At the end of every winter, after the brave bulbs have pushed their way to the surface but while the trees are still barren, hairy skeletons, I find myself doubting that in another few weeks, all this will be green, and beautiful. I teach my kids that faith is like knowing the sun will come up every morning, and I think the coming again of spring should be like that too, so maybe my faith is weak, but every year, it’s unfathomable to me, seeing what looks like death, and what is in fact death, in the case of the five maple trees I’ve been uprooting to make way for new plants.
Those five maple trees are splinter-dry and snap off at the base when I apply my full weight. The people who owned this house until last October gave up on them. Those maple trees, along the south side of our south-facing backyard would’ve grown to be a perfect shade. I knew they were dead because they were hard and leaveless last fall, but this spring, when I’m getting around to removing them, they look no different from the other trees in the yards next to ours, trees that I’m supposed to believe will be full and young and growing before long.
Is my faith weak? Or is it just an awesome, irreducible miracle that, though there is ice floating on the water in the sandbox, spring and green are here?
Today I’m putting away my doubt for another year: the seeds Sally, Susan, Spot and I started last week are sprouting.
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Wow that is great. I am horrible with plants. Someday I will grow something that will bloom. Until then I’ll continue looking at pictures and readying about others who have.
Winter was a good excuse to leave the maple trees alone, and if I were in your shoes I say hold off on taking them out until the leaves appear on the other trees. Why spend the energy before you have to?
Mom Blogs – Blogs for Moms…
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YAY… we’re gardening too.
What have you planted?
We’ve planted early tomatoes (supposed to be ready by 4th of July) and grape tomatoes for the kids, string beans, basil (lots and lots of basil), zucchini, crook neck squash, pickling cucumbers, sunflowers, and wildflowers.
Oh, and for $3 at Walmart I got a bag of 10 everbearing strawberry roots. So excited to plant those.
How about you?
That’s my kind of craft: edible, educational, dirty, and fun.
I like how you interweave faith and spring — it makes the metaphor fresh. And if you could get those trees to grow in our backyard, providing ample shade, it would be a miracle.
Oh, how I wish I could grow something – anything. However, my failures at gardening are well documented. I might do strawberries again, but otherwise I’ll be hitting the Farmer’s Market.
i planted my garden a couple of weeks ago since i live in georgia and it’s a bit warmer here. i planted 28 tomatoes, 24 cucumbers, 9 romaine lettue, 9 cabbages, 9 bell peppers, basil, cilantro.
Beth — This is my first attempt at gardening, and I was tempted to procrastinate just long enough to make it impossible. I feel like I need a class or at least to read a few books, but I saw my mom’s jiffy greenhouse like this one, and then I went down to the Walmart and spent under $20.
Oh, and I planted lettuce too, some sort of green leaf.
My mom told me I need sulphur for one of my plants, but I need to ask her which one it was. We are lucky in that the previous owners of this house built a raised l-shaped plot along two sides of our fence. It’s probably 30 square feet, and plenty big enough for my first try.
If none of mine comes to fruition (hehe), I’ll be plundering my mom’s garden.
I have that same feeling in the New England springs. I try to remember what it felt like to feel the warm sun on my bare arms, and I can’t.
My kids were just asking if we could plant a garden this year. Maybe it will help me over these last few weeks of dreary weather.
Jane Reply:
April 7th, 2009 at 1:03 pm
Seriously. Watching these seedlings has been amazing. Don’t know why I’ve never done this before. It’s like growing a baby, but better, because it’s not actually inside you, it’s on the kitchen counter, so you can pee without taking them with you. They’re sprouting so fast, I swear I can almost watch them pushing the soil aside. I need to take more pictures.
I’m not giving up hope (yet) in my gardening abilities. My problem is that I get all gung ho with planting in the spring (but careful not to plant so much that it’s overwhelming), then summer comes, and I’m golfing and at the beach, and staying home to water and weed is just. a. bit. much.
I tried those little seed starter things last year, but forgot to water them enough and ended up going with “already growing” plants. Then some badness happened last April and May and I didn’t get the garden in the ground in time. Then the dang rabbits and deer attacked. BUT I KNOW this year will be better!
Jane Reply:
April 7th, 2009 at 1:05 pm
Ah-ha. Another reason I’m glad the golfing bug has not bitten here. I imagine I will be home quite a bit this summer, with the kids, and so we need lots of home/garden type projects. And by projects I mean things we can eat without feeling TOO guilty.
My mom has a 6-foot-high barbed-wire fence with crushed glass at the top to keep out the deer.
If you lay down black landscaping tarp under your tomatoes they will grow and ripen faster. With Utah’s short growing season, it will help you get a better yield.
I just planted strawberries a couple weeks ago and they are coming up great, in spite of the bad weather. I got my spring garden in, too, well half of it, but I haven’t started my seeds yet. Hopefully I will get around to that this week.
Jane Reply:
April 7th, 2009 at 1:07 pm
My mom does that — she says so she doesn’t have to weed, but if it also helps them grow faster, I’m gonna definitely look into it.
And I’ll start my strawberries soon, too. CAN’T WAIT!
I was going to plant a garden this year. I had been doing research and was gearing up to go. But like you, I have to have faith that my own green will come. It’s a time for adventure, a fresh start. I just hope I have the faith to not only make it to “spring” but to make it there with a cheerful heart and my faith intact. Oh, how I love the spring!
Jane Reply:
April 7th, 2009 at 1:01 pm
Maybe you could do a couple containers? I know they’d be a pain to move, but in a few months, you might be able to harvest some herbs. My stuff is all growing faster than the packets promised, and I haven’t even broken out the miracle-gro yet!
I love spring gardens. Here in AZ I am hoping mine will last another month to six weeks. By the end of May, unless I irrigate, it gets all dried up. But then there is a fall growing season too. Twice as much hope!
We don’t get to plant a garden this year because we are moving but I am hoping to at least have some container plants. Just a note, your strawberries might not make fruit the first year. We planted some a few years ago and we got strawberries but they were transplanted from my parent’s garden and had bloomed in their garden the previous year. Then we moved to Oklahoma and bought strawberries. They grew but no fruit. The second year, they had fruit and already are growing fruit again. My dad said it is the same with raspberries. So, if you don’t get strawberries, don’t be disappointed.
We love having a garden. We have used the little greenhouse that you are using and it is so cool to see our little seeds grow. Everything tastes more fresh coming from the garden.
Happy gardening!
I read this post & I liked it.
(Jealous of your plants & wanting to do some of my own)
(I like the deeper meaning too)
Jane Reply:
April 9th, 2009 at 10:53 am
I know. I’m so deep it’s scary sometimes.