Studebaker: "memoirs of my grandmother" 🌿 Figbeard's Fruit Tree Jamboree 🌿 mushroom leather 🌿

NURSERY NOTES: Join Figbeard tomorrow (May 17) at Nava Farms for Fruit Tree Jamboree, an irresistible mix of fruit trees, baby goats, music by Don't Messa with Vanessa, and a tree talk by Figbeard. 9 am - noon 4708 E. Highway 71 in Del Valle. Tickets: $25. (Kids 12 and under free) 🌿

Join a healing garden workday at Sunset Valley Community Garden, Sunday (May 18), 10 - 11 a.m. You will learn all about ancient Aztec chinampas farming practices, and will create your own garden ollas — a historic form of irrigation. It will end with a water ceremony. facebook event details 🌿

Join the folks at VRDNT Farm on Sunday (May 18) from 10 - noon for a Flower Bouquet Building Workshop. Harvest your own flowers, and then create your own beautiful bouquet. $40. Verdant ❦

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MUSHROOM LEATHER: "Vegan alternatives to leather could save more than just animals. The scientists behind fashion’s new latest must-have – the 'mushroom leather' handbag – believe that mycelium, a material grown from fungi which can be engineered to look and feel like calfskin or sheepskin, could help save the planet." The Guardian ❦

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photo: Renee Studebaker

Memoirs of my Grandmother

by Renee Studebaker

My front yard garden is aglow in shades of orange and yellow, with a few pops of red, blue and purple. (see photo above)

Black-eyed Susans, calendula, cosmos, gomphrena and zexmenia are the standouts at the moment, but a few lingering larkspur are holding up their end of the color wheel for a while longer until the African blue basil is ready to take over.

The borage is blooming too, but its tiny blue blooms are almost hidden by its big fuzzy leaves. Showy purple coneflower blooms will be coming next. And blanket flowers too.

This joyful mess of May flowers always makes me think of my grandmother, Esther, whose love of gardening rubbed off on me at an early age. Esther was by no means a perfect role model in the garden.

She was a small-town farmer who used to hang dead snakes on her garden fence to bring rain. She also spread broken egg shells around her tomato plants to add calcium to the soil.

Of course, those kinds of folksy gardening superstitions and myths make most modern day gardeners (including me) cringe because we’re trying to incorporate more science-based advice into our gardening practices.

That said, there are some bits of garden wisdom I picked up from my grandmother that have stood the test of time and science. In particular, her advice that no matter how old you are (or how old you feel), don’t stop gardening.

In her later years, my grandmother liked to say that gardening gave her a good reason to get out of bed every morning. She especially liked to say that in response to anyone who questioned whether she might be too old to garden.

Now that I’m old (ok, oldish), and semi-retired, I totally get what she was saying, and I wish she were still living so I could tell her how right she was.

A recent study found that the brains of subjects in their 70s showed significant cognitive improvement (indicated by neural growth and synaptic plasticity) after just 20 minutes of light to moderate gardening.

It seems that the judgement, problem solving and critical thinking that is routinely required while working in a garden give the brain a workout, with one of the big payoffs being improved memory.

My grandmother was proof of this finding. By age 92, she had slowed down considerably, but she could still think clearly, and she could still do a little work almost every day in her garden.

On one Sunday in late September, she harvested two big heavy pumpkins from her vegetable garden. Family members who came for a visit later that day marveled at the size of the pumpkins she had carried inside by herself. Then they all sat down to play 42, my grandmother's favorite domino game.

She won two out of three games, which did not surprise the much younger family members she was competing against. They were used to her winning whenever she played dominoes. Later that night, after a day full of family, gardening and dominoes, she died quietly in her sleep. The absolute best way to go.

A few days ago, as I was deadheading calendula so I could save the seeds, I thought of another bit of gardening wisdom I picked up from my grandmother: No matter what kind of garden you’re growing, always plant flowers. A lot of flowers.

So I love it that those brightly blooming flower jungles she adored so much have also been validated by science. Numerous studies have shown that a diverse mix of vegetables, herbs and flowers increases crop yield, pollinators, weed suppression and pest suppression.

In addition, a diverse community of plants increases the growth and activity of mycorrhizal fungi, which results in healthier plants and soil.

So what’s the takeaway from all this? The next time you’re feeling a little tired and achy, go out and work in your garden anyway, even if it’s just for 20 minutes. And while you’re out there, plant more flowers. ❦

(Find more info on the benefits of gardening in this National Institutes on Health article: NIH)

Longtime Austin gardener and writer Renee Studebaker is a retired newspaper journalist who now teaches children how to grow and cook vegetables.

This article is a reprint. It first appeared in the May 2021 issue of the Austin Garden.