Springing Up

So no matter that the world is facing a plague and people are locked out of work and wondering how they will survive the coming months,- spring has arrived. The planet keeps on turning and the seasons continue to change no matter what human concerns may consume us. Here in northern Illinois, spring is making its first real appearance and we are so grateful.

It always surprises me to find things poking out of the ground, old bulbs and even new ones that I managed to get in the ground in the fall. I have seeds sprouting in the green house and plants flourishing in the yard.

My dad and I found some old recycling bins and empty flower pots and planted potato, beets, onions, and radishes. They should be easy to harvest when the time comes, spilling the dirt into the garden and picking out our treasures. Way easier than digging them up once the ground is hard and compact. We even balanced a few bins on old empty coffee cans to raise them up. We’ll see how all that works and I’ll let you know.

Gardening has many benefits, it is calming, hard physical work, and it connects you to life and living and when you are struggling through grief and loss, hoping to survive a plague and worried about money, well, it is a distraction. We are growing equal numbers of flowers and vegetables for the first set of trays where I get my seeds to grow. So far it looks like more than 50% have sprouted and we are only 3 days in.

Hopefully it will be a good year for gardens, we could sure use the break. As I said we are not ready for everything in the yard, but the cold weather plants are starting and we Ended the day by putting in the first row of lettuce.