Spring Has Sprung

It's a never ending succession in the garden. 

It starts around St. Patrick's Day with the planting of the peas, onions, lettuce, beets, potatoes and cabbage. All cool weather crops that are slightly frost tolerant. They will mature hopefully before the heat of summer sets in. We picked the last of our peas and pulled the bushes and fed them to the chickens and ducks. 

Then come the asparagus sprouts emerging about the same time as the crappy (fish) start their spring run when they are breeding and the morel mushrooms start sprouting in the woods. Spring turkey season for you hunters.

This week we dug the garlic that was planted last October and it is hanging in the woodshed to dry. We will save enough to plant again this October and begin all over again. 

And those boxes of onions planted on St. Patrick's are ready to lay over to dry. After about a week they too will go into the wood shed to dry.

Next will be the spring green onions to either dehydrate or freeze and the beets to pickle. Then the cabbage will become a new batch of kraut and freezer slaw. All of these empty boxes will then be filled with summer green beans, squash, shell beans,melons and cucumbers and other heat loving crops.

Along the back fence on the east boundary of the property are the okra, butter bean and tomato crops. 

Every sunny nook and cranny has a crop this year. We are unsure what the future holds for food availability or grocery prices so we are in full gardening mode. Gorilla gardening if you will. Behind the woodshed is a bean patch. Red beans about ready to bloom. 

Once the cabbage and potatoes mature those spaces will go to July crops for the fall. Greens and carrots, fall lettuces maybe broccoli. And more fall cabbage. Then we gather our seeds and plant the garlic in October and rest another winter. And we give Thanks. We knit before the fire and dream and plan with the seed catalogs of January and plan again. New hope.

Season after season. Year after year. One harvest leading into another in a comforting progression. Life goes on regardless of the politics or the crisis. A life of work and thankfulness. A life of simplicity and peace. We love each other, our land and animals. We watch our grandchildren grow and flourish. And for the two of us we know that we are in the autumn season of our own lives. Our hair is gray and our knees are creaky but we get great satisfaction in knowing that we have lived a good honest life. Spring will be missed as it was short this year, cold and rainy. But next year will be another chance and regardless we will enjoy the blossoms.

Blessings from The Holler

The Canned Quilter