The Vocabulary of Farming

Not a day goes by that I don't think about a blog post for that day, and then the day goes by - fast! Planting and plowing and plotting and potting... oof. So much to write about, so little time.

What strikes me at this moment is the rapid expansion of vocabulary I'm experiencing. Here are a few terms I've picked up recently:

Chitting or pipping - This is the practice of sprouting your seed potatoes before you plant them. All this time, when my yukon golds started growing in my pantry, they were chitting, and I didn't even know it! A few days ago, I pulled the seed potatoes from their vegetable drawer in the refrigerator (just in time to make room for the strawberries!) and took them out to the greenhouse. There I placed them in empty egg crates, recommended to allow the eyes all over the tubers to sprout. I'm unclear on whether I'm supposed to cut up the larger tubers before or after they've sprouted, but since I have far more than I need, I cut a few just to see what would happen. We are trying four varieties of potato this year (Bintje, Rose Finn, Yukon Gold, and a random russet as a winter storage potato) in an effort to find the best possible match to the Swedish new potato my husband remembers fondly from his childhood in Stockholm.

The rest of my vocabulary words have to do with the insects and birds I've been noticing emerging as the spring days warm up.


Carpenter bees - Initially, I thought these large, heavy-looking bees were bumble bees, but they lack the characteristic striped body; they're yellow on the thorax and solid black on the abdomen. They're more ponderous and less nimble than bumblebees, too, and tend to fly horizontally. One afternoon, as I worked at my desk, I was continuously distracted by the thock of bees slamming into the nearby second-story window. One ventured into my greenhouse one afternoon to pollinate my peas (thanks!), then became thoroughly disoriented trying to get out. Despite the fact that the roof vent was wide open, the bee kept flying horizontally at about my eye level and slamming into the glass, often stunning itself for a minute or so. Eventually it found the open door. I am much relieved to learn that the males lack a sting and the females, probably not even awake yet, very rarely sting. A disoriented and somewhat angry bee at eye level in an enclosed space is rather disconcerting.

Brush-Footed Butterflies - These are apparently a major subclassification of butterfly, of which the most easily recognizable member is the Monarch. I've been spotting a lot of butterflies dancing in the sun over the garden and have been trying to identify them amid a bewildering array of entomological terminology. How on earth am I supposed to remember the shape of the hindwing or how many spots the forewing had. Mostly, I notice something striking about them - yellow spots against dark brown turns out to be a Morning Cloak. The pair of small orange butterflies dancing in circles around each other were probably Painted Ladies. I still can't positively identify the monarch-ish butterfly with the striking dark orange or red bands on its forewings, but I'm working on it. I'm beginning to think I should start carrying my camera around all the time to catch these and aid in identification.

White-Breasted Nuthatch - Word appears to have gotten out around the neighborhood that there's a birdfeeder on our back porch. We've had cardinals and tufted titmice for some time, but this evening, as we were eating dinner, a bold little bird I'd never seen before edged his way along the roofline, down the gutter, and onto the feeder. He had a distinctive black cap, like a chickadee but without the matching dark throat, and he was considerably bigger. Also, he had a long, sharp-looking beak, and my husband wondered briefly if he were some sort of hummingbird. After poring through the National Geographic Field Guide to the Birds of Eastern North America, I have come to the tentative conclusion that he was a white-breasted nuthatch.

We surveyed the garden thoroughly today, and Alex dug out the first shovelful of path. If the rain delays for a while tomorrow, and it looks like it will, I may get the first few beds dug out. If not, it's pot-rolling for me. The zinnias and many of the tomatoes are approaching readiness for transfer out of the seedling flats and into individual pots. I still haven't started all the winter squash I wanted either. The poor spaghetti squash, delicata, and sugar pumpkins are waiting until I've dug out more compost.

Also, today, a small triumph. My daughters and their friend Susan ate the very first three sugar snap peas to be ready for munching in our greenhouse. Huzzah! Fresh, homegrown produce for my children. And right about the time the peas give out, the bush beans should be just about ready to bloom. Excellent!