Darius Adel '24
Staff Editor
While Halloween has come and gone, autumn is still in full swing. The leaves are falling, fuzzy sweaters are coming out of the closet, and the threat of outlining is looming. Before you latch onto that last point, I think you should enjoy the season to its fullest, and that means going to a corn maze.
My personal favorite is the Blue Ridge Mountain Maze. It’s a relatively close drive from Charlottesville, and you can tackle the maze at night. Trying to navigate a giant maze in the dark can be a bit scary, but that’s half the fun. Take some friends with you and make a night of it. If you’re feeling competitive, you can race each other to the end of the maze, but personally, I like making the whole thing a group effort.
Last time my friends and I tackled the maze, I brought a little souvenir home with me. I found an ear of corn near the exit that had fallen off its stalk. Instead of leaving it to the corn goblins, I took that puppy home. Channeling my newly-acquired Virginia energy, I decided to plant some of the kernels and see if they would grow.
I had never grown corn before, and in case you haven’t either, I’ll give you a tip: Don’t plant corn in November. As a spoiled Californian, my instinct is to plant things wherever and whenever. Virginia’s first true frost, which came a week after my sowing, killed my corn sprout immediately. Luckily, I was able to replant some kernels I saved this last summer, and they have grown beautifully. However, that early corn death led me to ask the question, “What can I plant and grow in mid-November?”
Charlottesville is in USDA Hardiness Zone 7a, which is a category of plant hardiness defined by our general climate conditions. Basically, our zone dictates what plants we can grow and when. While avocado and tomato plants may be out of the question during a Virginian November, we still got a lot of options. Are you looking for a superfood to keep you healthy over the holiday season? Kale is a great option. It is very cold-resistant and grows fast enough that you may be able to harvest some before the end of finals. An old wizened shamaness on the Appalachian Trail even told me that the frost makes the leaves even sweeter.
Not a health nut but want a vegetable that delivers flavor? Garlic is your best bet. In fact, this is basically the perfect time to plant the vampire bane. The fun part about growing garlic is you don’t need to buy seeds from a garden store (shout out to Fifth Season Gardening on Preston Avenue, next to the Dairy Market); you can just toss in some of those lil baby cloves you get when you buy a whole head of garlic. The amount of garlic you get from peeling them is simply not worth it, anyway. I usually plant them directly in the ground, but you can get them started by wrapping them in a wet cloth and waiting for roots to sprout.
Spinach may seem a bit boring, but if you plant it in November, like I did last year, you’ll have a huge harvest once the snow melts. I mostly just chucked the leaves into disgusting-looking smoothies, but maybe you’ll find a better use for them. Although I have never made them, Kronk Pepikrankenitz’s famous spinach puffs are supposedly pretty easy to make, as long as you don’t burn them.
There are a ton of other crops you can plant over the winter, like asparagus, beets, brussels sprouts, radishes, etc. I haven’t tried all these out in Charlottesville, but they are all snow resistant and should be fine in our 7a climate. Growing plants should be fun, so go on and experiment a bit. No one reading this article depends on a crop yield to survive, so who cares if you mess up?
Most of you don’t have a yard where you can grow plants. That’s okay; I got you. All the crops I mentioned above work great in planter pots. All besides corn, I suppose, since corn stalks have really deep roots. My friend Tristan Deering ’24 blessed me with that little tidbit. He’s not an elderly shamaness, but he’s close enough. You can have a horticultural wonderland on your tiny apartment balcony. All it takes to start is a container, some good soil, and seeds you can probably get for free.[1]
Law school has a nasty habit of making its students feel out of touch. People are likely to neglect their hobbies, lose touch with loved ones, and delve deep into the highly insular legal profession. So take every opportunity you can to go to that corn maze with your friends, touch some dirt, and start your own garden.
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dsa7st@virginia.edu
[1] Check out our local seed library at https://cvrl.net/seedlibrary/.