I keep a picture on my desk of Bell Rock in Sedona Arizona because of what it represents to me. A female friend and I traveled to Sedona more than a decade ago. We wanted to climb Bell Rock , we were hikers and rock climbers in those B.C. (before child) years. Try as we might, we couldn't even get onto the wide skirt of the rock...every path ended in a drop off or rubble. Yet we could see other people far above us, people who weren't even wearing good rock boots, who were managing to climb the rock. For two days we tried, and for two days we failed. The third day I suggested that we start with a meditation. When we finished opening ourselves to higher energy...we could see stairways in the rock. We easily danced up all the way to the very top where most people never climb, and down again in just two hours, half the normal climbing time. We felt such a feeling of accomplishment. A man stopped us, and asked if we had been the two women he had seen up there. He said that he lived in Sedona, had in fact moved there so that he could hike and climb the rock every day. But he had never seen anyone go where we had gone..he wondered how we had done it. We looked at each other and laughed, then told him that "we took the stairs". And so I keep the picture where I can see it, both to remind myself to ask for help, but also as a reminder to always look for the stairs.
So faced with a six year cycle I "looked for the stairs". I remembered that I had read in "The Four-Season Garden" that the first European settlers had a tough time with their gardens. The light was stronger in the new world and the nights were warmer. They had to adapt their seeds over a decade to the new climate. The same was true for the settlers in Virginia, one of the reasons that Jefferson's work at Monticello developing new plant strains and experimenting with new crops was so important. So it stood to reason that European strains would be adapted to lower light levels and cooler nights. Indeed, my best winter squash this year is the French 'Cinderella" pumpkin. It's a bit amusing, similar to the Jerusalem artichokes that I could only find in the U.K., that the pumpkin had to travel "over the pond" and back again to be locally adapted. Taking this trend a step further, I have purchased European seeds for my next garden. I purchase seeds all year around, because I'm more likely to get the strains that I want to experiment with.
At Cook's Garden I found the seeds I was searching for. They really have a terrific European selection. I purchased Violetta Lunga Precoce , an Italian eggplant....what a great name, huh?
I also bought Teton spinach, tromboncino summer
squash,pictured at the right (with, I guess, a serving suggestion), Blue Solaise Leeks and Filet Triumphe de Farcey bush beans. I also bought Melon Charentais, a french heirloom melon which is not related to the musk melon varieties that we typically grow in the States. I did not by any means purchase all of the European varieties featured at Cook's. For instance, I don't care for arugula. Silly I know, but as I recently found myself wondering why I had planted cabbage when my family would have preferred a double spacing of carrots...well. I'm not planting arugula. Or cabbage again. And the summer squash Ronde de Nice looked appetizing but small. I tried to picture grilling a zucchini shaped like an egg and failed.
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