Such Thing as a Free Lunch
Sometimes the best garden are the ones that grow themselves
“Birds fly under your chair. In spring, when the leaves open in the maples’ crowns, your view stops in the treetops just beyond the desk; yellow warblers hiss and whisper on the high twigs, and catch flies. Get to work. Your work is to keep cranking the flywheel that turns the gears that spin the belt in the engine of belief that keeps you and your desk in midair.”
— Annie Dillard, The Writing Life
Stick around until the end to hear about the sewing, embroidery, and craft classes I’m offering in New England this summer, including a lovely craft retreat on an island in Lake Winnipesaukee!
The bees are eating the wood of the soffit behind me, a constant chewing and scraping and light crackle. They come back every year despite the brutal time when, a fit of acquiescence, I evicted them via a spray my landlord asked me to use. I had to listen to them snuffed out over several days. I was miserable about it for weeks and the garden suffered. Now we live like roommates. I leave water out for them on hot days, and they pollinate my vegetables and drink from the hummingbird feeders. I sweep the sawdust up where it falls.
This year, I have bought nothing for my garden other than a ball of twine. Even the bee well is an old dish with some broken terracotta shards piled on top. Most winters I buy seeds like I could purchase my dreams coming true. In a special notebook, I plan out ambitious beds of plants that mingle well, maximizing space and sun. It always left me mildly stressed out: timing the start of seedlings in hot-bottomed trays with their little lamp, calculating the last frost. Being self-satisfied when the garden comes into its own in August is the major reward of doing it all yourself. Much harder to enjoy either the process and the space in this method.
These efforts left me with a stockpile of seeds, since I always bought more than I could possibly plant on my deck garden. I tend to have outlandish horticultural taste for a New England second floor terrace—I typically grow anywhere from 50 to 60 types of plants across 20 containers, from fig and lemon trees to herb beds I overwinter and perennials that fill the garden early when nothing else is blooming. Like most gardeners, I have a certain vanity about being able to make things grow, though the seeds do the hardest work. I plant densely and weed aggressively. I’ve always got dirt under my fingernails. I love to spend a whole Saturday with my hands in the compost delivered by the folks who picked up my table scraps each week. I love thinking about soil composition and the time tables of sowing and harvesting.
Last year I did none of that. The compost service closed up shop, and now I put my scraps in the trash. I spent my fall and winter and spring helping my husband as his father fought cancer, and then I had an unexpected business trip to Greece, and from the airport I went to the hospice. Just a few weeks later, I went to Italy with my family to visit where my nonna was born and my nonno learned to be a tailor, a trip rescheduled from spring 2020. It was an emotional hothouse that left no space for other things. It was enormous then and still feels enormous now. When June came, and I could sit in the garden, which had been to its own devices, it was somehow still full of flowers and food. In the lull, an all-volunteer garden had emerged, full of overwintered thyme and stray tomatoes and chives, peas that had fallen from fall’s dry husks when I didn’t bother to take anything down. The buckwheat that each year builds us a shade-wall along the trellis came up more densely even than I would have planted it. I gave in to enjoying it. I planted radishes for the dog, and called it a year. I was very grateful, and we ate well.
This year, I have no big plans, though I will likely buy a tomato or two and some nasturtiums, which are delicious and my favorite. Even the strawberries are fruiting without my help or any new additions. I direct-sowed radishes and peas and lettuce, easy and accessible, mostly for the dog. There are two fat fruits on the sunburned Chicago figs I moved outside a few weeks ago, and new leaves are coming in. Instead of setting out seedlings, I set myself outside in the sun to sew or write. I putter. Slowly I am repotting neglected houseplants, which bore the brunt of several hard years of emotional neglect. (If you ever wonder how I am doing, look at the state of my house plants. They are incapable of lying, and I am incapable of watering them unless all is well.)
Lots of things changed for me in the past few years, which were filled with a scale of loss I find rather difficult to communicate in the jazzy format of a newsletter. I attended a lot of funerals. Those aren’t the parts of life I consider my usual beat, but that experience has changed me profoundly, as well as shifted my priorities. I am much more inclined to let the people (and places) I have invested love in take care of me. And maintaining those connections, getting out of my house to visit and meet new people and travel, feels more important than making sure I map and plan every inch of garden real estate, at least for now. These things go in cycles, I know. Sometimes life is a whirling dervish of thread and dirt and chatter. Sometimes it’s the quiet, and the trees.
The garden now is full of seeds I scattered over the course of May and did not bother label. We’ll see how they bloom when they come up. Maybe I’ll know who they are, and maybe I won’t. Some are sure to bust, but I am sick of saving seeds just to save them. There's a fledgling nuthatch that likes to sing on the butcher twine and bamboo trellis I made, and steal my peas as I plant them, but he can have them. The trellis is just sticks and string, but it’s useful. Before the plants sprouted, I used them to air out quilts. An old coat rack holds up the hummingbird feeder. My laundry flaps in the wind like a profoundly weird and colorful garland. The porch is getting used for working and drinking and lounging and hemming. It’s a whole room added to my house in open window weather, and I barely close the door until the frost comes in the fall.
Each morning I take my coffee and weed the container beds for a few minutes. The dog gets a crust of dirt on his nose and I scold him for rooting around, since he’s not allowed to pick radishes or lettuce himself. Last week I made myself a whole salad of arugula and Tom Thumb lettuce and radishes and bloody dock and pea sprouts and mizuna. Bosco got several whole radishes, tops included, and the thinnings from the carrot bed. The birds got sunflower seeds and the squirrels got what was left. Out in the woods behind the house, I could hear the foxes barking and the owls hunting, the spring peepers singing, the deer rustling through with fawns and fluffy white tails. I get to drink my coffee in a neighborhood coffeeshop frequented by a lot of birdsong where I am the only human patron (and the barista too.)
For my 30th birthday, I spent it quiet and lovely, isolating out in Maine thanks to COVID, making a dress no one saw me wear. To make it special, my husband bought me a lemon tree in a beautiful green pot, which I adored. I made tarts at Christmas with its lemons, until a particularly hard winter of neglect and aphids killed it. This year, with the tomatoes and nasturtiums, maybe I’ll buy a small lemon tree to replace it. Call it a fit of optimism. It will make the bees happy, and it will make me happy. When my friends come over to celebrate my 35th birthday with me this week, I’ll wear something new I made, and I’ll set the table with radishes from the dog’s favorite patch, and I’ll tell everyone just how much I love them for coming to the garden.
Classes
I am offering a bunch of sewing and craft classes this summer in the New England area. If you’re local to Boston and have suggestions for places that might host classes, let me know! I’m also working on places to teach downtown, in Somerville, and in Cambridge. I might even be able to teach some kids classes! My classes are for beginners with a limited intermediate class at the moment, depending on the class description. For the beginners, there’s no sewing machine or prior experience required so come try out this wonderful skill for yourself and meet some cool people. They’re not listed on my website yet, so the newsletter gets first dibs! Most of my classes sold out last time, so if you have an eye on something, definitely jump in.
Summer Sewing Series - June, July, August, Ipswich, MA
All summer I’m back at the wonderful Labor in Vain studio to teach a wide array of sewing classes, plus some open studios that give you access to the space and time to work on whatever you have unfinished (or unstarted.) You can find a full list of classes, their dates, and their descriptions on the Labor in Vain website. If you’re coming from Boston, the studio is a 7 minute walk from the commuter rail station, and the downtown is a cute mix of restaurants, antique shops, and landmarks for a fun day trip. (Plus the ice cream best clams, lobster rolls, and more are just 15 minutes way!)
Classes include: Sewing 101: Machine Basics, Sewing 102: Patterns and Pillowcases, Monogram Chain Stitching, Sew-Along: Make a Tee Shirt, Hand Sewing Basics, Visible + Functional Mending, and Open Sewing Studio Sessions
Intro to Hand Sewing, September 15 - 18 in Meredith, NH. Join me for a three day handsewing workshop on Lake Winnipesaukee for Creators Week on Three Mile Island. This incredible location is a beautiful island escape in the heart of New England. Classes will focus on hand sewing skills and we’ll complete a t-shirt with embroidered monogram, entirely hand sewn. No prior skills required, just an interest in the skills. You’ll also have a chance to explore some of the other skills offered through Creators Week, including basketweaving, crochet, and watercolors. Slow down and enjoy a few days where meals are take care of and down time is yours to swim, read by the fire, or explore the island.
This retreat workshop on the lake is the thing I am hands-down most excited about. I’d be honored for folks to join me in this beautiful place to learn. Please feel free to ask if you have questions!
Phenology1 Lately: Late blooming lilacs so powerful they give you a headache when you walk by, honeywort holding perfect spheres of dew at 6 am, the soft orchestra of birds, bugs and frogs that now leaks into the window 24/7, new soft grass on bare feet, the growing temptation to jump into the lake, the green fat mulberries that the whole neighborhood of creatures, including myself, are waiting to ripen and drop.
Wearing Lately: An infinite parade of FLAX separates from e-bay, including a very full pair of yellow shorts, a loud pink and red pair of Kate Spade trousers, a knit tank top by Alejandra Oliva, beloved friend, a set of vintage coveralls purchased at the Forestbound Keepsake pop up, gingham sundress and black voile chemise a la reine that blessedly still fit, a linen-vicose wrap shirt covered in a trendy cheese-wine-and-tomato print I made from someone’s offcut, a million pairs of inescapable bike shorts and sports bras as I get into lifting and yoga.
Reading Lately: Is a River Alive by Robert MacFarlane, Abundance by Ezra Klein & Derek Thompson, Orion Magazine Spring 2025 Queer Ecologies, Orion Summer 2025 The Future is Fungi, The High Dive by Chelsea Fagan, Craeft by Alexander Langlands, All of the Lord of the Rings, Lux Magazine No 13 Spring 2025, Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead by Olga Tokarczuk, The New Key to Weaving by Mary Black, No Shortcuts: Organizing for Power in the New Gilded Age by Jane McAlevey
Phenology, also known as observational biology, is “the study of periodic events in biological life cycles and how these are influenced by seasonal and interannual variations in climate…Examples include the date of emergence of leaves and flowers, the first flight of butterflies, the first appearance of migratory birds, the date of leaf coloring and fall in deciduous trees…” Thank you, Wikipedia. The transcendentalists loved the practice, and folks who know me from Twitter will know that the Morning Report started as brief, daily phenological reports.