This week, Charlene Smith begins contributing a gardening column to the Observer. Originally from South Africa, Charlene lived and worked as a correspondent on four continents before landing in Needham six years ago. You’ll find her articles to be as wide-ranging as her life and interests. She’s a Massachusetts Master Gardener, a British accredited landscape designer and co-chair of the horticultural committee of the Needham Garden Club.
Early September feels like standing at a small rail station; summer and the haze it places on our brains lingers. Down the track we see life’s demands as a train approaching, with many stops ahead before year’s end.
The first stop is Labor Day, a brief lull in back-to-school and increased traffic — and the day I’ll bottle the dandelion wine that’s been fermenting in a closet for four months. It will be stored with homemade nasturtium jelly, herb jelly, parsley wine (not great, I use it for marinades), and elderberry wine, which eases winter colds and coughs and develops a rich, port-like quality. In the fridge is a zucchini and ginger jam, an ancient English elderberry sauce called Pontack, elderberry syrup, dried tomatoes, pureed tomatoes, Sicilian preserved tomatoes — so many tomatoes — and my annual green tomato chutney, as well as the nasturtium capers friends want more of.
Summer’s bounty allows me to zone out as I dry, chop, simmer, bottle, preserve.
By Indigenous People’s day many of us have the last BBQs. Keen gardeners order bulbs or add them to beds. I’ll plant my haul of tulip bulbs dug up from Massachusetts Horticultural Elm Bank gardens, a member perk, in May. Among them, to deter the squirrels and bunnies, I plant the garlic bulbs I get from independent farmers at MassHort’s Elm Bank New England Flower Show starting in September. These bulbs produce the tastiest, biggest and best storage garlic. I weave narcissi among the tulips to create a second buffer zone against furry foes with thorny stems from pruned roses. Once tulips emerge in spring, I put wire cloches over them until the flowers bud.
I’ll buy handmade pots at that Flower Show and perhaps eat my last lobster roll of the season.
The next stop is Halloween, pumpkin-carving and perhaps a chance to save some seed for planting next year. Afterward, place pumpkins in your compost or the food recycling bins at the Needham Recycling and Transfer Station.
Veterans Day on Nov. 11 may find me volunteering at one of the gardens at veterans’ hospitals across Boston. Last time, I visited the Bedford hospital where we worked in a large greenhouse. Many veterans are mentally and/or physically incapacitated from war. There are victims of the Agent Orange herbicide we sprayed tons of over Vietnam. Winds carried the lethal toxins, causing serious illness and killing more than 300,000 U.S. troops, according to the North Dakota Department of Veterans Affairs. That’s almost five times as many as those who died in combat. A further 3.8-million suffer ailments from Agent Orange ranging from skin diseases to cancers, diabetes, Parkinson’s, cardiac illnesses and more. The men at the Bedford Hospital gardened with such tenderness.
Gardens, including the Royal Chelsea Flower Show in London, are nowadays often attached to hospitals as deliberate therapeutic devices. The Royal Chelsea Hospital has, since 1692, been a home and hospital for war veterans and first hosted the flower show in 1913.
Richard Thompson, past president of Britain’s Royal College of Physicians, noted that “Exposure to plants and green space, and particularly to gardening, is beneficial to mental and physical health … Health professionals should … encourage their patients … to work in gardens and should pressure local authorities to increase open spaces and the number of trees … to counteract air pollution and climate change.” He mentioned various global studies that show working in the garden creates positive EEG results, reduces stress, fear, anger and sadness, lowers blood pressure, pulse rate and muscle tension. “Views of plants and trees from post-operative wards improved the mood of patients, and reduced analgesic use, surgical complications and length of stay.” After having a brain tumor removed, a friend of mine was placed in a room with a view of the tree-lined Charles River at Mass General.
By November, I apply a light scatter of leaves over my beds to create a winter mulch for plants and a home for insects. The rest of the piles I place in my compost bin; sometimes when snow is deep on the ground the heat coming off that bin is enough to warm your hands.
I scatter winter rye or hairy vetch seeds over beds to create green manure. In late spring, I rake it under or pull it out and make compost tea with the leaves; by then, it has created deep nitrogen pathways in the soil.
Thanksgiving may be the best-named holiday. An attitude of gratitude has considerable health benefits, including reducing that stress accelerator and cancer feeder: cortisol. It improves sleep and cardiovascular fitness and produces better outcomes in the ailing. I get through challenging times by each night, before I sleep, giving thanks for six things that day. They may be as small as the fact that there was sun, or rain, or that I have enough to eat, or a roof over my head; it may be that kind stranger who smiled and said hello. Thank you are important words; use them often.
Needham’s Community Council, police station and library have boxes in their foyers to collect donations for the less fortunate. Thanksgiving is a good time to share.
The last stop before winter is the brightest. Ancient people commemorated autumn’s end with harvest festivals and the bringing of light into the darker season. In my home, we celebrate what I call the three festivals of light starting with Diwali; the Hindu, Sikh, Jain and Buddhist festival of light, which is on Nov. 8 this year. I light small clay lamps to symbolize light over darkness, good over evil. The next festival of light is Hannukah, which this year will be Dec. 2, the day after World AIDs Day. I once counseled those newly diagnosed with HIV and did a lot of reporting about the disease. On that day I celebrate the many wonderful people I know with HIV, who now live long happy lives, thanks to science.
I make a butternut kugel for Hannukah and also begin wreath-making. I create an environmentally-friendly Christmas wreath with pods, cones, autumn leaves and flowers — check back with the Observer for a how-to later this year.
Traditionally, we erect and decorate our paper-tree on Dec. 12, drink eggnog, eat fruit mince pies and play Christmas carols. Tall white amaryllis bought through my garden club decorate my home. I love Christmas cooking; I mix traditional with the new.
The journey is over, and yet we find we’re already making plans. Paraphrasing the 6th century Roman stoic Seneca: Every end is a new beginning.
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