Presently

The rhubarb has doubled in size in a week.

The wind has been having a serious conversation with the trees all morning. I pulled my Garden Way cart across the bumpy ground to the huge pile of soil out behind the neighboring barn. On my way back to the garden, I stopped at the mound of composting manure from the chicken houses and added a few shovels. My garden beds are nearly ready for planting. Already the peas are up in one and the seed potatoes are buried in hills in another. Every weekend I haul a little more soil and compost to the remaining beds so I can plant the rest of the vegetables at the end of the month.

Oregano, chives and garlic are growing in the herb garden. Soon it will be warm enough to plant parsley and basil. They will season my breakfast eggs and other dishes all summer long. I cut my first asparagus stalks yesterday and tonight there will be fresh rhubarb sauce for dessert.

I am waiting for June to wash the curtains and the windows and screens. I have outdoor and indoor projects planned but they're all waiting on warmer weather. I want to be able to open the windows when I paint the kitchen cabinets and I need a few consecutive days of nice weather to dig up the patio stones and level the earth beneath.  Over the years the ground has settled. Guests sitting on the far side lean precariously toward the forsythia bushes.

The daffodils have been singing their yellow songs for two weeks now. The lily and phlox stems have pushed up through the cold earth in the patio garden and the rose bushes have sprouted tiny green leaves. Violets and bloodroot blossom side by side. On a few days it's been warm enough to eat out of doors at the patio table or to lounge in my outdoor swing. Today, however, it is overcast and the wind is chilly. The weatherman said we might experience thunderstorms with hail. It put me in mind of a Vermont neighbor who, as we sat huddled on bleachers in our winter coats one June watching our sons play baseball, said, "It's so cold that if it'd rain, it'd hail." Ayup.

Violets and bloodroot are blooming on the back slopes.

Garden Watch

mint, basil, and lettuces

There is something to be said for having an herb garden right outside the kitchen door. Breakfast eggs are embellished with fresh chives and parsley, as are supper's potatoes. The oregano grows rampant in another section of the garden and seasons, among other things, a delectable eggplant dish made with tomatoes, onions, and Swiss cheese. The lemon mint that is growing to bush size will be transplanted elsewhere for next year. Its leaves find their way into glasses of iced tea. At lunch a few chives added color to a curried chicken salad on a bed of freshly picked lettuce leaves. Tonight fresh dill flavors a cucumber salad.

A rogue squash seed buried in the compost that was spread around the patio to nourish the flowers has grown monstrous and threatens to take over the yard. So far three round globes are forming. The vegetable garden over at the farm is puny this year - too much rain. I did have a fine mess of peas but not enough to freeze, the hail a few weeks ago decimated the spinach and the peppers and eggplant, though growing, have yet to flower. The tomato plants are enormous and if all goes well the potato crop will be twice what it was last year. Come for iced tea - stay for dinner!


chives, parsley and miniature strawberries