An Early Spring Day

The sun is shining and the Farmer’s Wife has a day-off-from-work at her regular job, so she is scampering here and there, trying to get as much done as possible. First the beds are stripped and linens washed and hung to soak up all that early spring air. The East Garden is also tended to. Any and all weeds are removed and a fresh layer of mulch spread over all in anticipation of the plants and seeds which will call this par-tic-ular place home in just a few short weeks. The West garden is a different story all together. That is overrun with weeds and plants that are meant to be there, but have spread themselves out just a bit further than a certain Farmer’s Wife would have liked. Those will be taken care of next week. And the week after (it’s a big garden). The Farm is up east and north, so there is a bit of time for that in the month of May. Most times, the Farmer’s Wife is pleased if everything is in the ground by Memorial Day. So, there’s time. She has to keep reminding herself this, because she is (very) tempted to work and work and work some more and not take any time at all to enjoy the fruits of all this working. With that in mind, she is stopping all this scampering at a quarter to one in which to meet her sister for tea.

The plans for the garden are not yet laid, which is something of a wonder. Usually, this is plotted out sometime in the depths of January and February. But not this year. You see, mistakes were made last year. A new garden was put in, and into that was placed the corn (good idea), amaranth (good idea), potatoes (terrible idea) and the sweet potatoes (also a terrible idea). You see, the soil there was new. Compacted down. Not at all good for root crops. So, the Farmer’s Wife has had to think about some things. And that thinking has taken more time than expected. For now, it has been decided that any and all root crops will go in the loose soil of the raised beds in the East Garden, and she had thought the tomatoes (which now won’t fit in the East Garden) would make their homes in the West. But what if that fails like the potatoes did last year? No. Better not to risk it. A Summer and Winter without Sauce is not worth having, especially since the pizza oven has come to live on the Farm. No. New plans are needed. So stay tuned. As soon as I know what they are, I’ll be sure to pass it along.