The birds are tweeting and twittering. With a cup of coffee in hand and my rubber boots I make the morning rounds to see what has survived another year, what is braving our still frosty nights to get a little sunshine during the day. It is a daily spring ritual. First I examine the herb and perennial bed by the house (my favorite). My flax that was gorgeous last year seems to have expired and replaced itself with a couple of diminutive seedlings. I see signs of life from everything else- lilies, poppies, oregano, thyme, hyssop, tarragon, sage, lady’s mantle, all phloxes, geraniums, roses. Looks good. The chipmunks have feasted on my tulip bulbs, but the daffodils have out done themselves. Now I walk across the wet grass, under the white pine, to the asparagus (nothing yet), past our little blueberry bushes and down to the vegetable garden.
I stand on the rock wall above the garden as if on a precipice of what is to come. For this moment I feel so at peace with the quiet now of the natural world just waking up and this expectancy. I can hardly stand it. I take a quick look at the peas and radishes just poking up and at the spinach, which is a disappointment. Some little pattering feet and plastic dump truck wheels got to it before I could. Oh well. The raspberry canes are greening. The planned tomato and pepper beds look fairly weed free with a few of last years missed garlic poking up. And the potato, cabbage, and onion bed looks dark and fertile, freshly tilled.
I know I must reign myself in this time a year. “Plant after danger of frost has passed,” reads the seed packet. You, in the South, do not know what it is like in May with warm, t-shirt days, flowers blooming, the farmer’s market selling tomato plants, and even my children running through the sprinkler and still a threat of frost they tell me on the radio. And so I am cautious and we did have a good frost two nights ago. I peek at my protected starts in the hoop house. The tomatoes, peppers, eggplants, celery and the other odds and ends look moist and healthy. Now back to the house. Snow seems so long ago. And before I know it my lovely black dirt will be covered with a sea of green. A sea of intentionally planted vegetables and flowers that is, not weeds.
