First Signs of Spring!

Oh, Happy Day! Hyacinth orientalis 'L'Innocence'


I have not walked our property nor inspected the garden beds since December when I cut pine boughs for our holiday decorations. I purposefully avoided my enclosed vege garden where I grow our summer food and medicinal and culinary herbs... mainly out of guilt. You see, I never put the vege garden to bed last Fall... the tomato cages have been standing all winter long holding up the dead, dried tomato plants from last summer while the soggy, rotting leaves of the cabbage, kale and chard still lay like a thick carpet over the beds they once proudly ruled.


There is a point, usually in late summer when I give up trying to control the weeds and bugs and just say, "screw it, you win again." Then, in late September, I was busy planning our trip to Italy and everything went to you know where in the garden. I even left the garden gate open in the Fall so the deer and other critters could go in and feast on the remaining veges that I never managed to harvest. Okay, I'm done beating myself up.

Today I surveyed the detritus close up... started pulling out the tomato plants and the cleome stalks and withered vines of cucumber and hyacinth bean... everything actually comes out of the ground pretty easily after decomposing all winter long (I may make a practice of this).


In the herb bed, I spotted a few green sprouts of comfrey poking through, then over there some spinach left from last Spring, sprouts of chamomile, yarrow, feverfew, and dill and then, oh my, an entire thyme plant appeared through the dried weeds and grass by the fence, just where I planted it last Spring.


Perky and healthy and full of life! What a joy to see its tiny gray-green leaves and smell its familiar pungent scent. Spring is coming, the plants know it and I am so ready.

Oh, Happy Day!