by Sara Barry | Mar 25, 2015 | garden, grow, noticing, spring, writing
Today while I waited for the bus, I saw this:
Doesn’t look like much does it?
But it’s my garden.
A little more melt and the rhubarb will start unfurling while we watch. A little more snow retreating and I’ll sprinkle spinach seeds and look for hints of cilantro in the herb section. Overly optimistic? Maybe. Yeah, a little.
But closer to the house, on the sunny side, the ground is truly bare. The mounds where the hops grow, the ever weedy flower bed that runs along the playroom, the patch of daily lilies by the back door—clear of snow.
Today while I waited for the bus, after I spied that tiny patch of garden ground, I picked up the kids’ rake, which had loitered by the back door all winter, and started raking out brown leaves and dead debris by the back door.
Then I squatted in my winter coat and tugged dead grass from the border. My fingers wiggled into the cold damp earth and came out muddy and chilled. I only poked for a few minutes, but when I went in they smelled like dirt. Ah, spring.
Snow still covers most of my yard and almost all of my garden. Yet I yearn to get out there and start planting. Today I scratched in the dirt.
Call it desperation.
Or hope.
I have my seeds. I’m ready to plant them. I’m ready to grow.
What are you yearning to do? What baby steps are you taking?
I’m looking forward to the growing season, and to Grow, my online writing retreat for spring. Come plant your ideas and see them bloom. I’d love to write with you.
by Sara Barry | Mar 11, 2015 | spring
We’re not quite here yet. There’s still a lot of snow covering the snowdrops, but it’s slowly melting and retreating. We’ll see them soon (I hope).
We’re in that messy middle season between winter and spring, when boots are necessary but sometimes you can skip a coat (and sometimes you can’t skip a coat but you do out of hope). The ground is still deeply blanketed with snow, but around the edges mud and dead grass are revealed, a little more each day.
Water flows down the driveway as ice and snow yield to the sun. And finally, it seems, the sap is running. I started going to sugar shacks two weeks ago, lured by pancakes and tradition, and the need for something to look forward to. We’ve visited three sugar shacks already, though I knew they weren’t boiling yet and any steam billowing was mere water.
But this week, it seems the sap is running, and I can feel the energy changing around me—and in me. I’m shaking off the sluggishness of winter. My body tells me to get moving, get running again. Ideas are flowing in a rush, and I’m trying to keep up, trying to collect and boil them down to their sweet essence.
Do you feel that shift too? Is spring flowing in you?
What are you doing with your spring energy?
by Sara Barry | May 9, 2014 | garden, spring
“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.
Doesn’t look like much does it?
