Desert Greens

It's spring!!!

Green stuff is sprouting, the ground is warming and I got my first rosey sun touched skin.  With so much to do it is always a wonder to at the end of the season that we actually managed to get to it all. Well, somethings get lost in the shuffle, those poor transplants that gotten eaten by the wind, the seedlings that just missed the last day of sun. But back to the garden we go. Getting dirty and growing new varieties, old favorites and all those really cool and exciting ones in between that  make growing and eating such a pleasure. Do a little dance, send smoke signals to the ancient farming gods or what ever it is you do to make this season garden green with produce. 

In the interim of heat and green-nests I crave the creative carvings of gardening. There is a deep seated desire to reach into the soil and discover the wonders that lie there. To participate with the mysterious world that lives there, that gives here. But, I can only wait, pace the rows, at least with my eyes, with my mind and wait. It is a horrible thing. Planning and figuring, calculating and imagining. But, that is all they really are, when the sun finally takes hold and the earth warms, all that planning, those interior thoughts and schemes dissipate like smoke. Beans land here and there, lettuces fits here but not there and as if by some will and knowledge beyond my own, things settles across the garden, just as they should.

Distance they say makes the heart grow fond but the silence breeds simplification or complication, it twists and turns itself into something entirely new and different. Perhaps, it is what is needed, one way or another, to draw us back, to keep us coming back and staying. Despite the hardships and trials- the draw and the distance; smoothing out the jagged edges, calls out like some fairy-ed siren and brings us back, to grow once more.

Once upon a time there was sun and lot's and lot's of sun. That sun, while providing us with everything we need to survive and thrive can like a cute puppy get a little frustrating some times. Like, for instance when it dries to a wispy dead bit of nothing your seeds and starts. Or when it says look at me shine want to see me get even hotter, 'cause I will. And then it does and it's cool and all that it can still do the triple digits after all those  years. But really, once would have been enough but a week, two straight, that is just showing off. Even the poor "sun loving" plants like peppers and Tomatoes didn't really understand what they were getting into when they signed into that group. Beans making tiny bean-less pods, melons and squash pushing out valiant attempts but really wishing it would just cool down a degree or two...

Well I digress. Last night we got rain, real rain. The low spots in our yard became little ponds of defiance, oasis to toads, dogs and small mud loving childeren alike. The usually hard and cracked soil softens, turning into a luxuriant cushion. Seeds heard the noise too. They awoke to the thunder and swelling ground, there tiny yet amazing shells are bursting open.  The seed inside, the little piece of life - is growing. Growing like nobodys buisness, like no tomorrow because well, there might not be. Grow while you can and soak up all that rain, all those nutrients that have been wait like all of us... for the rain.