By Sandra Vallie
It’s hot, pushing 100, and I have to wait until it’s cooler to water the heat-sapped garden. Until it’s cooler, or dark, or 7 pm, the time the city allows watering – whatever measure I decide today is the tipping point where the amount of water soaking into the sand is greater than what the bone-dry overheated air is sucking up into itself. In the house, safe out of the sun, I’m anxious looking at the heat-limp plants across the yard. Corn leaves curled into points, drooping tomato plants and cucumber leaves flat against the ground. I know the plants are well-watered; some of what I see is self-protection and some a part of the taking up and giving off of water. As soon as the sun moves further toward the west and I carry water to the plants through the hose, the leaves and stems will fill with water and this limp spread of green will become plants again.
I’m from Michigan and this is my first year trying to grow vegetables in New Mexico. I pretty much planted the garden twice because I hadn’t learned that we can still have below-freezing nights even when the temperature in the day is 80 degrees. How much water is too much and what is enough. Why, when I asked the woman at the nursery about gardening in New Mexico, she told me to not even try. Half the plants I put in my son’s yard last fall didn’t make it through the winter, falling to the cold and what I haven’t learned yet.
For 20 years, I watched peonies, lilacs, tulips, hosta, coneflowers, azalea, iris, daylilies and butterfly bushes grow tall, wide, and fragrant. Lush. Luxuriant and juicy. Moisture in the air reflected the hundred greens growing around the yard and the air glowed. Lettuces, green, red and purple, came in the spring, followed by peas and beans that reached across the raised beds to share the poles supporting plants and pods. Tomatoes grew so fast and heavy they kicked away their cages. Cucumbers ran across the garden to the corn and climbed high enough I could pick the fruit without bending over.
I exaggerate. A little. Lush it was, very different from my yard here, each plant holding to its own space, as if each one feels it deserves only so much water and so many nutrients from the spare soil. I’ve never seen plants grow so slowly; at first it’s almost as if each morning they decide whether or not to push up, out, forward, just one little bit. As if they know that growing higher will put them closer to the sun and they’ll be hotter. My plants in Albuquerque work harder than plants in Michigan. In this place where there is so much space, where I finally feel I can be as big as I am, exuberant, joyful, expansive and – well – lush, my vegetables appear so tentative and afraid.
Cactus spread, although I don’t know that I’ll ever call them lush. There are several in the neighborhood I’m drawn to, even a couple I’m lusting after for their deep, almost hallucinatory red-purple blooms or their improbable flowers, yellow and ten feet above the plant their stalk grew from. Cactus, though, and weeds like the silverleaf nightshade, the most prolific plant in my landscape cloth- and gravel-covered yard, are what led me to write a few years ago after a visit: “Everything green here bites.” I know I’m never going to embrace a cactus or walk barefoot across the goatheads and foxtails to get to them. I yearn to load my arms with heavy-headed peonies and stargazer lilies that are deep enough to serve soup in, although I’m afraid I’d have to drain the remaining water out of the Rio Grande to do it. Before I moved here I asked a friend if I could grow roses in Albuquerque. “You can grow anything you want in Albuquerque as long as you can afford the water.”
The roots of my grandmother’s peonies I carried south are in pots out back, not growing. Soon, not yet, I’ll have to admit what I know and stop watering. I didn’t have time before we moved last fall to lift lilies or divide a few coneflowers. The rose bush by my bedroom window, though, is the same as the one that died in my Michigan garden a couple of years ago, my grandmother’s favorite. There are green tomatoes on the plants and sooner than I know they’ll be full and red enough for dinner. Lush is changing, from the huge bushes and plants that grew in the Michigan rain to the sound of water rushing through the garden hose, the sight of it spreading around the watermelon plants and at the feet of the raspberries, the corn leaves unfolding as the still skinny stalks draw up water from the soil, and the gratitude I feel that I have water to grow food with. The air may not be green from the plants, but the sky is crystal blue. While I’ve written this, it has become late enough to head outside to water and the first flowers on the cucumber plants have opened today in the heat.
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About Sandra: My fairly recent move from my job and life in Michigan to Albuquerque, New Mexico, has opened up the opportunity (for which I’m gut-wrenchingly grateful) to write in spans of hours instead of stolen minutes. Although I’ve written mostly poetry in the past few months, I’m enjoying the process of exploring different forms for different subjects. I’ve been fortunate to have a community of encouraging and creative writers in the Albuquerque Ink Slingers, a local Meetup group, and my husband’s graceful willingness to live and work in 100 degree temperatures.
Loved this essay! As another transplant, I can relate to the surprising tenacity of our ecosystem. I miss the lushness of the northeast states, but I wouldn’t trade that for our desert sunrise. Lush can wrap you in color and wet texture, but it doesn’t have the aching depth of knowing that you are here for a moment, only at the whim of nature’s sweat.
I hope to see more of your work here.
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I love the idea that you are growing lushly in the desert heat, in contrast to the struggle of the vegetables. This was an enjoyable read!
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So good to see your work here. I might have to go down to the farm and sip some honeysuckle after reading this. Get some lush handfuls.
Here is the poem I found in your essay:
Lush Valley
Cactus spread red-purple blooms,
improbable flowers.
Water rushing, leaves unfolding –
gratitude opened today in the heat.
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Thank you, Jennifer. I remember thinking on a recent Albuquerque to Denver trip that there are two extreme reactions to all of this space: to either expand in an attempt to meet it or be overwhelmed by it. No doubt there are lots of possible reactions in between but those two seemed to fit the heat and glaring brownness of the day.
And Birdie – I definitely feel that ache in response to the solid beauty of the mountains and tenuous beauty of the plants and even some of the landscape itself, especially the rivers, but you’ve put it beautifully as it applies to us. Thank you for your comments.
Sandra
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Laura,
Thank you! for what you said and for finding a poem in my work. I love it when this happens.
Thank you, too, for your introduction to red Ravine back in the cold winter. It was one of those things that kept me going through my confusion and doubt as I sat down to write again. I so appreciate all your e-mails and poems that helped me make that transition from handfuls of honeysuckle.
Sandra
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Sandra, my favorite part of your piece is the constant play between the Midwest and the Southwest. The dry and the wet, the wide open spaces and the prairies and forests. I only know New Mexico from visiting there; it’s a place you can fall in love with. And at the same time, I would really miss the lush green of Minnesota, all the lakes, so much water.
We sometimes take the water here for granted. So many lakes and so close to the Great Lakes. I guess everything trickles down from there. You wouldn’t recognize these parts this year. So much rain and humidity.
Lines that draw me — “the roots of my grandmother’s peonies.” “I’ll have to admit what I know and stop watering.” Throughout the piece you can feel your struggle with getting to know a new place intimately. The land. Sense of place. I grew up in Georgia and South Carolina. I remember arid summers in SC as a kid. Hot and dry, the watermelon, the sandspurs, things that grow with little water. But I have never seen a sky like the New Mexico sky. It can hold a lot.
How often do you get back to Michigan? Are there other things you miss about living in the Midwest? I know some people move to the Southwest and never look back. It’s the perfect fit for them. I’m a transplant to Minnesota and now I can’t imagine living anywhere else (though I love to visit the West).
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I was so excited to see this piece in my inbox this morning, Sandra. I am a NM native, former blog partner to QM, and as I read it I kept thinking, “Me, too. Mine, too.” QM can attest, as she and I still write together, that my shade garden crops up now and then in my writing. It is so hard for me to grow anything, and this year water has been a HUGE issue. We live in Corrales and just have not had much rain, even as it rains buckets in other parts of metro ABQ.
One thing I have finally concluded is that you need a drip system if you want to grow anything here. I see beautiful lush gardens in ABQ that have the drip system embedded. It allows for water at the root every day if you wish, and so efficiently. We are about to put in a new well, and this fall I am going to install drip come Hell or high water!
Your descriptions were all wonderful. I miss the interplay between NM and MN that QM and I had (I even love the mirror of the state’s abbreviations) and yet here in one post we had it all–SW and MW. A treat!
Good luck with the garden. One thing I’ve found is even when it seems I’ve all but killed my plants by August, come April some of them pop up again–a lovely surprise.
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Roma, I’m so glad you saw Sandra’s piece. Yes, I thought of you and your shade garden when I read it! And the interplay between NM and MN, Sandra captured it beautifully. The drip system sounds interesting. I have not heard of it. Are you putting in a new well because the old one is drying up? Or just out of a need for more efficiency.
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The well was old and not very deep nor efficient when we moved in, QM, and so a new well was one of the items that we negotiated with the seller on cost-sharing. Now the pump is almost worn out, too, so we decided it was time to get a whole new well and pump. Looking forward to how it will help with the landscaping around the house. (Rest of the property is on flood irrigation–ditches–plus another well that serves the pastures.)
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That makes sense. Sounds like a worthwhile project. When I moved to Montana in my twenties, a few of my friends bought land up on the mountain side of the Bitterroot Valley. I remember when they were building their houses and cabins, the first thing they had to do was dig a well. I remember they had to go quite deep to find water. One person brought in a douser to help locate the water source. Back then it was really expensive to dig a new well in that part of the country. I imagine it might be even more there now. It’s amazing how important water becomes in arid environments. We should not take it for granted here as much as we do, but I know many think of it differently here in the green lands.
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Oh my gosh, QM, it is expensive to drill wells. Something like $18 per foot, and if you want a well that lasts for decades, you’re talking about 200 feet. And yes, conservation is VERY important in arid climes, which is why drip irrigation is so important. You really just can’t do sprinklers here, not in good conscience, anyway.
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I think eventually water will become one of those things that is as valuable as gold. I was looking at a Montana friend’s photographs on FB tonight, and she had a few photos of glacial lakes there high in the mountains. I was just pointing out to Liz how different the lakes there look than the lakes here in Minnesota. When I lived in Montana, it was always so wonderful to run into the mountain lakes when we hiked. So different than here in MN where I can go a few miles either direction and hit several lakes en route.
The auto-sprinklers here in corporate settings make me cringe. I can’t stand it when I see them go off on rainy days. What a waste of water. That’s kind of what I mean — too much taking water for granted here. We should be less wasteful, even though it is abundant. One day, it may not be. You just never know. Good luck with the well! Remember the old days when they had a hand pump attached to the top of them. Or maybe they still do.
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Good Morning, QM and Roma,
It rained here last night – Roma, did you get rain out in Corrales? I think we’re in one of the driest parts of town out by the airport where the official rain measurement is taken. I wonder, though, if we’re all thinking we’re in the driest part of town right now
QM, I’ve spent a lot of time lately thinking about place and heritage (my grandmother’s peony roots) as they apply to green thumbs. My extended family, both sides, were/are farmers, but neither of my parents farmed. I’m widely rumored to have the green thumb in my immediate family. I think that’s more about persistence, though, than inherent or inherited knowledge. And place-specific practice. There are some lovely passages in Wendy Johnson’s “Gardening at the Dragon’s Gate” about learning the land, its soil and climate.
I don’t consciously miss the Midwest. It was time for me to leave and even before I moved here it felt like I was coming home each time I visited my son, (which opens up whole new possibilities to think about, considering how people make place). When I’ve traveled up into the mountains where it’s greener or found rivers to sit by to watch water flow, I’ve felt a kind of restful relief, but as an interaction of brown sand and green trees down here, not as a comparison between here and Michigan. However, just now when I was writing about mountains and thinking about pine trees, I could smell the trees at Hartwick Pines State Park (http://www.michigandnr.com/parksandtrails/Details.aspx?type=SPRK&id=453) back in Michigan; that scent is what means “pine” to me. I guess when I eventually go back to visit friends and family, I’ll be going up to Hartwick Pines.
I think the Midwest is going to keep popping up in my writing, like Roma’s shade garden does in hers. Like Birdie wrote, I’m a transplant here – just got that garden/plant reference – and when I write it still feels more authentic to write with Midwestern landmarks than the ones down here that I know the names of but haven’t yet spent time in. As you’ve moved from place to place, have you felt a settling-in period in your writing, moving from writing as a tourist to writing as a citizen?
Our house had a basic drip system when we moved in; it never worked although everything looked brand-new. Then our dog, pretty anxious after the moves, dug up quite a bit of it. So we just ran a few soaker hoses around the plants and that works pretty well. And a lot of water that we used to run down the drain we take out to the plants. I can’t imagine using a sprinkler; it feels like the water would just get absorbed into the air. I read something in a drought discussion on Duke City Fix (http://www.dukecityfix.com/): that you should only stay in New Mexico if you’re willing to keep a bucket in the shower to capture all the spare drops of water and carry them out to the vegetation.
Sandra
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A wonderful response, Sandra. Thank you for the detail. New Mexico was one of the places I once thought I might want to live. After I moved to Minnesota from Montana, all I could think about in the beginning was — how can I get back out to the West? I always thought I would move West again. It has not happened. And now I don’t know if I’ll do a permanent move again. Never say never though. I also don’t know if I could live in the desert. I’m a water sign, definitely like to be close to water. Whether rivers, the ocean, the Great Lakes, or one of the many tiny lakes in the Twin Cities. I do love the desert. Just not sure I would want to live there. It’s a spiritual journey for me when I go to New Mexico. I once had a psychic tell me where the best geographic places were for me (in terms of the stars). There was a cross section across the Twin Cities area. One in northern New Mexico, and one running in eastern Washington. (I think western Montana was close enough for me to live on that one.) She said the New Mexico cross-hair was more of a spiritual place for me and that has held true. I like living in Minnesota.
Your question is a good one: As you’ve moved from place to place, have you felt a settling-in period in your writing, moving from writing as a tourist to writing as a citizen? That has been true for me every place I have lived. I kept a journal religiously during the period when I lived in Montana. It took me a long time to settle in there. Partly, I think, because I was so far away from blood family. My definition of “family” expanded quite a bit when I moved to different sections of the country. When I moved from the North to the South, I was 12. It was a very hard transition. Culturally, it was so completely different. After over 20 years in the Twin Cities area, I definitely feel like a citizen here. It took quite a while though. There is this thing that most have heard of called Minnesota nice. It takes many forms. One is that it is hard to break in here. Many who are born here never leave; most come back at some point in their lifetimes. It took a while, for sure. I consider all the places I’ve lived a deep part of me containing different pockets of my life. The best of all worlds for me would be to have a place here in MN and a place out West somewhere that I could visit. Who knows if that will ever happen.
Thank you so much for sharing your writing on red Ravine. I look forward to seeing where your gardening takes you. And how long it takes you to settle in to where you feel like the landmarks there are your own. There is something about the land that helps hard transitions. There was the red clay and scrub pines in Georgia. The mountains, rivers, and more red clay in Pennsylvania. The glacial lakes, cloud-popping mountains, and rushing rivers in Montana. In Minnesota, it is the variety of trees, the surrounding green, the many lakes, including the Mother Lake Superior. All of these landscapes hold a place in my heart. I love meeting other people who write with similar sensibilities. We are now a transplant nation. But I wonder sometimes if people are continuing to take notice of what they are leaving and giving up, and what they are gaining in their new landscape. I also learn a lot from people whose permanent address has always been in their home state. That fills me with wonder; it’s just not my reality.
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Hi, Sandra. Thanks so much for sending me what your piece about gardening. I, like Laura, heard much of it coming into my head as poetry. I think the piece has much to do with watering your soul because I know how much gardening has fed your spirit over the years. I think the reference to the water going up into the air speaks to our efforts to make something happen only to see those efforts become lost, stolen, or stray away from us. Though the piece was in some ways very factual, it was still deeply personal and sang the song of your spirit. Thanks again, Dom
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Good Morning, Domenic,
It’s so good to hear from you and read your response. As always, it gives me a lot to think about. Water keeps coming into the things I’m writing – too much, too little. I especially love the image of the water going into the air and getting absorbed by the dryness as reflective of living our lives in ways that the world around us sucks up our efforts, our spirits and our hearts.
Gardening feeding my spirit – yes, and I think what has happened with the move and life changes and focusing on writing is a balancing of how I feed and live my spirit. I spent a lot of time in the garden in Michigan (all that lush didn’t just happen, after all) because I felt constrained from writing for many different reasons. Here, I still enjoy being in the garden and standing in the middle of the plants and getting lost in sunflowers, but I’m not out there very much. And, instead of bringing flowers inside, I’m taking poetry into the garden in page protectors and hanging it on the fence. There’s one on dragonflies waving from the armillary and another on watermelons by the huge but not so prolific vines – you can see that one here:
http://www.fishousepoems.org/archives/aracelis_girmay/ode_to_the_watermelon.shtml
Take care,
Sandra
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Sandra,
What a sensual reflection about gardening and place. I’ve always had a bit of envy towards gardners and people who have beautiful gardens. I walk around my neighborhood in awe of what people can create and wish that somehow I would make more time for that. But alas, we all have priorities and right now gardening just doesn’t fit. I do make time for reading though and glad to have taken in this essay with beautiful images of lilacs, tulips, conefowers and cactus.
I live in Seattle which is a paradise garden in the spring and because of all the rain, I’ve had a love affair with the deserts of New Mexico and Mexico for as long as I can remember.
Thanks for this lovely piece.
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You’re welcome, Teresa, and thank you for your comments. I’m grateful the world has so many gardeners in it so I can enjoy the gardens they make when working on my own isn’t at the top of my list. I was out at the Botanic Gardens at the Albuquerque Biopark the other day enjoying the beauty of other people’s labors. In the curandera garden I was overwhelmed by the scents of plants I haven’t smelled since I left Michigan. In the same moment, I missed Michigan and was really happy I’d come through that particular garden.
I still remember the smell of the forests we visited in the Pacific northwest when I was 15, so some 44 years ago. So many wonderful deep, intense, wet and old smells. It seems like the deserts out here might be almost like a palate cleanser after that.
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[…] you’re waiting, check out my essay Lush over at red […]
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