The Garden is Calling

While I was sick with the flu, Spring came. Our 3 ornamental plums that began blooming on Cindy's birthday were a riot of pink by the time my fever hit 102. I lay on the couch with aching muscles and an overly sensitive nervous system while the daffodils came and went and the rosemary cascaded in periwinkle blossoms. By the 5^th day of my illness, I was taking a little fresh air. On the first day, I simply sat on the swing and enjoyed a nippy breeze that brushed my skin along with the warm sun. On the second day, I couldn't handle looking at the weeds which had grown a full inch since the day before, so I found a folded tarp and plopped it on the ground and pulled weeds in a circle around the tarp. This became my practice each day. I would head outside after the coolness of morning wore off and sit on my tarp and pull weeds in a circle. It's not the kind of vigorous yard work that I'm used to this time of year, but at least I was making a dent.

On Saturday, before it rained, Cindy fixed a leaky faucet and I managed to weed one whole stretch of flower bed. Instead of my usual half hour, I worked for an hour. All kinds of things are poking through in that bed: yarrow, rudbekia, coreopsis, Echinacea, Shasta Daisies, salvia, day lilies, caryopteris, echinops, veronica. By June the hummingbirds and butterflies will be cruising this bed.

Today, the cough is still knocking me silly, but I spent an hour in the vegetable garden planting sugar peas. Culley says it's 3 weeks too late to plant peas, but I don't think it's ever too late. I'm totally happy to have them in the ground, and I know I'll be crunching their sweetness by late May. The roses I moved into this fenced garden are coming along nicely and in a couple months we'll plant tomatoes between them. I moved some volunteer nicotania to make a border along the back of the bed near the faucet. If they make it, their yummy pink flowers will bob there all summer and they won't be in the way of anything else. While I was working, I had a great idea about planting melons in the strawberry patch. All I have to do is make a fence on the upper side and we can have a nice space for melons AND strawberries. Maybe I can get Lee to come and help me sink some posts for a decent fence. Then if I dump some compost in there, I can plant melons in May.

The flu and the garden are teaching me about patience and simplicity and transience.

ph