All Hallows Eve
Happy Hallows
Halloween is derived from ‘All-Hallows-Even’, meaning the All Holy Eve, found in the Prayer Book. The Latin term for “Holy”, aka, ‘Sanctus’, comes the word ‘saint’, i.e., “All Saints Eve”. Halloween is a vigil for the dearly departed. The 1928 prayer book offers a prayer during the burial of the dead, “O God, whose mercies cannot be numbered; Accept our prayers on behalf of the soul of thy servant departed, and grant him an entrance into the land of light and joy, in the fellowship of thy saints; through Jesus Christ our Lord” (p. 334).
Scary Purgatory
purgatory
In the West, ‘All Saints’, aka. Hallows-Mass, or Hallowmas, began in the eighth century as a festival to commemorate ‘Saints, Martyrs, Confessors, and the Just made perfect’. All Saints grew in popularity and status, and by 835 AD the Frankish King, Louis the Pious, made its occasion obligatory for Christians.. By the 15th century, Pope Sixtus IV, affirmed its solemnity with an octave, ranking Hallows Day up with Easter, Whitsun, and Christmas. But in the eleventh century, Odilo of Cluny, added a second day– All Souls. Instead, All Souls recollected ordinary Christians caught in purgatory. Purgatory’s reputation as a residence of devils, torturing men until their satisfaction for sins were paid, made Hallows Eve a scary if not somber occasion. The story of St. Odilo details a harrowing visit from purgatory, not unlike our many ghostly and goulish tales more common to Halloween:
According to Jesse Voyles in his Life of St Odilo, a pilgrim returning from the Holy Land was cast by a storm on a desolate island. A hermit living there told him that amid the rocks was a chasm communicating with purgatory, from which perpetually rose the groans of tortured souls. The hermit also claimed he had heard the demons complaining of the efficacy of the prayers of the faithful, and especially the monks of Cluny, in rescuing their victims. Upon returning home, the pilgrim hastened to inform the abbot of Cluny, who then set 2 November as a day of intercession on the part of his community for all the souls in purgatory.
Anglicana’s All-Saints:
Martyrs
In the English Reformation, the dreary idea of purgatory as a place of torture or limbo was ‘exorcised’, and Souls Day was folded into Hallowmas. Thus, for English people, Nov. 1st became a commemoration for the entire Church, both great saints and ordinary souls. In Germany, All Saints particularly pointed to Martin Luther’s posting of 95 Theses, marking the beginning of the Reformation. In England, Luther’s writings arrived at an early date, appearing in 1519. Not only did the Elizabethan period preserve All Saints, but it also published Fox’s Book of Martyrs. What a better time to dust off a picture of Cranmer? Anyway, the Anglican emphasis turned away from purgatory toward the communion of saints, our union with them and the heavenlies, the examples of their lives, and life everlasting as demonstrated by Christ’s Resurrection. The Collect for Nov. 1st says:
“O Almighty God, who has knit together thine elect in one communion on fellowship, in the mystical body of thy Son Christ our Lord; Grant us grace so to follow thy blessed Saints in all virtuous and godly living, that we may come to those unspeakable joys which thou hast prepared for those who unfeignedly love thee: through the same thy Son Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen”
Souling and Alms:
In places like Brittany, Hallowmas remains the occasion for visiting cemeteries, decorating the graves of loved ones while pouring holy water or even milk libations upon tombstones.
2 cp flour, 1/2 tsp nutmeg, 1/2 tsp cinnamon, 1/2 cup milk, 8 tbsp butter, 1/2 cp sugar, 2 egg yolks, 1/2 cup currants
The custom of Souling, from which ‘Trick-or-Treating’ or ‘guising’ derives, also comes from Britain, where children or the poor went door-to-door begging for ‘soul cakes’ (scones filled with cinnamon spices, topped with fruits in the sign of a cross) or apples in exchange for giving a prayer to the dead, singing or caroling this:
Soul, Soul, a soul cake!
I pray thee, good missus, a soul cake!
One for Peter, two for Paul,
three for Him what made us all!
Soul Cake, soul cake, please good missus, a soul cake.
An apple, a pear, a plum, or a cherry, anything good thing to make us all merry.
One for Peter, one for Paul, & three for Him who made us all
a gord size sugar pumpkin
Souling practices like candle lanterns carved from turnips– lit to guide lost spirits from purgatory while warding off devils– later turned into jack-o’-lanterns, especially when Irish came to America. Here, pumpkins were abundant (and much larger!), making carving easy. My sugar pumpkins are much more like Ireland’s turnips. Meanwhile, in New England, Victorians continued ‘souling’, Hallowe’en being considered a time to study old traditions and drink plenty of Scotch, taking note from Robert Burn’s poem, Hallowe’en:
Upon that night, when fairies light
On Cassilis Downans dance,
Or owre the lays, in splendid blaze,
On sprightly coursers prance;
Or for Colean the route is ta’en,
Beneath the moon’s pale beams;
There, up the cove, to stray and rove,
Among the rocks and streams
To sport that night. –other stanzas read here
Some Upbeat Thoughts:
Halloween can be a very God-centered holiday. It becomes ‘ugly’ if we dwell on the fearsome half of it (death, separation, enmity). It gives opportunity to weigh our struggles with temptation and the devil. During this time, men should look back to the resurrection Christ, knowing all those who’ve held to the promises of Christ remain with Him and are not cast down. But our Hallowmas should not end with ghouls and goblins or other unsavory demons. Do not forget the psalms and revelations which speak of the church militant and heavenly host. Halloween is also a time of spiritual strengthening, to give to the poor, be charitable, and cook lots soul cakes. Even today, many poor children come to our neighborhood for snacks and luncheon candy. In the midst of the fun, why not revive a little ‘souling’—singing the carols of saints and the dearly departed from the 1940 Hymnal? Tie written prayers for the whole church (abbreviated ones) to candy and cakes. Nor neglect evening prayer and the litany. The Anglican Missal gives the reading of Christ’s casting of demons (Lk. 6:1`7), along with the Introit, “The Saints shall judge the nations, and have dominion over the people”. This is what we should look forward to.
Upon Hallowmas, after we may partake in morning communion, we might organize our lessons and thoughts upon the divines, martyrs, and saints of the Church; visit relatives; and decorate the graves of family, etc. It is a time to think about family, retell genealogy, reflect upon the baptized, and those died in Christ, both in heaven and earth. Hallowmas is a celebration of Christ’s Tabernacle, “that he is in us, and we in him”. Perhaps Mass should be done a little higher, paying special attention to the following petition:
“And we also bless thy holy Name for all thy servants departed in this life in thy faith and fear; beseeching thee to grant them continual growth in thy love and service, and to give us grace so to follow their good examples, that with them we may be partakers of thy heavenly kingdom”
Ending Hallow's Eve
This Hallowmas we had a bit of a hangover from Scotch-whiskey while our parish service skipped the incense. Until this year, I did not know how ‘high’ All Saints was as a festival (octave and vigil), even with respect to the Anglican kalendar. The Anglican reformation perhaps made Hallowe’en less fearful and more comfortable, emphasizing our communion with saints on earth and in heaven, through solemn prayer and seal of the Promise. There was a time when family and kith were all buried together in the same parish graveyards. We should return to those remaining ‘mini-shrines’, reversing as much as possible the fragmentation of locality and family, visiting who we can and keeping all in prayer. Even holiday cards? The tombstones of old churches remain a testimony to the Promise given by God to ‘thy seed, and their seed’, generation after generation; from the fathers and princes of Israe to their households and children. This is indeed a time of ‘ingathering’– a memorial to the christian community’, last harvest, a final great feast before the end of Trinity, and “collects” par excellence as we approach Advent, Christmas, and then the last winter fast which culminates in Lent! It is truly one of our greatest feasts. Amanda, my family, and I look forward to it next year.
Read more about the Hallow’s Octave starting with her Vigil at Homely Divinity.
Raddish Treats
After I got my drip irrigation system installed (during the summer), my rows of soil replenished and built up, and seed broadcast, I then let the sun do its work! I had ten rows of garden vegetables– beets, kale, spinach, and lettuce. I also planted some tomatoes and corn only because I had some tomato volunteers (which I relocated along the drip line) and extra corn seed left over. I knew both would perish by December or January. Neither do well in cold, but you never know with the mild winter in CA, and, at the very least, green corn stalks are pretty.
Also, a lot of things I do I learn the hard way. Rather than research things, I tend to experiment. I noticed this summer my corn cobs did not fertilize well. A lot of the kernals were missing on the cob, and this is due to poor fertilization and lack of neighboring corn. This time I packed the corn stalks in so each stalk had lots of neighbors! I am curious to see if I get more kernals this way per cob.
Since corn grows tall with good sun light reaching underneath, amongst my rows of corn I planted herbs, onions, and raddish. The ‘tiered’ approach worked well, and I imagine it is a excellent one when dealing with plants that do poor in direct, hot sunlight. These would include pumpkins (for fall) and any vine/squash plant in general. I highly recommend using corn to help provide shade for such plants in otherwise hot, sunny areas.
To the right above (and left side) is a picture of my raddishes. Many only grew leaves without bulbs below. Both kinds I gave the leafy stalks to my bunnies. Bunnies love raddish leaves. I also gave my bunnies the roots or stalk end of kale which tend to be very hard and not good for cooking. The leaves (which tend to be large) are really the most edible/cookable part of kale, and they are best picked early on. If you wait they begin to turn ‘blue’ and fiberous. However, kale is exceedingly rich in vitamins. The raddish also get more ‘hot’ or peppery as they are left in the ground. Like beets, raddish roots turn into bulbs and as they rippen they ‘lift’ themselves out of the ground. When they are 2/3 above ground they are more than ready to pick.
This time around my most important lessons were:
1. Bottlenecks in home fertilizer production during summer is always a problem (I need more bunnies!). In summer, grass clippings and other sources of compost decrease. Also, compost piles tend to dry up and decomposition slows. Spray your compost pile with a hose and keep damp. Layer compost between dry clippings and wet table scraps. I only have three bunnies, and don’t get enough droppings from them to solve my fertilizing problem. Normally, on farms livestock is the primary source of nitrogen. This would work much better if I had ten bunnies with twelve chickens. Then I’d be in the black! Summer is a low point for compost bins, so ramp up over autumn and winter. My chipper helped but these were still large particles, so take more time to decomp.
2. Insects and weeds are always a problem. I am organic with no pesticides or herbicides. Normally I ignore weeds. But after the first rain in September I got overwhelmed by sour grass. Sour grass has grown everywhere and is faster and taller than my spinach and beet plants. I had to go through my rows a pull sour grass crowding out and covering my vegies. This was time consumming and self-defeating. I found, however, plants like Kale do the opposite! Kale outgrows the sour grass and will dominate. So, during sour grass season (the first good fall rain until Feb.), plant kale. My next crop will be less spinach and beets and more kale and sweet potatoes.
With insects, I found aphids to be most pernicious. They can explode on you, covering every stem and leaf in the garden. However, aphids will not endanger anything until your leaves are fully mature. The trick is to keep on eye on your plants and pick early. Don’t let your vegies over-ripen. I was able to isolate and hinder aphid growth this way. I had a couple pockets, but as soon as I saw them I picked the plant. On your drip line you know you have aphids in the row if you spot ants going up and down the line. Ants milk the aphids just like cows.
3. Plant herbs, raddishes, strawberries, sweet peas, and squash under tall plants like corn, sunflowers, etc.. Your corn stalks might even have some string between for vines to creep along! Try to save space (especially for urban and suburban gardens) by using a tiered approach.
Some future projects: At the local hardware store the garden section sells worms for composting. I’ve put off the chicken coop idea due to my racoon friends, but will adopt some worm pets instead! Expect something on vermiculture soon. This post is more or less a sum of my autumn vegie harvest. Two more posts are in the works– one on St. Francis, the other on Hallow’s Eve.
Drip Irrigation
Drip irrigation is a must for all gardeners. I first got the idea while visiting Ardenwood Farm in Newark CA. Their entire fields are watered by drip methods w/ some sprinklers. Not only is it water efficient, but it saves tons of time. Line comes in 12″ and 6″ drip spaces. For plantings like corn or squash, I recommend twelve inch. For spinach, beats, and like plants I advise 6 inch or ’sponge’ lines. Smaller spaced drips, 6″ or below, will water the length of your entire raised bed.
This second planting of spinach and beats, I got wise and skipped a step. Rather than first plant seeds in seedling containers, I broadcasted the seeds along my rows of raised earth. First, I had to replenish the soil with fertilizer from my compost bins. After mixing in fertilizer (decomposed lawn clips and bunny droppings w/ some table scraps), I then raised the earth by digging six inch deep trenches on either side. These trenches were then filled in with chip compost to provide walkways between rows. Meanwhile, I watered down turned earth until clumps broke down into finer particles. Once this was done, I ran my irrigation lines and tapped this all into the local hose. Finally, I scattered the seed along half inch or so deep cuts on either side of the hose, covered them up, and then let regular watering and sun do the rest.
Seedlings arose within three or five days. We were blessed with some early rain in September, and this really caused my spinach, beets, and kale to grow! Nothing is better than rain! Meanwhile, I had some volunteer tomato plants sprout. Sadly, the weather is getting cold, and these volunteers will likely be for naught. Nonetheless, I transplanted them in hopes of one or two November tomatos?!?
I am catching up on this blog. Meanwhile, I hope to post a few things regarding my church on St. Francis and Hallowmas! Nice pixs coming.
Yuck!!!
This is what I found in my compost bin. Really gross. I pulled a few out and left them in a box for the birds. The blue jays loved them! If anyone out there can identify what these grubs are, please let me know if they turn to really bad pests! The upside are the grubs accelerate decomposition of organic matter.
Turning Compost
Another catch up post. Word is we will have a cold winter. My tomato plants are already dying from the low midnight temperatures (low 40’s), but perhaps we can expect more water this year? Rain water really spurs plant growth, and my spinach, kale, and beet plants do find in high-30’s weather. As said before, the bottleneck in production has been lack of fertilizer. During summer composting really slows down as heap piles dry up under the hot sun. It’s important to keep you compost piled covered, moist, and hot. In order to facilitate more optimal conditions, I occasionally hose the compost down, mixing in wet table scraps. Bunny droppings are mostly dry and, though always welcome, do not help in this regard.
To the right are some pictures of my compost bin earlier this summer when I disappointedly found only the very bottom had converted to soil. Notice the stark sedimentation. My bin is divided in two, so I removed the partition (which slides in and out) , got a shovel, and turned the heap over, racking off the soil at the bottom and adding it to my new crop rows. Turning over your compost is important and accelerates decomposition since the organic matter at the top decays very slowly compared to when it sits at the bottom.
However, I have a new development in my compost pile. My food scraps (which had some unintentional chicken skin/juice mixed in) attracted some strange flies. I know have a ton of grotesque larva in the bin, and it will be interesting to see what crawls out. I hope they are moth larva. This is when a chicken would come in handy. These grubs are rather large and would make a great meal for any birdie. Meanwhile, I can look at the ‘up’ side. The grubs are helping with the compost, eating organic matter, digesting, and eliminating. Eventually they will grow up and leave the bin. I will add a pix of the grubs at this same post later. I will also update readers what these gross critters metamorphed into.
Last Pickings
Enough pictures of tiny, lonely fruit! Aside from spinach and beets, the rest of my plantings were not very bountiful. I hastily planted squash and corn in rather hard soil, and I believe they were nutrient starved. I have since improved soil conditions, and have a real bumper crop coming soon! Meanwhile, here are some interesting pixs of miscellaneous growings.
Green squash flowers are a bit smaller but otherwise are identical to pumpkin flowers. Likewise every morning they would open up to the cool air and close by the time the sunlight directly hit them. My squash, as you can see in the picture, tended to be small and the skins were tough. Fairly disappointing like my corn. I also grew some cantelope, and none of them were as big or as sweet as what is sold in the store. All the above took a lot of water and did not fair well in the hot sun. They also were all vine plants and work better on a small, backyard lot if grown along a wire fence or similar support frame. I will not grow these seeds again.
Upcoming: back to basics! More on soil and irrigation. I am still catching up on this journal, and pictures are taken daily. My garden right now is growing like crazy with green veggies, and this time I prepped the soil properly. But there are always bottlenecks as I can see this second harvest coming and the need for getting ready for a third. Another bummer crop: snow peas. Grow better in wet, coastal climates where weather is cooler. But the peas tasted great, and were nice snacks for bunnies and while I worked in the garden.
Did You Know?
Every morning I let my bunnies out of their cages. I keep them in cages over night to protect them from racoons. I then usually do some morning garden work, and lately I’ve been thinning my plantings. As I pluck seedlings from the earth, I like to give these scraps to the bunnies. They make good treats. Anyhow, I notice early morning the bunnies have a routine. First, they bounce around, chasing one another. This lasts about 20 minutes or so before they tire. Then they kind of sniff around looking for food. After they get a little in the bellies, they then begin to preen one another. Here are some pictures of my bunnies (I have three) grooming one another.
I really didn’t realize bunnies were so social. I considered them a little smarter than lizards. But bunnies definately have emotions and affectionate ties. Though these bunnies run from me and are not too friendly (only curious), they do enjoy being outside their cages and being in proximity, playing, and being companions between themselves. I consider grooming very much a clear social quality. I really had a low view of bunnies, but now I give them much more credit. Bunnies are very peaceful animals, and they have no predatory instinct. They are simply curious animals who like to snack, sleep, and play.
Tomatoes Spectacular!
I don’t think anyone in California has a bad experience with tomatoes! Though I was tempted to grow from seed, I purchased 20 seedlings in May. May is a month when the hardware and nurseries drum up a fever pitch of tomato plant sales. I bought a number of types, ranging from beef steak (my favorite) to cherry tomatoes. Tomatoes will grow in almost any soil. But they are high nitorgen consumers, so will deplete the soil. As soil is depleted, the fruit grows smaller and smaller. However, they will keep producing all summer long, and my plants have been churning out tomatoes daily for over three months. I expect them to faithfully produce for another month, into October. My only warning, large tomatoes will tend to bend vines down to the ground. If tomatoes touch earth, watch out for slugs and other critters. Make sure your prize tomatoes are off the ground. I placed a number on top of styrofoam cups just to keep slugs away. Slugs will fiesta once the fruit turns from green to red. So ‘watch out’.
Tomatoes are a great staple crop. They like daily watering otherwise the leaves begin to curl, and if water the vines will grow and grow. They did best along my livestock-wire fence. As vines get heavy with fruit, they can break, so be sure they plant as necessary support. I would also plant your tomato seedlings about three feet apart. Beef steak plants get very large, so maybe four to five feet there. I recently installed a drip irrigation system, placing outlets at the foot of each tomato plant. This has made watering pure ‘cake’. Will share some pixs on my water system soon! Will do the tomatoes again next year once the soil is replenished with bunny droppings, etc. .
Corn on the Cobb
Unfortunately my garden produced really anemic corn. I had two problems, and these can be kept in mind when growing corn yourself. First, I have hard clay soil, and did not prepare it properly. Rather than digging up an entire radius of ground, I dug out a small hole and planted the corn seed. Any serious planting needs proper preparation of soil which means full tilling plus (re)fertilization. Second, corn is fertilized by wind not pollen. In order to optimize corn kernals you need to plant lots of rows with corn fairly close to one another.
bunny wants butter with corn
What I planted was mostly for aesthetic value. Each corn stalk produced two to three ears. But the ears, once peeled back, had scattered kernals indicating uneven fertilization. Between my few (14) stalks, I had one good ear of corn. Corn ears varied in size from very small to medium, and my guess this is lack of proper nutrition. My stalks also tended to be stunted, and this is due to a plant which becomes more or less pot-bound in hard clay soil. In the end the ears made good snacks for my bunnies. Corn along with sunflowers are very pleasing to the eye. I will grow more, but next time they will be in tighter rows :)
