Endeavor

As you might remember, there is a lot to do regarding the gardens at this house. Not only has the long-gone gardener left bulbs and old country roses everywhere, there is an asparagus patch which does not quit and some inexplicable potato remnants, and thankfully, peonies. I don't ask questions, fate handed me the stewardship here and hard work in the dirt is critical for a person's constitution, so I am nothing but grateful for everything that springs up and needs cared for - once, that is, I figure out what it is.

It has not been the kindest spring season, there continues to be frost threats and seedling loss. My only reservation to this necessary process of nature is that I have to watch something coddled from seed, die.



All the rest of it is the cycle of life and we have no choice but to go with it.



You remember what I came upon, surely, this ghostly plot of a vegetable garden long gone by.



Here it is today. The cold-adoring early seasonites are thriving: bok choi, turnip, radish, beets, onion, leek, Brussels sprouts, and sunflower. The true summer plants are still waiting their cue as the cold spring nights refuse to yield for them.



Give or take, it is about a quarter-mile over land to the garden from the kitchen. In a flash of false enterprise, I pronounced the distance far too great for herbs and lettuces which I need for cooking all the time, and consequently (and this is where the landscaping staff and I really became close, ah-hem) I overturned this old shade and sun garden at the back of the field behind the house.



I imagine it was a rock garden once, now it is another huge thing to be weeded, although I was not thinking of that when I turned it under. Nor did I consider the two toddlers who will do anything to thwart all this organized gardening effort in favor of wild patches of green mayhem.



What can I say? I'm here now. And I am tired but always thankful.