My garden is in and it is looking mighty and full of splendor with the dark dirt that surrounds it.  My little plants look healthy and strong and ready to grow.  This time of year is the time I feel the most refreshed.  It is like the long winter grew a fog of webs over us and our minds.  This is the time to brush them off and clear our minds and look for the rebirth.  My time feels paced from the time the first windows are opened and it quickens as trees start to bud and the grass begins to green.  Gardens are tilled and the pace quickens, plants are for sale pace quickens even more.

The garden is planted and I feel at ease, at peace, and pure joy.  Seeing the little plants there I have a hard time not imagining what their growth will be like the colors and the smells.  I love the smell of a tomato plant on my hands.  The dirt that will be etched in the creases of my palms and in the nail-beds.  They are all signs of hope and signs of renewal that can happen with us all.

I find being in a garden very peaceful.  I have memories of taking my grandfathers hand and walking across the road to his garden.  We would weed some, pinch the suckers off the tomato plants.  We would pick some of the produce.  We would gleefully bring our prizes back to grandma who should be how to clean the peas and snap the beans.  We would sneak some early potatoes and grandma would cream them with the garden peas.  A garden was and is a time of family, love, patients and of teaching.

I love to involve my children in the garden.  From picking the plants to digging the holes to watering the plants.  We of course get watered too but that is half the fun.  Later in the season it is like a treasure hunt looking for the colors of the tomatoes and filling our bags to the brim with produce.  That feeling is still as strong as you wipe the water off the freshly processed jars of all the produce that was just picked and now in the cupboards.

This year we have potatoes, red onions, leaf lettuce, spinach, early peas, green peppers, red peppers, jalapenos, banana peppers, cucumber and Christmas melon,  Roma tomatoes, beefsteak tomatoes, early girl tomatoes, big boy tomatoes and this year I added some heirloom varieties that I am just tickled pink about.  We have Mr Stripey, Old German, Amish Paste, and Cherokee Purple.  These 4 heirlooms are my pride and joy.  I can’t wait to watch them and their amazing colors come forth.

I pray for rain and sun.  Last year we had a flood and I lost half of my garden.  I hope that doesn’t happen again but at this point we do need rain.