The Dirt on Nicky

How many, how much, and who’s counting?

Somebody with a hydrogen counter claimed there are billions of water molecules in one drop of H₂O which means a heaping large dose of hydrogen atoms. Gardeners think about things like that when they water their gardens. They also perform rain dances in hopes H₂O falling from above picks up some N from the air on the way down to earth. That’s a good thing. Gardeners like N.

Word is from a backyard on a clear night without obstruction or light obfuscation, a gardener can see maybe 6000 stars if you squint and don’t lose count midway. That’s a lot but not so many.

 Our galaxy contains as many as 400 billion stars. For reference, a billion seconds equals three years, eight months, 19 days. Our sun, one of hundreds of billions of stars nearby, has influence enough to send its light traveling at lightspeed for five hours or more to reach Pluto, the outermost known minor planet. Think about that while gardening in the light of the moon!

Another thing to ponder is the Milky Way in all its grandeur is one of maybe two trillion galaxies, depending on who’s counting. You can’t get there from here without wormholes or that guy in Back to the Future. If our universe is expanding, where is it going? I don’t know how many universes there are, but if this one goes away, that would leave plenty space for a new version.

Which makes your garden space, where you go as often as you can and work hard and daydream as often as you can, important because in the enormity of the space around us, that garden is your piece of the universe. What’s the next thing you’ll do in there?

On Easter Island, it’s almost spring, but here in the NWA part of our universe, it’s almost autumn. It’s time to get gobs of autumn/winter vegetables going. Fewer than stars in the sky but still impressive, there are maybe 3700 species of brassicas, and I have eight kinds sprouting, one for every known planet, and a fair question is why plant so many.

Why not? The mustard family has many shapes, colors and tastes to offer, so I’ll try a few. My seedlings are mostly varieties from Asia, two from Europe and one from this garden, plus tomorrow winter radishes go in, so brassicas will sing from every corner. That’s a good thing. Somebody better watch for cabbage loopers because that’s a bad thing. A pack of loopers can shred a kale plant faster than sunlight can fly to Pluto.

If you find a soft white cocoon on the underside of a leaf or beneath mulch, that might be a looper cocoon. Loopers and I are at loggerheads about their intent, so I put them on the bird feeder.

Late summer is time to plant another batch of leafy vegetables. Grow your own lettuce so you don’t have to buy it. Also mache, which is a European cool weather salad green. Chicory leaves add a slight bitterness to salads plus there are varieties with winsome red spots and streaks.

 Radicchio is a chicory which resembles a small reddish-purple cabbage head with strong white veins, and it is packed with your favorite antioxidants, minerals and vitamins. The bitter components are supposedly anti-inflammatory, so grow your own.

And early September is time for dock gui chai – the Thai name for the flower buds of garlic chive plants. They are prized for culinary use there. I once had a neighbor from Thailand who sneaked over after dark to harvest a few buds for dinner, so I learned I like them, too. Garlicky but mild. Adds sparkle to a casserole.

The last four months of the year is comprised of 10,540,800 seconds. That’s plenty time for gardeners to nurture healthy vegetables, maintain wholesome garden spaces and reaffirm that the way big universe deserves our honesty and compassion plus radicchio and mustard.