Inching Toward Spring

Just when I think spring is finally here, just when the tulips are blooming, just when the hostas begin to unfurl their leaves, winter comes rushing back.  The icy Arctic cold dropped from the north last night, but I was prepared.  Old sheets, overturned buckets, flowerpots and boxes protected the tender plants from the frost.  However, the icy blasts are keeping me from planting my garden.  The summer vegetables all like to be planted after the last frost.  Usually, that has passed, but this year is not usual!  One more night of frost is predicted.  

This weekend I will live daringly and plant my summer vegetables.  Those packets of cucumber and bean seeds are begging to be opened and planted.  I count ahead to the days when then should be mature hoping that the soil is warm enough to allow them to sprout and grow.  There is a delicate time between  the last frost and the heat of summer that allows the seeds to sprout and grow strong.  The temperature must be right, the moon needs to be in the right phase, the zodiac needs to be in the right sign.  Oh well, I will just plant and hope that at least some of the requirements will be enough to ensure healthy plants and crops.

New Garden

As the first warm breaths of spring arrive, I am digging in the dirt.  To me, getting my hands covered with dirt, getting dirt under my fingernails, and having my muscles ache from digging and planting is a pure delight!  It is a chance to renew the cycle of life.

This is my first growing season since we moved to town.  I have to admit having only a coupe of raised beds and some flower beds is quite a different from having a big garden, raised beds, a blackberry patch and a semblance of an orchard.  But I find that even a small area to dig and plant is sufficient for now.  Grandpa had helped me clear all of the weeds from the raised beds during the winter, so over the last few days I have added compost and peat to the heavy soil.  It will take some time to get the tilth just right, but I have time.  

The pleasure was in finding a few worms in the cool soil.  More will come as I improve the soil.  It is good black dirt that smells of the elements of earth.  I turned the soil with a spading fork and hoed the clods and raked it until it was a deep chocolate blanket.  Then came the planting.  Peas and spinach for now.  Rain is promised over the next two days, and the temperatures are warming. Year after year I am always amazed that I feed the earth, drop in a seed,  let sun and rain do their work and marvelous plants that are so good to eat appear.  How can it not be a miracle.

As I planted this morning, the blue birds were singing.  One bright male, puffed up with pride in his own song perched on the handle of my spading fork and watched me plant.  The moon is right for planting, the earth is good and the blue birds are singing.  It can't be anything but wonderful.