MAY

Subscriber First Name, welcome to the Art of Harvest, where we will journey together to slow down and nourish the soul, soil, and senses.

In a world that often moves too quickly, this newsletter is intended to be a place for pause—a monthly invitation to mindfully connect with the rhythms of creativity, nature, and kitchen.

STUDIO

— for the soul

The Architecture of Honest Poetry

This past month I have spent most of my creative time working on poems. I submitted some pieces to a local journal at the beginning of the month and I have a couple other submissions I’m working on. To be honest, just typing this out cracks open the door for imposter syndrome to show its face. I still am very green as a poet (and hard to even say I am one yet), and I am really just testing the waters to see if I should continue to go deeper.

Through this process, I am working on distilling my voice to understand my hope in writing poetry. Overall, it has been enlightening to grasp more of the theory behind poetry. Through that exploration I have been leaning into more of the “gritty” or “sour” parts of my poems to highlight some of the unraveling of our world. It feels true, but a hard necessary truth.

Typically, my hope up to this point with poems was to come to an inevitable resolution, where the poem is tied up nicely and “makes sense”. Yet, there is a perspective in modern poetry against these "tidy” poems because it doesn’t necessarily feel honest, as life simply doesn’t follow straight lines. Sometimes, if not most times, there isn’t an answer — but a witness to what is. Finding the lack of resolution has been strangely freeing.

I know this kind of poetry isn’t for everyone because it can be unsettling. Nonetheless, I think it highlights a deeper truth: the act of being “heard” without being “fixed”. With my background as a clinical counsellor, this rings true to my experience with working with clients. Sometimes the most healing intervention in therapy is having someone witness one’s pain.

That being said, I still want to learn how to hold onto the threads of hope in the unraveling: the way that we and the natural world have the stubborn resilience to continue, in spite of it all.

GARDEN

— for the soil

What a precarious swing of weather the last few weeks! From freezing temperatures to unseasonably summer heat. Although this warmer weather is what people so crave after winter, I feel uneasy about this sudden change in temperature and the lack of rain in the forecast. Not just because of needing to water more, but what this means about our changing climate and environmental trajectory. My hope is that temperatures will cool a bit here and hopefully we will have more rain, but that may be just throwing wishes into the wind.

The heat may mean we will be seeing the following listed plants thrive. If these temperatures stay, you might be able to plant out sweet potatoes and peppers, sow corn and melon this month too. I’d still suggest waiting till the end of May.

Here are a few things to do this month:

• Sow: These are some of the last sowings for the summer. Make sure that the night temperatures are over 10°C before you direct sow or transplant out these warm loving plants. Also ensure that you harden off your indoor sown plants before you plant them outside. This means putting them in dappled shade outside during the day, and bringing them in at night for at least a week.

  • Indoors:

    • Cucumbers

  • Direct sow:

    • Amaranth

    • Bush Beans

    • Pole Beans

    • Corn (end of May)*

    • Melon (end of May)*

    • Squash/Zucchini/Pumpkin (end of May)*

  *if you haven’t already sown indoors

  • Transplant:

    • Basil

    • Squash/Pumpkin/Zucchini - tip: ensure to be extremely gentle when transplanting your curcubits as they do not like their roots being disturbed.

    • Tomatoes

    • Sweet potatoes (end of May)

    • Peppers (end of May) - I plant mine in a greenhouse; however, they might thrive outside this summer with the anticipated heat/sun.

  • You can refer to my sowing timeline in my Free Garden Planning Guide.

If you are curious on the varieties and seed companies I use, I created a list of the ones I am planting this year. Just click the button below to access the blog post.

• Plant out dahlia tubers! This year I gave my tubers a head start by planting them in pots in the greenhouse and I just planted them out last week.

• Ensure to water! We haven’t been seeing much rain this spring, which has been unfortunate as usually the garden is typically quite self-sufficient in March and April. Even with drip irrigation, I still hand water my carrot and parsnip seeds waiting for germination, or new transplants.

• Create structures for climbing veg that can be soon planted out! (e.g., beans, tomatoes, cucumbers, squash, etc.). I like to use hazel branches that we have here.

• Sweet Potato Slips!! I potted up my sweet potatoes and are starting to harden them off.

  ***This is the time of year where I sell slips if anyone local is interested. They are $5/slip. I have a few different varieties this year: orange flesh/brown skin, white flesh/tan skin, and white flesh/purple skin. Feel free to reply to this email if you are interested. I only have 16 in total right now.

** Note: Where I live, my hardiness zone is 8a - so quite mild. If you live in a lower zone (Okanagan: 6-7; Southern Alberta 4), you may a bit more time to some of these tasks.

KITCHEN

— for the senses

BBQ Roasted Cauliflower and Chickpea Jalapeño Ranch Salad

— GF — DF — V — VG —

After harvesting an abundance of overwintered cauliflower last week, so I knew this month’s recipe would highlight this versatile vegetable. Roasting transforms cauliflower, bringing out its naturally smoky, nutty, and buttery notes. To lean into the unseasonably summer weather, I amped up the smokiness by smothering it in my favourite BBQ sauce. This vegan recipe hits every note — tangy, crunchy, creamy, and spicy!

INGREDIENTS

Jalapeño Ranch:

• ½ cup of raw cashews (or sub mayo)

• ¼ cup of water (omit if using mayo)

• 1 lemon, juiced

• 1 tsp Dijon mustard

• 4-6 rings of pickled jalapeños, finely chopped

• splash of pickled jalapeño brine

• 1 garlic clove, crushed

• 4-5 springs of chives, finely chopped

• salt & pepper to taste

Roasted Cauliflower:

• 1 med-lrg cauliflower, broken into bite sized florets

• 1 tbsp olive oil

• salt & pepper to tase

• 1 cup of BBQ sauce

Roasted Chickpeas:

• 2 cup of cooked chickpeas

• 1 tbsp olive oil

• 1 tsp paprika

• salt & pepper to taste

Salad:

• lettuce of choice and/or kale, chopped

• other ideas: diced tomatoes, sliced red onion or pickled red onion, cucumbers

SEASONAL REFLECTIONS

Lately, I have been leaning into the difficult lesson of releasing, of letting go of expectations, losses, and perceived failures. Every spring, I seem to need to wrestle through this same important lesson: the need to surrender rigid expectations I put onto the garden.

I am someone who likes to have a sense of control and agency, I think we all do to a degree. It provides us with a sense of safety and predictability. Perhaps that is why I am drawn to poetry. It allows me to carefully curate my words to lead the reader on a journey to a specific idea or visceral experience. Yet, even in writing, there is required letting go, where there is a necessary acceptance of the mystery of language where there are potential misinterpretations and it inevitably fails us.

There have been some losses in the garden. The unusually warmer weather have been unforgiving for the cool season veg to thrive, and my own tardiness to sow them meant they missed their ideal window. I attempted direct sowing with peas this year instead of in trays, and slugs or other critters have definitely munch the emerging shoots. Also, the Ziplock method for sowing has been a “mixed bag” — some have thrived, and others weren’t able to weather the transplant.

Then there are the invasives. The land here was quite untended when we arrived, and we are still managing a persistent "cocktail" of bindweed, ivy, creeping bellflower, creeping buttercup, common periwinkle, and blackberries. Last year, I spent the duration of four audiobooks digging out creeping bellflower, trying to reach the taproots that reside 1-2ft beneath the surface. I was able to eradicate it in some beds, however, my heart sinks seeing it return now with such vengeance in other spots. I don’t think a plant has ever made me cry as much as this one.

Wrestling with these plants is part of a larger, more complex stewardship. I am deeply aware that this acre is not truly "ours," but belongs to the Malahat and Qu’wutsun Nations. With this there is a letting go of perceived ownership. I am incredibly grateful to garden here, but I hold the tension that this opportunity came at a devastating price for those who were here before. My hope is to move toward restoring the native biodiversity, though I know it will take years of removing the persistent invasives that have been brought here.

So this year, I want to go into this season not as overwhelmed as last year. To release and relinquish that I cannot do it all, but being honest with what I can do and relish in what is working. To hold both gratitude and the hard-work of this season by also reminding myself to sit in the garden, enjoy the lilacs that are blooming, and breathe in the beauty, which is surprisingly hard to do sometimes.

I am so thankful for what the garden teaches me; she is a wise mentor. A microcosm of life’s greater wisdoms on letting go of what is not ours to control. A reminder that we are not in control, but we can adapt to the shifting conditions and losses. I will forever be in awe of the life, death and rebirth cycles I have learned through her.

Is there something that you are learning — when you are honest with yourself — that simply needs to be let go?

Sometimes letting go of an expectation doesn't always mean walking away from the work. It’s about finding the capacity to hold both the discouragement of what is unraveling and the resilience to continue to see the beauty of what is still here. So if you feel that tension, you are not alone.

Here is a poem that I wrote that simply puts the idea of relinquishment into words:

Lastly, if you are new to this newsletter and want to read past ones, I made an archive so you can read them if you wish, which you can find here:

Always so thankful for you being here. I hope you have the opportunity to plant something or do something creative in the coming weeks!

With hands in the dirt,

Rachael

P.S. If you know someone who might enjoy learning how to create, grow, and eat with the seasons, please feel free to forward this email.

P.P.S. Feel free to reply with reflections, questions, or your own creative projects. Always love hearing from you!