Garden Journal 2

On my way home on Easter Sunday, I went to Cross Creek, the little retail nursery overlooking Hoover Reservoir on Sunbury Road. The weather was so nice I couldn't resist the urge to put something in the ground. I was surprised to see that their prices were not too bad, so I decided then and there to plant a few cool-season vegetables: cabbage, cauliflower, spinach, and mesclun. It's been a long time since I've attempted any of those; we'll see how they do.

I got right to it, but I was detoured immediately. Planting means soil preparation, and I hadn't done any. I was dissatisfied with the bark paths between last year's tomato and pepper beds, and a quick touch-up wasn't making it any better, so I decided to remake the borders. I scrounged a couple of solid railroad ties from the side of a brick walkway and laid them in where there had been bark. That made the edges of the mounded beds more solid and leaves more room for plants. I'll have to go back and edge the brick walkway with some smaller boards.

All of this takes a lot more time than it seems like it would, repeatedly raking things smooth, a little shovel work here and there to level things out, a lot of stepping back to look it over, and occasionally doing it over when it isn't quite right. Move a couple of columbine in the adjacent bed that weren't really in the right place to begin with, in order to make room for the next railroad tie. Pull a few weeds. There's always more that could be done, but by now it's time to go to Julie's house for the Easter potluck, and we're already running late, and I still haven't planted any vegetables.

Dinner at Julie's was great, and I enjoyed seeing people who live right here in Methodistville but I hadn't seen in a month of Sundays. We sat outside on the deck until it started to rain, then went inside for cheesecake and coffee. I managed to talk briefly to Emma, Ethan, Elizabeth, Tedy, and Delta - our friends' kids in various stages of high school and college - and catch up on some of their adventures, which included lots of travel, theater, writing courses, and prom dresses. It's interesting how much better they get at humoring their elders. Julie and Michio passed around some fine pictures of their trip to Japan.

Around midnight, when I was doing my last little workout of the day back on the patio at home, I started thinking about where the actual plants would go, assuming they ever get planted, so I revisited the vegetable garden. Working in from the corners of a roughly 8 x 8 x 12 triangle, I poked holes in the ground with a stick to mark the approximate spacing of 32 seedlings, and it looks like it will work out.