Start of the Growing Season

As Piper is growing before our eyes, so soon will our garden. Yes, my love now tells me what she wants to wear (or lack there of.) Today it was her swim suit. No, we didn't do any real swimming, just pretend. And when and where she wants to have her snack, today it was a snack-inic. She wants to use the big kid swing. Grows out of her sandals just weeks after they were bought.

Although many of our perennials are already alive for the year, not many of our veggies are. Namely because only a few items return each year. I spent two days of the last three planting. In past years we haven't planted until Memorial Day weekend or shortly after. We're trying some new things this year, planting a week earlier. Potatoes. We've never planted them before. The small stock pile of kennebecks we went through from my parents made us reconsider our veggie choices this year. Less hot peppers in lieu of potatoes. We're going to stagger the salad greens so as to not have an insurmountable mountain of them all at once this year.

I love the dirt! There is something calming in rooting your hands around in the earth. Something so organic. I get a little thrill when I see a bed of loose dark soil. Each year as I turn over the beds, in much the same manner I learned from my papa when I was growing up, I marvel at how we get anything to grow in this humble little garden of ours. Each year I pull out piles of rocks and at least half a dozen old nails. With all the nails in the ground it's no wonder the summer kitchen that used to hold the place of the garden was in disrepair. But it works, Mother Nature has this down pat. We always end up with more than we need and freeze, dry and/or give away the the extra.

Now we wait, in eager anticipation of those little seeds to pop their heads above the earth. On to replacing that one last bush Binger couldn't help but kill.