“Are your peas up yet?” a friend asked a couple of weeks ago, lamenting that hers weren’t after a month.
“Not yet, but the lettuce and spinach have started, just barely.” When I went home that day, the rain had stopped, and I took a peek at the garden. There among the maple seedlings that are determined to turn
my garden into a forest, I saw uncurling leaves that looked different, crinkly.
Peas. A start.
I’ll keep waiting and watching, watering if it doesn’t rain. I’ll pull the maple seedlings and keep loosening soil, pulling weeds, and adding compost to get the rest of the garden ready. While I’m waiting, the rhubarb is growing so fast you can almost see it; the kids come running up to me with onion breath from eating chives, one of the few things actually ready; and I pull the occasional scallion from last year to chop over dinner because we’re all eager for something fresh and new.
This space is something fresh and new for me too, a space to write about growing and food and family and the connections of all those things. Spring energy is bubbling up through me just like it is through the plants. Things are ready to start popping and blooming and growing. I’m tending my seeds, working and waiting to see leaves and dreams begin to unfurl.
