Turning the Earth on a Super Sunday

La Tierra is La Raza’s kissing cousin

Michael Sedano. Fotos by Thelma T. Reyna.

Site of Backyard Floricantos, Casa Reyna this year includes a vegetable garden

“La Tierra is La Raza’s kissing cousin,” Abelardo Delgado writes, putting his green thumb on what makes me tick when I have a plot of tierra to plant. I turn the earth and plant. 

Around LIX years ago, I started turning the earth on superbowl Sunday. The practice lapsed during the years I lived with Alzheimer’s, and now after Alzheimer’s, it’s taken me time to regain the energy to touch la tierra and bask in this special mode of cultura and spiritual renewal. 

In 1968, I rent a house on Ortega St. near Haley in Santa Barbara. A shady side yard of hard packed clay gives me the joy of breaking earth one Summer day thinking how my bride, whose family did not garden, would feast on vegetables from her own yard. I find two silver dollar coins and hope these are portents of a good harvest. The Draft summons me before the garden can produce its bounty. 

When I return from Korea--to Temple City tierra--I have outstanding cosechas until moving to a Highland Park apartment and grad school. 1974 finds me digging in the rich tierra of Eagle Rock where nine years turning and planting give the soil beauteous tilth that made for sure-fire results of anything that got water. 

1985 we move to Pasadena where a generous slice of backyard with great soil and sunlight generously adds exquisite provender to our daily table almost year-round. When Alzheimer's dementia overwhelms the household in 2018, I abandon the garden.

2025 was to be the year I returned to la tierra. I promised myself, then the Eaton fire burned us off the land. 

Scarifying soil for scattering bunching onions 

I lamented to my friend, Thelma Reyna, that gameday would pass with my 2025 goal frustrated. Thelma offered me a plot of land and my heart leaped. 

A few days later, Sunday afternoon arrives to find me at the gates at Casa Reyna with tools, plantitas, and semillas. My primal urge to work la tierra, to turn the earth on superbowl Sunday, would be satisfied after all. 

In fact, I decide to go whole hog and turn la tierra and plant. In gardens past, I learned to turn then wait for the hidden weed seeds to sprout in freshly-turned earth. I will not wait and will pull the unwanteds when they show their cotyledons.

Sedano plants a Serrano chile

Step one is clearing Thelma’s iris patch to free up the planting bed. I spare two Hyacinths showing early color.

I approach the task confidently but cautiously. I push the four-tine garden fork under the rhizomes, push and lift the handle to leverage the Iris loose. I rejoice in the strength my arms display. 

I broke the right shoulder in December and mira nomás how I lift and break clods, working steadily with intensity that gets my muscles groaning and despite feeling like that vato with a hoe, in the Millet painting, I persist and get the whole plot turned without collapsing or running out of breath.

With the bed turned and its borders defined, I use the three-tine fork to separate out sinuous white roots that infiltrate from nearby trees and hedges.

Another pair of rakes and I have a smooth level surface free from extraneous roots.

Taking a breather in the seedbed

Thelma uses a short-handled hoe to plant radishes around the perimeter of the bed. In a few weeks we’ll have leafy edge definition, and snacks. 

I put butterhead lettuce and spinach seedlings in an "L" shape to define two bush bean rows. When the leafy greens have been harvested--before the heat comes—they’ll be replaced with hot weather crops or root crops.

At the far end, or top of the plot, we have a steel tomato tower with early tomato varieties and the novelty Sweet 100. Below the jitomate, a few chile and bell pepper seedlings. The peppers will be late arrivals; we’ll be eating cherry tomatoes by Cinco de Mayo. 

In between the tomatoes and the greens, we’ve sown bush beans, bunching onion, two hills of yellow crookneck squash, garlic cloves, and yellow onion sets. 

2025 is going to be a good garden year. The football game must be well along when I return to my motel room. I don't turn on the teevee. I welcome the fatigue and sore muscles of getting closer to la tierra, another benefit of a good day's work. 

The finished project, for now

I sleep comforted at being in touch with a continuous line of gardens antedating my own. Familia history extends into a rich past and looks forward to a memorable cosecha in my future. 

What happened in Thelma Reyna's backyard on superbowl Sunday reflects an imperative of la tierra: turn it and it will grow.

Covid Year Two, the Inaugural Edition 2021

 Melinda Palacio

Hello 2021.

For all of us who voted for Biden, the new year didn’t start until Wednesday when President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris were sworn in. I’m feeling all kinds of fuzzy and warm, perhaps warm enough to offer Tio Bernie some comfort. With the reverence of the transfer of power came the playful Bernie Sanders memes. I think we all needed to let out a sigh of relief. I know I’ve been holding my breath because tRump refused to concede, what a sore loser. We may not have been able to elect Hillary to the White House, but we witnessed the swearing in of California’s own, Kamala Harris as Vice President of the United States of America. 

I’ll admit that for all the joy of the momentous occasion, some lingering effects of trauma over the past four years remain. The pandemic hasn’t magically disappeared and an insane amount of people have died due to Covid. While President Biden is on operation clean up, it may be months until a vaccine finds its way into my arm. Right now, Santa Barbara feels like a small island where supplies are hard to come by. It doesn’t help that Santa Barbara received a botched batch of doses, and not enough doses; every newsletter about Covid vaccines I’ve received state that there are no more appointments available for those in the 75 or older tier. I’m in the last group of adults that will be vaccinated. Who knows when that will be? Even though I hate needles and hospitals, I’m eager to get immunized against the virus. 

Even with the good news of a new administration, Covid did not take a back seat, but was front and center in the representation of flags for all the people who have perished in this country. Although I feel a sense of relief, I continue to have strange dreams and am often awakened by the sound of owls hooting back and forth to each other. If only I could decipher their message. Perhaps they are trying to tell me not to worry so much? A tall order when you think about the possibility of insiders who may have helped the insurrectionists with their coup d’état, it’s easy to be in a constant state of worry. Senators who continue to stand by Trump and the violence he incited should be removed from office. All of the people who supported them remain amongst us, some quietly going about their business, angry or deflated, but dissatisfied either way. This storm has been brewing for four years, thanks to Trump fanning the flames of hate. Videos and selfies of the mob showed a well-rehearsed group who felt at home storming our capitol. Some had recently received tours from Senators, even though tours should have been cancelled due to Covid. Some of the co-conspirators are refusing to leave their guns at home. Thanks to chatter from these fringe groups the entire nation was put on high alert, as if Covid lockdown weren’t enough. However, the largest military presence at the inauguration did not dampen the celebration of a new dawn. As inaugural poet, Amanda Gorman suggests, it’s best to step into this new era unafraid. Perhaps, my owls are telling me to have no fear and return to poetry.  Gorman recited: “The new dawn blooms as we free it/For there is always light, if only we’re brave enough to see it, if only we’re brave enough to be it.”