Springtime

Springtime

April:

The calendar says spring. But the Boston weatherman has the true story: rain, sleet and even some, yes... snow across the higher elevations. I know how the calendar lies. I’ve learned a few things about spring weather during my thirty -eight years of gardening. Bean seeds that rotted  in the drenched soil after the Mother’s Day Flood.  Tomato and pepper seedlings blackened overnight by April’s icy  fingers. So I practice  patience and spend drizzly afternoons snuggled up on the sofa reading seed catalogues  and making wish  lists for my  first trip to the green house.

May 20^th. 

Springtime in southern New Hampshire. Trees bud green. Tulips bloom red. Pink phlox spills over the stone walls. Yellow dandelions splat randomly across the greening backyard.

My neighbor rings my doorbell early one morning with a box full  of some “extras:” broccoli ,  eggplant,  hot peppers and yellow cherry tomato plants that he’s grown from seed. “I can’t use all of these. I spend my whole day moving these flats from window to window, following the sunshine.”’ He boasts that his peas are up and the lettuces and spinach will be in the salad bowl this week. 

It’s time, I decide. Time to venture down to the 30’ x 30’ plot and plan the new season. Time to check the garden shed  and take inventory of the supplies: the rakes, shovels, fertilizer, wooden markers for the plant rows, balls of twine to lace up the cucumber trellises.  Time to dust off the woodchuck trap and untangle  the garden hoses. Time to get  the little red truck out of the barn,  fill ‘er up with gas and head to the local greenhouse.  

The swollen garden gate needs a good push to open.   Brown oak leaves and  dead tomato stalks fill the twenty -year -old rotted beds.  Chives,  thyme and mint struggle up through the layer of pine spills.  Dead  bean vines twine in and out of the dangling latticework. And already the season’s  new weeds  are well on their way to taking over the plot. What in hell happened  here? Where was I last October at fall clean-up/put- the- gardens -to -bed time? Where was I in April when the deep winter snows finally melted? How can this be my garden?  The one that I have loved and tendered for so many years.  Are these the beds modelled and measured after those of James Crockett and his The Victory Garden ? Are these the compost bins that my husband measured and re-measured so that they fit the exact specs of those on tv? They haven’t been turned. There’s no compost, no “black gold” waiting to be shoveled into the planting beds. 

I can only open the garden shed door. There’s no way through the stacked  patio furniture, the wheel barrel and the garden cart, the lawn mowers. I can only look at the garden tools hung on the opposite wall.  Empty  bags of lime and grass seed litter the floor. Mouse droppings and shreds of paper toweling cover the planting bench. This is the shed that Jim and I constructed  from the left over lumber,  doors,   windows and countertops from his old construction projects.  I learned my elementary building skills here: how to measure twice and cut once, how to snap a chalk line,  how to nail  gun sheathing to a stud. How I cried when Jim pointed out that many of the  nails  had missed their mark. How we laughed at the thought of the  big, bad wolf huffing and puffing to blow the shed down.  And when the small structure was complete, we swept up the sawdust and washed every window. We invited the neighbors over for a christening party to showcase our extraordinary carpentry skills.  Cold champagne never tasted so good, was never so well-deserved. 

May 22: 

The shed has been emptied and cleaned.  The tools hung on the walls, the shelves cleared of  cracked pots,  the cobwebs sucked from every corner. There’s room now to set up housekeeping:  a small table, a rickety chair and an old braided rug that I found up in the barn. 

I drive the little red truck across the lawn to the backyard. Two by fours are strapped to the rack. My husband’s toolbox and  skill saw are in the truck bed.  Lengths of orange extension cords snake from the house to the garden. He’s making good on a promise he made to me last fall: to build waist-high raised  beds. No more up and down and crawling around on the ground;   plant and weed and harvest while standing up. This will be  my retirement garden. But he  decides that the old beds are two wide to reach across. He measures and cuts and re-designs three of the wooden planters.  At 32” high and 24” wide,  they’re perfect for the short plants: swiss chard,  kale, broccoli. We  leave the other two lower beds for the taller plants: the tomatoes and peppers and squash trellises.

Next up. Filling those 32” deep beds.  We  use all the  old  plastic pots and flats from the shed to fill the bottom two thirds of each box.. Then we add the organic layers: rotted leaves from the woods, compost from our recently turned bins, fresh grass clippings from our neighbor.  Leaf mold, compost, grass. Repeat, repeat, REPEAT until the beds are filled to 8”  from the top. We rake through the soil, removing big clumps, twigs and rocks. Then it’s time to celebrate with a cold beer and another spray of insect repellent. 

Road trip- May 25^th:

Jim continues to top off the beds each day as the soil settles.  Content that the sinking has levelled off,  I head to the greenhouse in the little red truck. My plan is to buy plants; it’s too late in the growing season to start peppers or tomatoes or eggplant from seeds. Even though I’m late, there’s still a great selection. I push my garden cart  up and down every aisle, amazed at the new varieties, the heirlooms and the old favorites. By the time I get to the check out, my  cart is full. Time to get these plants home, hardened off and into the ground.

Jim’s tinkering in the garage when I pull into the driveway. I flash him my biggest smile as he comes out to survey the plants in the trunk bed. One glance and a shake of his head. My smile begins to fade.

“I thought we had a conversation,” he says.

“Yes, we did. What’s wrong? They had a great selection this late in the season. Look at how healthy everything is!”

He looks  back to the truck bed. “Let’s look at how much you bought. We talked about this and agreed. There’s only two of us. T-W-O!” He starts counting the number of flats, calculating the total plant count.  “Six Swiss chard? Six kale? Six zucchini? Do you not remember last August and September?”

In my defense, I note that they do not sell these plants individually. You can’t just but a broccoli plant or one Swiss chard.  “I do remember,” I said. “But we have neighbors who love veggies. Doesn’t sharing make you feel good?”

“Hmm,” he says. “Three of our neighbors also have gardens. The people on this street are not expecting us to feed them. We are not a farmer’s market. And what’s in the back seat?”

“Don’t be silly, Jim. You know what those are.”

“Yes, I KNOW what those are. Let me re-phrase my question. How many tomato plants did you buy?”

“Well, I really wasn’t counting the plants. I bought different varieties. Some for salad, for sauce…”

“…14, 15, 16 tomato plants?”

“I didn’t count them. But they’re all different. Except for the 4 Romas. We need a lot of those for our sauce. And they had San Marinos this year. Those are hard to find.”

He rolls his eyes and shakes his head. I know this combination gesture well.  It’s his way of saying  Fine. Whatever. You’re impossible. I give up.

I count my first trip to the nursery as a success and empty the flats, placing them by the back steps where they’ll get good sun and protection from the wind.

June 1^st: Planting day.

 The plants have “hardened off.”  I have a plan for where each one will go, careful to rotate my crops so they’re not planted in last year’s location.  I check Pinterest on a regular basis to read all the latest tips on gardening: how to increase yield in smaller spaces, which tomato plants need to be pinched, how to make an organic bug spray from ingredients found right in your kitchen. After all these years, there’s still something new to learn, a new method to try. I measure and dig each hole . Then it’s time for the special add-ins: a scoop of compost, a few shakes of Epsom salts , a baby aspirin  and a good handful of the pulverized egg shells that I’ve  stashed  in the freezer all winter.  I smile when I remember the day that Jim found the plastic bag. 

“What’s in here?”

“Oh, those? Egg shells. For the tomatoes and peppers. A good source of calcium for building healthy “bones,  the cell walls of the plant.”

“Says who?”

“Pinterest,” I reply.

It’s another eye roll and head shake.  The shells go back in the freezer.

The planting goes quickly as I walk along the raised beds. No up and down, no crawling around on my hands and knees. I place a little plastic collar around each plant to keep the cutworms from chomping at the tiny stems. Finally,  each plant gets a good drink of slow release fertilizer. There. Done. I’m dirty and sweaty and a little sun burned. But the raised beds are planted. Tomorrow I’ll plant the tomatoes, peppers , squash and cucumbers.  Throw a package of bush beans in front of the trellis along the back fence.  And in between everything, I’ll tuck in the herbs and all the orange and yellow marigolds. 

Time to get washed up, make dinner and catch the 6’o clock news. Then  I walk down to the  garden shed with my glass of wine, light the small lantern and settle into the creaky rocking chair. The planting  beds and the trellises  and the green lawn darken with the coming of dusk. Bats circle overhead, swooping up and down in search of  insects.

And  tomorrow? Just maybe I’ll take the little red truck for another spring ride.