After an extended absence this winter, returning to the island and my garden is exciting and overwhelming. Yesterday I walked through with my 3-year-old friend Olive. Last year Olive helped me pull garlic, pick flowers, and generally looked adorable any time she stood next to a wheel barrow. On this wet March day she asked me where the raspberries and strawberries were. "They're right here, Ollie," I said, pointing to mulched beds of scraggly plants and tied-back canes. "But where are the BERRIES?!" she insisted. I explained that the plants are taking this time to pull energy and nutrients from the soil, and that in the summer they would grow new leaves and flowers. Once the flowers dropped their petals, we would be able to eat the fruit that was left behind. "Oh," she said, looking down at her yellow rain boots. As we squished through the muddy field in the grey cold, it was hard to imagine that first sweet summer berry harvest. I couldn't even imagine the saturated beds drying out enough to prep and plant, or my greenhouse being warm enough to nurture the first starts of the year.
I returned Olive to her mom, and set about working on exercising my imagination. I started small: with seeds. There is nothing more encouraging than receiving your first seed order of the season. Everything is neat and orderly: the clean, hopeful little packets, the visions of bountiful, weed-free beds in my mind. As I organized and rubber-banded and planned out beginning crop rotations, I knew that I would be ready as soon as the beds decided they were, too. I thought of Olive, who told her mom when I dropped her off, "Hey momma! Someday the petals will fall off the flowers and then we can eat strawberries!" Growing food is an act of hard work, determination and faith. Olive has the faith part down, so now I will follow her lead.
Today there is wind and hail instead of rain. At least I can stay dry in the greenhouse.
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