Snow, sun, seeds: five spring essays you may have missed

Plus, a complete list of all my favorite gardening resources

Hi there! You’re reading Initiation Writes, a weekly newsletter linking insights from the worlds of science, storytelling and spirituality with the notion of initiations — transformative, difficult experiences that unlock (and sometimes kick us through) new doors of creativity and awareness.

Lately, I’ve been writing and listening to so many stories from this community about the deep work of building the family that’s right for you. For some of you, this means figuring out how to freeze your eggs, considering adoption, or nursing the wounds of infertility and/or pregnancy loss. For some, this means living child-free, coming out as queer, finalizing a divorce and beginning to date, or exploring ethical non-monogamy. If this describes you, you are especially welcome here. And if you have already moved through this initiatory stage and have lessons to share… we want to hear from you in the comments!

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Invest in the millennium. Plant sequoias. Say that your main crop is the forest that you did not plant, that you will not live to harvest. Say that the leaves are harvested when they have rotted into the mold. Call that profit. Prophesy such returns. Put your faith in the two inches of humus that will build under the trees every thousand years.

— Wendell Berry, “Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front” (via

Jacqueline Suskin

)

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This month, I’ve been writing about what it has meant for me to move into co-collaboration with my garden, rather than just imposing my will upon the land. This has in turn taught me much about family-building and parenting, which are both very similar to gardening: you can bring your intention, experience, action and influence, but you are ultimately not in control of the entire affair. Or the final outcome.

As gardener Daryl Beyers writes in The New Gardener’s Handbook, the initiatory magic of gardening is this: “It’s a matter of entering the flow … linking your nature with the nature all around you.”

I know that not everyone who reads my posts has access to literal soil and sun for growing things, or is inclined to do so this year. You’re still welcome to learn from my real and metaphorical mistakes with this series, and to apply some of the story medicine on offer here to what currently hurts, as you see fit. I’ve linked all essays from this recent season of writing below, and included the full list of gardening resources cited throughout (plus a few new writing resources, because I can’t help myself). I’d love to know which ones resonated the most with you in the comments below!

A celebratory snapshot from newly-minted (get it?) gardener Chiara, a fellow educator/writer and IW reader who is growing her first tomato seedlings this spring in Beacon, NY.

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THE INITIATION WRITES GUIDE TO GARDENING

Embracing winter as a second skin

In this post, I write about the importance of resting after fresh grief. Like trees, we need to drop our leaves, re-absorbing the energy we might have sent outward, and give our roots time to re-establish ties with the outside world. We need time to simply be in nature before we start doing things in nature. And there’s still time for that. (You really don’t have to start gardening until after the last frost in May if you don’t plan to start anything from seed.)

Watching the light

Before they plant, good gardeners stop and notice where the light falls. This is a notion I returned to in grief, as I wrote about what we choose to grow (or not grow) in our lives after a loss clears the ground.

Meeting the future halfway

Gardening, like all of life, involves planning, and it also involves surrender. If we didn’t realize this before, the pandemic taught us just how precarious the work of planning can be. Now, the anniversary of lockdown will be another seasonal event that our bodies remember for years to come. During this uncertain liminal season, when sun shines one day and snow swirls the next, sometimes all we can do is attempt to meet the future halfway.

Finding salvation in seed-starting

Seeding sunflowers with my husband became my gardening mission last year, after we lost the daughter-to-be we named after a Lithuanian sun deity. In this post, I talk about how to start seeds, and why.

Learning what to plant, and when

I wasn’t always a gardener who knew how to co-collaborate with nature. I came with a lot of (faulty) ideas to my first garden, and learned from my mistakes. Now you can too! Read this one for tips on choosing plants, figuring out whether to start with seeds or seedlings, and grouping plants for soil needs.

Plus: More of your gardening questions, answered

I recently taught a workshop for RTZ Hope in which the thoughtful participants brought many useful questions about grief gardening. In this post, I share the answers I gave to them, because they’re similar to the other questions I often get from beginning gardener friends, regardless of their reason for dipping their toe (or hoe) into their first gardening forays. I discuss where to find the best gardening info, how and where to grow the easiest flowers, and the least overwhelming way for to simply begin.

I’m wishing you the very best of luck with your new beginnings this week, whatever they might be.

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Experienced gardeners, I’d love to hear from you. How do you “link your nature with the nature all around you”? What has this taught you?

New readers, I’d also love to hear from you! In what humus, real or metaphorical, are you putting your faith this year?

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NOTES FOR GARDENERS:

• A friend of mine (who has asked to remain anonymous) recently gave me something even better than a Substack comment: after reading my musings about the magic of fungi, she said, she decided to design the incredible “Mushroom for Improvement” decal featured above. I can’t wait to slap mine on my watering can.

• The New Gardener’s Handbook is one of the best books I’ve read for truly new gardeners, and experienced ones too. The author is Daryl Beyers, quoted above. Beyers is one of the gardeners at the New York Botanical Garden, which is one of my favorite places to visit for gardening inspiration.

• My husband is partial to the Seed Savers catalog for interesting heirloom seeds. It’s hard to resist a lineup of seeds that are all survivors, in a way. They tend to have good success rates in our Northeastern garden (zone 7a). I’ll be trying delicata squash again with their seeds this year after trying unsuccessfully to get them going last year. 

• Another local (NY) catalog we love is Hudson Valley Seed Co. I’ve always had good luck with their nasturtium and Scarlet Emperor runner bean seeds in particular, which are large, easy to handle, and quick-growing (I’ve used them for years in kids’ gardening classes for this reason). Nasturtiums, sunflowers and marigolds are particularly easy to grow, and help to repel bugs from other plants.

• Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds is a lovely catalog to have on your coffee table as well. They’re good for finding unusual varieties of common vegetables (i.e. purple carrots), and as a reference for recipes and teas you can make with the more common things you’re already growing. 

• Gardeners.com is a good gear resource for things like seed trays (if you’d prefer that to a recycled egg carton) and urban gardening supplies.

• The online Farmer’s Almanac sounds old-timey but is still very reliable for predicting things like the best time to plant. 

• If you like the Great British Baking Show, you will like Monty Don, who is to English gardening and the BBC what Julia Child was to the American culinary scene in her PBS glory days. After a very exciting first career as a jeweler to the stars who partied with the likes of Boy George and even outfitted Princess Di, Don has settled into a marvelous second act as a garden show host. Series like Big Dreams, Small Spaces and Gardener’s World have given my husband and I many hours of anodyne viewing pleasure.

• Don also has a gigantic gardening tome called The Complete Gardener that is worth picking up, though I find it’s better for enjoying on the couch with a fizzy drink than it is for taking into the garden for brass-tacks tasks.

• In my recent workshop, one of our lovely class members also recommended @floretflower, who offers online courses. 

• The ancient Japanese calendar has 72 distinct seasons, with beautifully lyrical names. This article lists them all, and this beautifully-designed app will tell you which mini-season you’re in at any given time. The latter also includes haikus, art, and recipes. It is one of the things that is bringing me delight right now. 

• Did you know that the island of Manahatta was, truly, a subtropical paradise before colonization, teeming with plants and animals? The Big Oyster, by Mark Kurlansky, gives a great overview of this chapter of NYC’s ecological (and culinary) history.

• The links above to gear are here for your convenience; I am not shilling for Gardeners.com. (Yet?) Full disclosure, though: the links to books in these posts lead you to my curated corner of Bookshop, which puts more money into the hands of indie publishers and offers me a small kickback, which further supports this free project. Do with this info what you will.

• Still not sure?Elissa Altmanwrote a lovely piece in

  Poor Man's Feastabout “committing to the asparagus’ – that is, planting something rather than nothing now, even if the future seems uncertain. (H/T to

  Liz McCrocklinfor this one!)

NOTES FOR WRITERS:

• If you’re looking to plant creative seeds that are more memoir than marigold, you might be interested in the 30-day journaling challenge coming up via

  The Isolation Journals with Suleika Jaouad. I've been loving the daily prompts and accountability in this community. See you there?

• Inspired to write your own seasonally-inspired haikus, or essays, or fiction? The always-excellentVanessa Mártirhas a seasonal writing series that I can recommend highly.

• Esmé Weijun Wang, who has battled her way through chronic illness and is currently supporting her partner with a bone marrow cancer diagnosis, knows from grief and reaching for joy. Her Unexpected Shape Academy for “marginalized writers living with limitations” (think: a mini-MFA in nonfiction for a fraction of the cost) has just opened and is offering scholarships. In the past, Wang’s students have had the chance to hear guest lectures from the likes of Stephanie Foo and Leslie Jamison (whose books I love and have linked here). Check it out here.

• Jacqueline Suskin
  (whose Instagram posts always inspire me, and did so this week) is offering a series of free-to-affordable poetry discussions and classes to celebrate National Poetry Month. A spring-adjacent snippet of her work is below.