gardening

What is your very favorite bookstore of all time?

Written on July 27, 2011 at 10:03 am
By Rebecca Christian

What is your very favorite bookstore of all time? The closing of Borders last week reminded me of mine, and of how sad I was when it closed in 1992. Here is what I wrote about it in a column for the Telegraph Herald in Dubuque, Iowa, at that time:

It was a big event in our small world when we found out last week that Small World Bookstore was closing. It was a little beacon of peace and light in a television world. The best children’s book store I’ve ever been in, Small World crammed plenty into a tiny space: It had plump pillows to plop down on and a potpourri of books, toys, puzzles, games and cards selected with taste, an awareness of social justice issues and a sense of whimsy. Perhaps must importantly, the unhurried people who worked there knew books and cared about kids. The shop’s logo — “A bookstore of discovery for children and the people who care for them” — was no hype. The store was giving MTV and Nintendo a run for their money; that wasn’t the problem.

In a remarkable and moving letter sent to the store’s regular customers in February, owner Judy Essman explained, ‘Some of you may remember that in 1990 I was treated for breast cancer. The treatments were thorough, and 1991 was a year of vigor for me and Small World Books. This year brings the unfortunate news that the cancer has returned  and will slow me down considerably as I embark on new treatment. Because I need to conserve energy and turn to more relaxing activities, I will retire from the bookstore business.

“We have loved hosting your birthday parties, doing book talks for your mothers’ groups and classrooms, bringing in special entertainers and authors, and daily answering your questions about books for children.” Judy went on to tell about employees’ future plans and her own: “I will study seed catalogs in preparation for this summer’s garden, weave on my long-ignored loom, and spend more time with friends over tea.”

Ever the bibliophile, she concluded by suggesting books that help explain illness to children, and added, “When you see me in the store or in the community, don’t be afraid. Having cancer is not the end of the world. In fact, it can bring about changes that enhance our lives. Please let your children know that it is fine to ask me how I am feeling. Their direction questions and honest statements are breaths of fresh air!”

I remember seeing Judy with her head wrapped in brightly colored scarves when our family started shopping in Small World a couple of years ago. It crossed my mind then that she may have been through chemotherapy; but on Judy — tall, slim, elegant, coolly intelligent — the scarves seemed more a matter of style.

I caught up with her recently and told her with what deep regret I went to her close-out sale. I wasn’t the only one. Judy’s mailbox has been full of love. Customers young and old, some of whom barely knew her and some of whom are living with cancer themselves, wrote to tell her what the shop has meant to them and to wish her well.

Judy is less inclined to mourn the shop’s closing than she is to celebrate the joys it has brought her these last three years. Chief among them was the knowledge that she could run a business according to her principles and still succeed commercially. “I knew from the beginning I wanted a multicultural, multiracial, nonsexist store, and that I wanted to be small scale in how I used resources. We used donated bags and didn’t print anything we didn’t have to. During the war in the Gulf I talked about peace-making and conflict resolution in our newsletter. People responded because it really is a small world, and we really need to know each other.”

What about those life-enhancing changes cancer has brought her? There are many. She and husband Ray Makeever are closer than ever before, and despite having lost a breast, Judy says she feels more womanly, and more proud of being a woman, than she ever has. She’s physically braver, too, as she learned this past fall on a solo hike she took on a strenuous trail in the Cascade Mountains. “I do think by having to look death in the face I have become more willing to take risks. I decided I would rather die on the trail with a broken ankle or from an encounter with a bear than to miss seeing the top of the mountain.”

And most of all, she has realized how many people she matters to. “I have absolutely been surrounded by love and concern,” she says.

Ernest Hemingway’s definition of courage as “grace under pressure” means more to me now that I have seen the example of Judy Essman’s uncommon grace.

An Intriguing New Book: Fifty Plants That Changed the Course of History

Written on July 15, 2011 at 11:05 am
By Rebecca Christian

In each of the world’s some 300,000 types of flowering pants is the seed of a story. That’s what makes Bill Laws’ new book, Fifth Plants That Changed the Course of History, so intriguing.

Of course we all learned in school how Eli Whitney and the cotton gin prompted the Industrial Revolution, but Laws goes deeper, weaving together vines of economic, political, and industrial history, to show how cotton was not only a mainstay of the slave trade and  the first domino to fall in the  Civil War but also eventually became a part of pop culture as an ingredient in ice cream, propellants for fireworks, and chewing gum. He brings literature in, too, with a quote from poet William Blake about “the dark, satanic mills” of Britain when that country imported cotton from India and began manufacturing it.

The term “Luddite,” today used to mean someone who scorns technology, also comes from cotton manufacturing. Ned Ludd was an apprentice cotton weaver who took umbrage against the mechanization of cotton making, leading protestors who dropped clogs — wooden shoes — into the maws of the machines,  thus literally clogging up the works.

Laws also examines the way fads and fashions influence the use of plants. For example, a 19th-century fashion for eating white rice with the bran removed contributed to an increase of beriberi in Asia; Laws writes that “Beriberi” is Sinhalese for “I cannot, I cannot,” and refers to the paralyzing effects of a deficiency of thiamine and other vitamins and minerals.” (I think I will chant “I can’t, I can’t,” the next time I am overcome with lassitude.)

I, for one, didn’t know that eucalyptus is used in making underwear, that the Declaration of Independence was written on hemp, or that coconut was used for sterile IV drips for the wounded during World War II. If you like this sort of thing, you might also like a great little quarterly magazine called Heirloom Gardener (http://rareseeds.com/magazine). The summer issue has an article on strange and wonderful heirloom veggies you can grow, like “Dragon Tongue” beans that look as if they were grown at Hogwarts, and Cucuzzi, which “produces huge light green fruit resembling elephant’s tusks, up to five feet long when mature.” It also has an excellent article on the Paul Robeson Tomato, a gorgeous deep bronzy-purplish tomato named for the famed African American singer, Civil Rights activist, lawyer, and movie star.

Paul Robeson

Outdoor Pet Beds

Written on March 15, 2011 at 12:42 pm
By Rebecca Christian

Would you like your pooch to keep your company in style while you’re deadheading, weeding, or just relaxing with a lemonade and a book?  Now he can do so at poolside or patio in style with pretty outdoor pet beds in weather resistant materials. (I just wish my insane Boston terrier would quit digging holes long enough to chill like this handsome fellow.)

The pet beds, from Up Country, are lightweight, fold or roll easily, and also work well in the crate or the car. Prices ange from $54 to $90 (upcountryinc.com). Patterns include polka dots, stripes and prints, like these two:

Charming, old-timey garden book

Written on August 2, 2010 at 3:26 pm
By Rebecca Christian

A few weeks ago, a dear lady with the you-couldn’t-make-it-up name of Melba Tingle gave me some time-honored advice passed down from her grandmother: save your banana peels, cut them up, and sprinkle them at the base of your rose bushes. Fast-forward to today. I took Melba’s advice, and not only am I brimming with potassium, but also my Knock Out roses are truly knocking me out. Maybe it’s the anti-fungal spray. Maybe it’s faithful watering. Maybe it’s the fertilizer pellets from Earl May. Maybe it’s the innate hardiness of the Knock Outs. But I prefer to think it’s the banana peels, don’t you?

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Are You Going to Scarborough Fair? All About Edible Herbs

Written on July 6, 2010 at 10:08 am
By Rebecca Christian

I wish I liked to weed as much as I like to read; it would improve my garden much more than reading about gardening, which I’ve been doing lately thanks to several books that have floated into my ken.

One is The Beginner’s Guide to Edible Herbs: 26 Herbs Everyone Should Grow & Enjoy. Bit sweeping, that subtitle–I suspect Paris Hilton would rather prance around with her dressed-up chihuahua than transplant hyssop after all danger of frost has passed. Still,  one prefers an excess of enthusiasm in a writer to the drear of a dutiful tone, and  Charles W.G. Smith is nothing if not enthusiastic about herbs. “Experiment!” he enjoins herb growers who might feel timid about branching out beyond basil and parsley for pesto, “You’ll be amazed by the pesto possibilities!”

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Sun-loving Impatiens

Written on June 10, 2010 at 4:49 pm
By Rebecca Christian

Yes,  you read that headline right. Impatiens with their whimsical names — Busy Lizzie and Patient Lucy — have long been known as sturdy shade-lovers that bring brilliant color to yards that are so sun-deprived they’re hopeless for just about anything else but hostas. Often you’ll see impatiens planted in a gay ring around the base of a beautiful old tree or in mass plantings, providing a carpet of color on the grounds of corporations.

Now Sakata has come out with SunPatiens, which the company bills as something new under the sun. These hardy little plants will root in two weeks versus the usual four. SunPatiens will thrive even in the most brutal sun and keep right on coloring your world until hard frost. If you neglect them and let them get parched, they may look half-dead, but just revive ‘em with a pint, as the Irish say — though of water, not of ale. They’ll perk up right away. You can get the spreading type, like this:

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