It was barely one month ago that we were still recovering from February's back to back snow storms. The snow drifts were beginning to recede revealing huge wet, muddy gashes all along the sides of the roads where the plows had shoved the snow, branches were strewn across lawns, and the poor shrubs were revealing just how much damage they had sustained, bending beneath the weight of so much snow. It was hard to take it all in. Yet I remembered that just as our own bodies know how to heal from injury, so too, the Earth, given a little attention, can do the same. Still, it was hard to look upon so much destruction without some dismay.
Here in my neck of the woods, central Maryland, Spring is clearly here! and not just because the calendar says we have crossed the Vernal Equinox. The 'peepers', i.e. the little tree frogs, have been trilling their presence on warm afternoons and evenings since March 15th, and of course the early daffodils and crocuses are in full bloom. Thankfully, the forsythia made it through the winter and the maple trees are showing their 'red fluffies' in deep crimson. And my horse 'Andrew' (more on him later) has been shedding like crazy!
In the meantime, down in the basement under a growlight, my broccoli, swiss chard, kale, romaine lettuce and spinach are a good inch tall! The warm days over the past weekend offered the perfect opportunity get out in the garden. My husbandJohn cut back blackberry canes,we put a torch to the excess mulch and weeds on the asparagus bed, Itilled a few beds and planted onions sets, more spinach and more lettuces, and two wide swaths of peas (snow and sugar snaps) and turned the compost piles. The 'green manure' crop that I planted last fall in sprouting nicely and will soon be tilled under to provide extra nutrients as the season progresses. The buds on the blueberry bushes, plum, apple, pear and peach trees are all beginning to swell and in no time there will be fruit blossoms!
To those whose lives are not much dictated by the seasons, all this could sound a bit 'quaint'. Next to over hauling the health care system or NCAA's "March Madness", musings on the appearance of the peepers sounds rather, uh, beside the point. Yet I have found that attending to the rhythms of nature and the seasons , regardless of whether one lives in the city, the suburbs or the country, contributes substantially to an overall sense of health and well being.
So I ask you....where or how is Spring happening in you? What new growth is happening inside? What part of your own 'inner garden' might benefit from clearing out to make room for the next cycle of seasons? What new harvest will be the result of your efforts?
"You are the garden and the gardener of your life."
