Persephone Days

I rarely garden in the fall. Spring/Summer gardening is usually so intensive, me and the soil need a breather. This year I am, and I'm learning something I never realized before. 

Even though our weather is still in the 90s, the days are getting shorter. Once daylight is 10 hours or less, they become Persephone Days, named after the Greek myth about Persephone. The term was coined by Eliot Coleman, renown gardener and writer.

If you remember the myth, Persephone was the daughter of Zeus and Demeter (the goddess of agriculture). Hades, smitten with Persephone stole her away to Hades. Persephone's distraught mother searched the world for her, causing crops to whither and die. Zeus steps in and tells Hades he has to release Persephone, only Hades tricks everyone by feeding Persephone six pomegranate seeds that forces her to return to Hades every six months. That's how the seasons were created. 

For the life of me, I never realized how important sun length was. I never gardened enough during the fall and I never planted anything that required a lot of daylight hours, so I never made the connection.

And it's deceiving when you hear you're getting 10 hours of daylight because that's total daylight from dawn until dusk, not the direct sunlight a plant needs. 10 hours may only equate to a couple of hours of direct light depending on the month, and what latitude you call home.

My accidental seed starting of tomatoes brought that lesson home to me. Although the plants shot up and produced fruit quickly. All my tomatoes were a fraction of the size of the fruits I grew in the summer. 

This is also the reason Alaska grows some of the biggest vegetables due to their 20 hours of sunlight in the summer months. Location. Location. Location. Of course, Alaska is also plunged into darkness during the winter months. 

All this information came about when I heard another gardener mention in passing that we'll soon be in the Persephone period and it piqued my curiosity. You never know what you'll learn when you research.

Did you grow anything this year that did particularly well, or badly? I planted my two persimmons in the ground but they're looking terrible. I'm attributing it to transplant shock, but I'm watching them closely. My pear trees that are also in the same soil are fine, so we shall see.

In other news:

I've been unwell for several months. It started with a dry cough. I ignored it, thinking it was allergies. 10 weeks in, enough was enough, and I went to the doctor. She thought it was asthma because she heard a rattle in one lung, and gave me an inhaler. One puff and that inhaler sent me into a panic attack because I thought (at first) I was having a heart attack.

I gave up the inhaler and soon after my symptoms became far worse. I couldn't eat, I was tired all the time, and I was sick to my stomach. 

I asked my best buddy to ask her sisters, who are both medical professionals, to help me figure this out. They kept asking me questions until I reached the conclusion that it had to be GERD. 

I went back to my doctor, now that I had new, and worse symptoms, and she said it was severe GERD. We don't yet know how serious it is. If medication and diet doesn't change it, it might require surgery. 

I've been on the medication for five days. I feel marginally better, but far from my normal self. I am very, very careful to eat tiny meals, and only water. No caffeine, no citrus, no spicy foods. Strangely enough, the only foods I feel comfortable eating are bread, rice, and broccoli. Go figure.

According to my research, GERD is not uncommon for older adults. As we age, the esophageal sphincter can weaken over time--and there's no way to exercise that into shape!!

I hate being at the mercy of doctors, but I'm glad they're there when there's nothing I can do for myself. 

I'm on a medication called Voquezna. Has anybody else tried that? Did it work for you? 

 

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