your last line:
“One person’s mystery looks like another person’s madness.”
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I had forgotten about the Mr. StripeyPants tomatoes. They are called something like that. I didn’t order those seeds because it was clear from the web site that they would never grow in my foggy garden. Please give Mr. StripeyPants my best.
Seeds have become such a wonderful international community. I forget exactly how I stumbled on the purple picotée pansy, possibly on GardenWeb. Then I did ten zillion searches to find a source for those seeds. Once I saw them, I had to have them.
Some of the gardening books that have helped me get started are:
– any of the Gardening for Dummies books
– The Seed-Starter’s Handbook
– Grow Your Own Vegetables, by Joy Larkcom
– Greenhouse Gardener’s Companion, by Shane Smith
I also cannot recommend the Ronniger Potato Farm web site too highly, especially their growing guide ( http://www.ronnigers.com/sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderfiles/rpfcatalog-potatogrowersguide.pdf ).
You can order a lot or a little bit of different varieties of seed potatoes in their online store.
I put the potatoes into the grow sacks today. Tomorrow I need to clean up the raised bed so I can empty out the seed-starting station and plant my experimental tomatoes and other warm-weather crops. In honor of Mr. StripeyPants, I am planting (and hoping to grow) some Tigerella heirloom tomatoes I got from J.L. Hudson, Seedsman. They are a large cherry tomato type, red with gold stripes.
We’re also going to need some basil. Lots of basil.
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Woo-Hoo … I love seeing Shane Smith’s book on your list. He is director (and founder) of the Cheyenne Botanic Garden, right here in my home town! Besides being a wonderful gardener, he is one heck of a nice guy.
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Elizabeth, Mr. StipeyPants will be honored. I’ll let him know about the Tigerella heirloom tomatoes from J.L. Hudson, Seedsman. 8)
Hey, that Ronnigers Potato Growers Guide is really detailed. I learned a ton by just scanning it. Some interesting tidbits about gophers and potato beetles. Who would have thought that potato beetles love eggplant! What a great idea using the old bait and switch.
I also didn’t know potatoes had those lovely delicate pink flowers on top of them. Looking at that photograph of that field of potatoes in Colorado…I would have had no idea if I passed that field on my way to New Mexico that it was potatoes.
Thanks for coming back and dropping those gardening book titles in, Elizabeth. And thanks so much for writing with us on red Ravine. I hope your crops do well this year. Maybe you’ll come back to this post and give us updates once in a while to let us know how things are progressing.
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I will definitely follow up and provide updates, especially if the potato bags turn out to be a winner. B-)
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[…] the seed had been planted. Architect of the museum, Edward Larrabee Barnes, picked up the torch and designed the original 7.5 […]
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Elizabeth, I wanted to come back to this post and say I thought of you last night when Liz and I attended a community sponsored workshop on making a Raingarden. Liz has wanted to put one in the backyard here ever since I met her. I had no idea the good they do for the environment and how beautiful they can be until I took that workshop last night.
Part A was about 2 hours with an expert on Raingardens. And you can sign up for a Part B after you do the “homework” they give you. I’m all excited about Raingardens now. I might have to do a post about them soon. 8)
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[…] the names of your flowers? Maybe you have trouble with groundhogs or slugs, or wonder about inside seed starting, passion flowers, and orchids. You can read more tips from award-winning horticulturist, […]
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As a beginning orchid grower I was a bit intimidated by the whole topic. But after reading Frowine’s book, the topic seems much more approachable. I’ve started with a few moth orchids and they’ve done well, but now I’m inspired to try some oncidiums and paphiopedilums. I really would like to try some fragrant orchids as well.
I like the straight forward cultural information. It’s clear the temperature, humidity, and light levels needed for the various orchids. It gives me a sense of which ones to try and which to wait on. The orchid photos in the center are inspiring, though I’d love to see more!
I also liked the in-depth listing of varieties for the various orchid types. There’s a whole world of orchids out there to grow.
A great book for anyone starting out in orchids growing. Clearly written with the usual “dummies” humor and lightness. A good starting point for orchid growing.
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[…] Goldberg. A frequent contributor to KQED-FM, Elizabeth’s last posts for red Ravine include Seed Starting, a piece about writers as gardeners, and Writing The “Remembering Grace Paley” Piece — a step-by-step tutorial on how she […]
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[…] Goldberg. A frequent contributor to KQED-FM, Elizabeth’s last posts for red Ravine include Seed Starting, a piece about writers as gardeners, and Writing The “Remembering Grace Paley” Piece — a step-by-step tutorial on how she […]
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[…] Goldberg. A frequent contributor to KQED-FM, Elizabeth’s last posts for red Ravine include Seed Starting, a piece about writers as gardeners, and Writing The “Remembering Grace Paley” Piece — a step-by-step tutorial on how she […]
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