Materials. Hungry Gap. Magic of the mundane.

I’m currently learning to tile and plaster in the small barn conversion I’m doing on my property. These are earthy materials: sand, mud, brick, stone. A version of the ancient work of the mason. I feel privileged to be delving into this craft, its materiality, the physical labor required. At the same time it is all about the art of creating a space, using color and form beautifully. And all to build a dwelling. This is such an appropriate activity to be doing in Taurus. It is slow, solid work, requiring patience; yet also sensual, materialistic, an earthly investment. All this comes under the rulership of Taurus. These seemingly mundane, heavy, earthy things hold the magic of beauty, design, skill, refinement. 

I just ordered some natural yellow ochre pigment to tint my plaster and a little bag of powdered mica to add silver sparkles. All along in this process I’ve steered toward natural materials. This little order of magical powders that come from the earth epitomizes this choice. Colored rock that will bring a glow of warmth and twinkle of reflected light. I’ve also used reclaimed fir boards and sheep’s wool insulation in my tiny building.

It’s an uncomfortable irony that these humble materials from the natural world are becoming more and more precious. They cost more, are harder to find, where we used to take them for granted: wood, wool, ground rock, terra cotta. But their cost to the environment and health (when harvested and manufactured sustainably) are lower than spray foam, toxic pigments, and pressure-treated lumber. And their beauty and a sense of integrity is felt in the finished building.

These options are still open to us— affordability in balance with quality — but it takes work to find them. I’m talking about cutting a path between the so-called luxury products and the deceptively cheap ‘throw-away’ materials so prevalent in construction. A middle way, where the commonplace is reverenced. When I find these items I treat them with discernment and respect. During my building process lumber prices were spiking, recycled cotton insulation was all sold out, windows were back-ordered for months. But I managed to find locally made real wood windows — surprisingly through a chain store; and bought a used patio door from a neighbor; I re-used the floorboards from my old house (which took extra labor); I spent three times as much on insulation but for a vastly superior product I could install easily and safely by myself (and compost when I’m done with it!)

Finding the way between takes attention but can yield well.

We tend to think of late spring as a time of plenty but in the gardening year this is actually what’s called the Hungry Gap. The ‘fruits’ of summer have not yet arrived — the peas and beans and tomatoes and zucchini. And the overwintered crops have wound down: the brassicas have offered their flowering tops — like so much maroon, gold, and emerald broccoli florets; the leeks rise to flower like fireworks; the stored potatoes, onions and garlic are sprouting in the cellar. Even lettuce doesn’t fully come on until June. 

This is something to remember when planning a food garden. What can fill the gap are wild foraged things, perennials and precocious self-seeders. These latter are the crops that manage to evade your weeding and turning of soil, rise to seed in summer and autumn, and find themselves an advantageous niche in the garden. Here that’s arugula, Red Russian kale, orach and sometimes lettuce and green-stem chard. Also radicchio that has survived as a root after the head is cut will send up young shoots in spring. Perennials, wildings, and spring ephemerals are: Miner’s Lettuce, cardoon and fennel stalks, dandelion, lambsquarters, nettle…

All these will give you an exciting salad at this unexpectedly lean period of the year.

Further threads…

Frank Morton at Wild Garden Seed for orach, lettuce, calendula, kale varieties 

Grow Italian.com for green stem chard

John Jeavons, How to Grow More Vegetable Than You Ever Thought Possible on Less Land Than You Can Imagine: A Primer on the Life-giving Biointensive Method of Organic Horticulture

Patience Gray, Honey From a Weed