February 13, 2011
I planted seeds today. Outside. In two of my three gardens. It’s not even March yet. It’s barely the middle of February, a fact my inner sense of what’s done and not in a garden can hardly reconcile with today’s 50 degree temperature. Planting seeds in a February garden is a gamble (it may get bitterly cold again, it may snow some more), but honestly, hardly. The packets of radish, spinach, and sugar snap peas each cost a couple bucks and I didn’t even plant half the radish or spinach seeds. At most I put $4 on the line today, a tiny scrap of value next to the thrill of being outside again with my hands in good, rich garden soil, pulling weeds, agitating soil, making furrows, dropping in seeds, covering them up; setting the stage once again for new life.
Seeds planted in furrows (in Jones) before being covered with soil
And besides, the instructions on the back of each seed packet said very clearly to plant “as soon as the ground can be worked.” Today I easily worked the crumbly, black soil. So what was I waiting for?
If it doesn’t work, I’m out nothing. If it does, I’m magic, an amazing gardener. The radish packet promises 24 days from planting to harvest: March 9, just three and a half weeks from now. The spinach should be ready in 45 days, March 30, still a garden coup if it is successful. Gardeners are some of the most mild-mannered fierce competitors in the world. We’re sweet, nice people, the kind you’d let baby-sit your nine month old or go pick up $1000 cash from the bank for you. You wouldn’t even have to count the money, but you would have to count on us doing whatever it takes to get garden vegetables and flowers earlier, nicer, prettier, tastier, bigger, and just plain better than yours. Even if that meant planting seeds on February 13.
Jones (my garden) and other plots in the community garden
I first went to Jones (Of my three gardens I’ve named two; more on that in another post), my smaller garden. I cleared left-over Autumn sticks and leaves, pulled a few weeds, then planted chard, spinach and radish seeds. It felt good. Then it was off to Smith, my larger, farther-away garden. Due to my end-of-the-last-season neglect I had a lot of work to do today. Almost the whole garden had grown a thick stubble of low-growing weeds and the paths around the plot had a full green beard. I couldn’t shave the whole thing today, but in two hours I cleared a path around a fourth of the garden, cleaned out a section by the garlic I planted last fall, and planted radishes, spinach, a little lettuce and sugar-snap peas.
Poor Smith's unsightly green beard
While I was working, a fellow gardener in that community garden who had been feeding his compost (had he named it, I wonder?) said hello and asked what I was doing. “Committing an act of wanton optimism,” I told him. He told me he always plants peas on Washington’s birthday (a week from tomorrow). I loved learning a truly local bit of garden lore (Washington was from HERE; have I ever mentioned that?), plus was encouraged that the seeds I put into the ground today might have a chance.
Wanton Optimism
Back home and bathed, I’m feeling a sweet ache in the arm, the back, a delicious sense in my gut of having worked, having accomplished something, having laid the groundwork for a miracle.
Peas planted (Note the newly weeded, chipped path)
