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<\/a>Seeds planted in furrows (in Jones) before being covered with soil<\/p><\/div>\n
And besides, the instructions on the back of each seed packet said very clearly to plant “as soon as the ground can be worked.”\u00a0 Today I easily worked the crumbly, black soil.\u00a0 So what was I waiting for?\u00a0 <\/p>\n
If it doesn’t work, I’m out nothing.\u00a0\u00a0 If it does, I’m magic, an amazing gardener.\u00a0 The radish packet promises 24 days from planting to harvest: March 9, just three and a half weeks from now.\u00a0 The spinach should be ready in 45 days, March 30, still a garden coup if it is successful.\u00a0 Gardeners are some of the most mild-mannered fierce competitors in the world.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 Even if that meant planting seeds on February 13.<\/p>\n
<\/a>Jones (my garden) and other plots in the community garden<\/p><\/div>\n
I first went to Jones (Of my three gardens I’ve named two; more on that in another post), my smaller garden.\u00a0 I cleared left-over Autumn sticks and leaves, pulled a few weeds, then planted chard, spinach and radish seeds.\u00a0 It felt good.\u00a0 Then it was off to Smith, my larger, farther-away garden.\u00a0 Due to my end-of-the-last-season neglect I had a lot of work to do today.\u00a0 Almost the whole garden had grown a thick stubble of low-growing weeds and the paths around the plot had a full green beard.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n
<\/a>Poor Smith's unsightly green beard<\/p><\/div>\n
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.\u00a0 “Committing an act of wanton optimism,” I told him.\u00a0 He told me he always plants peas on Washington’s birthday (a week from tomorrow).\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n
<\/a>Wanton Optimism<\/p><\/div>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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<\/a>Peas planted (Note the newly weeded, chipped path)<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
February 13, 2011 I planted seeds today.\u00a0 Outside.\u00a0 In two of my three gardens.\u00a0 It’s not even March yet.\u00a0 It’s barely the middle of February, a fact my inner sense of what’s done and not in a garden can hardly … Continue reading