Spring, Spring, Spring

So my dear readers have you sensed it yet, the leaves are coming back, My work garden if you look close you can seethings making an appearance.and the birds are reappearing, those are sure signs of one thing, SPRING!!!!!! Alright so I am excited but hey I have right to be I live in New England, we had record snow fall. Even my truck was covered. (If you live south of the Equator, I am sorry.) What is the best part of spring… well other then everything, I think it is planting. Yea that is right I get to plant my garden again. I haven’t quiet decided how my home garden will work out but my work garden that is another story. On the first day I got to plant, I planted spinach, red tongue deer lettuce, radish, onions, leeks, cabbages, peas, and parsley.

My work garden if you look close you can seethings making an appearance

Now it will be a few weeks until I see anything growing, and then maybe a few more weeks after that until I can pick anything but hey it feels good to work in the soil again. When I was a kid loved to help my mom in the garden. I am not sure how much of a help I actually was but it is the thought that counts. We would plant peas, and beans, pumpkins, now and then carrots, and once we even did sweet corn. Of course there were also tomatoes and my mom still continues to make the best spaghetti sauce in the world. We would go to my Grandpa K’s house and he and my Grandma would have planted tomatoes, beans, butternut squash and summer squash. I was always impressed at the size of their garden. At my Grandpa G’s there was the largest blueberry bush and there garden always had lettuce and beans. They grew so many beans that we even call them GG Beans. It helped to keep straight him from his father who was also Grandpa G.

So why do we garden, well one is because freshness. I think the secret to my mom’s spaghetti sauce is that she grows the tomatoes. The moment she harvest them they go straight in to the pot. Even her Oregano is from her garden. The second thing is they are sweeter. I am not sure if it is the fact that you grew the goods yourself but there is something about the difference in produce between store bought, farmers market bought and home grown. It is your sweat, your caring, sometimes your tears, and on occasion your blood that goes into your garden. I have even found strength in it. Now sometimes because I am gardening so much at work my home garden misses out on some of my love and attention but I still enjoy seeing what comes out.

Gardening is nothing new. It like everything in history goes back in forth to how often it is seen. They are very common in the country side where you have a lot of room but in the city they are still not all that common. You might find homes with potted plants and some cities today are finding way to put them on roofs and other locations like that. Yet in cities throughout time it hasn’t changed, food is still trucked in from the country. There were places in some cities though were market gardens were kept, usually in abandoned lots were the building had fallen down but the idea of seeing them would depend on what city you were in, what part of the city you were in and what era you are in.

Dutch Painter Beuckelear's Earth dipicts the fresh vegetation you might find at the local market.

So here is to the things we grow now that spring is making an appearance. Here is to spring’s arrival, and summer’s coming. Here’s to the aces in our backs and legs, the sweat on our brows and the love in our hearts. What will you be growing this year?