04.16.07
Rain, Rain, Go Away!
Spring can be a frustrating time for a New England gardener. The sun hangs in the sky until well past dinner, but the temperature holds in the forties and the ground is perpetually soggy. Having earlier planted two fruit trees, today I am widening the beds to accommodate a couple dozen dry-root strawberries. “You must be an optimist,” comments a passing driver. “That I am,” I reply, while wondering whether he refers to the building nor’easter or the faith required to envision the twisted roots I am sticking in the ground bearing fruit in a mere sixty days. I finish and clean up ahead of the downpour.
Yet for every packet of seeds that I sow, three more turn up that insist they want to get started “as soon as the soil can be worked in the early spring”. Is it time, they question? I’ll get to you soon, I promise. I opened the wrong cabinet in the basement this weekend, only to encounter questing tentacles from the seed potatoes. Where is our soil, our sun? Inside their winter bags I hear whispers from the gladiolus, importuning me with pleas for a gentle burial in a warm plot of soil. Patience, patience, I reply.
After six months of cold and damp, I too am ready to stretch my arms in the garden sunshine. To finally clear the detritus from last year’s crops, rake the planting beds into fresh mounds, then plant seeds while dreaming of what they might become. I gaze out the window through the rain, wondering if my attempts last fall to overseed a patchy portion of the lawn will have any lasting effect? Coming up behind me, R. intones, “April showers bring more flowers.”
He’s right, of course. We’ll get the chard in tomorrow.