Morning Minute: Monday, July 1, 2019

News About Town: Planning your Fourth? Matthews is holding the annual Fun Family 4th of July, starting with the People's Parade at 5:30 at Town Hall and wrapping up in Stumptown Park with music by Too Much Sylvia. Participate in the parade by bike, scooter, wagon, or walking, and make your way over to Stumptown Park for food trucks and music. Bust out your fave festive garb for this event! The food trucks will arrive at 5, so if you skip the parade you just might also get to skip the long lines. July 4, 5 pm - 9 pm at Stumptown Park; parade starting at Town Hall at 5:30 pm.

News Around Town: Renfrow's is closed for a family vacation this week through July 9. If you're in need of tomato plants and chicken food, you’ll have to make other plans. The store will reopen July 10 and they expect to have the first of Renfrow Farms tomatoes for sale. Get your Dukes and Wonderbread ready.

One Fun Thing: If you're one to wake up early on a holiday and hop on a bike for 52 miles, then we've got just the thing for you: Mojo Cycles' (105 W Charles St, Matthews) annual Independence Day ride. Head out from Mojo Cycles at 8 am for a 52- or 30-mile loop and end up back at the bike shop for grilled hot-dogs and beverages of your choice. If you go for the 52-miler, you'll stop at Polk Mountain Store in Unionville for snacks, shade, and cold drinks. A police escort will help the group get across 74 safely. Registration is free.

Matthews Community Farmers' Market: Putting the Community in the Farmers' Market

Open year-round on Saturdays (rain or shine), the Matthews Community Farmers’ Market kicks off its 28th year this Saturday. Originally a tailgate market open in spring and summer, the market eventually expanded into winter hours. With the spring schedule in full-effect, the market will be open from 8 a.m. to noon until late fall.

To kick off the season the market has Chef Jamie Lynch (of 5Church and Top-Chef fame) booked to provide a cooking demo. Chef Lynch will make something decidedly mind-blowing with ingredients sourced at the market prior to his demo. Riley Nelson will provide a musical backdrop of ukulele and guitar throughout the morning. Come with an empty belly and grab an Austro-Hungarian breakfast pretzel from the ever-popular StrudelTieg food truck.

Because everything is grown, raised, or made within 50 miles of Matthews, (the exception is fish, which is caught off the North Carolina coast by the fisherman selling it), you won’t see baskets of bananas or avocados. Everything is in season and fresh from the farm, often harvested a few short hours before you buy it.

It’s a little easier to know what’s in-season if you garden, but for those of you who enjoy eating more than digging, here’s a general idea for spring crops:

Leafy greens including lettuce, spinach, endive, arugula, and mizuna; root vegetables such as beets, carrots, radishes, and turnips; cole crops such as cabbage, broccoli (and broccoli raab), kale, collards, and cauliflower; some peas and beans—think edamame and sugar snaps; leeks, green onions, and fennel also make an appearance; growers with a greenhouse might even have a few tomatoes at their stands.

There will be plenty of free-range chicken eggs, meats (including lamb), as well as cow’s milk and goat’s milk cheeses, and cultured butter. If you’re suffering from the sniffles, put some local honey on your shopping list.

If you’re a gardener, plan out your plots. The market farmers offer plenty of transplants, some Certified Organic, to start your garden, including tomatoes, edible herbs, and soil-building comfrey. Windcrest Farm, one of the first farmers in the area to grow turmeric and ginger, will have “seed” to start your own. Save room in your home garden for a rhizome colony of both Hawaiian Red and Indira Yellow turmeric.

Make sure to budget a little extra for the locally made handmade goods. Have you been admiring the bee sculpture at the Country Place pocket Park? Artist Amy Hart will have her colorful, garden-centric sculptures for sale. Madison Woodworks will have an array of hand-carved spoons and bowls that are functional works of art.

This Saturday, grab your reusable totes, a wallet filled with cash (many vendors accept cards but cash saves them the processing fee), and put on comfy shoes. Even if you’re not shopping, you’re bound to see some familiar faces. The conversation will be good, and the veggies will be even better.

How to Read a Garden

On a rainy afternoon just like this one, I ran across this quote from the Roman Stoic philosopher Cicero.

“If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need.”

Being both a gardener and a writer, as well as a librarian in a past life, I fully agree with this sentiment. Being also a bit of a skeptic when it comes to internet quotes, I did a little research into these words. The general agreement is that Cicero did write these words in a letter to a friend. The literal translation is, “If you have a garden in your library, you have everything you need”. Many, if not most, homes of wealthier Romans had inner outdoor courtyards with a garden. So in this context, the literal translation may be the correct one.  

In my case, the literal translation may also be the more apt one. Most of my Life has been spent with books and gardens. Even my career has revolved around the the worlds of plants and words. They have informed each other, shaped how I see the world, and helped make me who I am today.

Gardens and libraries are both repositories of information. The written, spoken, and filmed words you find in today’s libraries bring the world’s knowledge to anywhere there are people seeking to learn. A garden brings the experiential version of much of that knowledge. Let’s call it an interactive library of science and art. So the two concepts support one another. You may experience some natural or man-made phenomena in a garden, and go to the library to find out about it. Or you may read about/hear about/see some amazing garden at the library, and then go and see it or try to recreate that effect. However the approach, the effect will be some wisdom gained.

And knowledge gained and applied, multiplied by the experience of using that knowledge, is in fact, a type of wealth. The designer and philosopher Buckminster Fuller offered this idea as a definition of wealth. We are always learning more and experiencing more. As we apply this knowledge and experience to our lives through our actions, we become more wealthy.

That’s certainly been my experience. Through my time spent in libraries and gardens, I have learned how to feed myself by growing, cooking, and eating lots of fresh food, how to heal myself by growing and using all kinds of vegetables, herbs, and flowers, how to construct shelters using plants and soil, how to provide money for myself by growing food/flower/fuel/fiber plants for others, and how to heal local and planetary environments by growing/planting/using plants. The biological processes alone could keep you busy learning, teaching, and doing your entire life!

Add to that the artistic and spiritual knowledge and experience you’ll find in a garden. I often say that gardens don't just feed our bodies; they feed our souls as well. We’ve all experienced the restful coolness of a forested garden. The riot of color in most flower gardens stimulates us and lifts our spirits. As we gain the confidence to create our own gardens, we have the opportunity to indulge our inner artist. Our creative nature is engaged, and new parts of the brain may even be activated.

Just as a well-loved book will have worn, stained pages, a well-loved garden will have worn paths to certain areas, often stained with the blood, sweat and tears of the gardener. Special sections of both books and gardens will be easy to find. That's where the most attention goes. Follow the most often used trail in any garden to see what the gardener enjoys most. Find the most dog-earred pages in a book to discovered the most treasured passages. In either case, the  knowledge is where the wealth is, because that’s where the Love is.

Remember to enjoy your garden (and your library), because THAT’S what makes you a successful gardener.

What to plant now

Our regular Friday contributor, Jeff Rieves, is feeling under the weather. He’ll be back next week, but if you’re feeling the urge to plant something there are definitely good options for sowing this weekend.

Our first frost is typically late October, so we’re getting to the planting point where you’ll need to direct sow things with a shorter maturation length. It’s time to direct sow seeds for root veggies such as radishes, and carrots, as well as leafy tender greens such as spinach, and lettuce.

You’ll be safer starting with transplants of veggies that take a little longer to fully mature. Transplant broccoli, collards and hardier leafy greens. Separate bulbs from heads of garlic and plant individual bulbs with several inches of room around each. Onion sets, actually immature bulbs you “set out”, go into the ground now, too. An added bonus of growing collards and kale? With all the mature trees in Matthews, a lot of yards are shady. The broadleaf crops have better ability to absorb the sun in shadier conditions, making them a great crop for this area!

Need a good source for your future food? Our advertiser Renfrow’s (188 North Trade St. Matthews) has a complete selection, and maybe Jeff Rieves will be there to help you pick out what will work best for you.