Essential things

OK. This cloth, the spring garden cloth, stalled out ever so briefly and then asked for what is essential to a garden. Wind and air. Rain and water. Sunlight. Earth. Soil. Sky.

Not Much Cloth, but…

a lot of other stuff going on.

Hope is the same color as this wool Pendleton blanket. It was my mother’s. She washed/dried it once by mistake and it shrunk a lot. But still she used it for cover in her last years. The blanket was a gift from her best friend–a fine woman named Lucy.  I find the blanket all over the place. She travels with it. Like Linus. But never too far.

Seedlings are getting ready for the earth and I’m waffling back and forth–too early? too cold? go for it? We’re having a few nights this week in the mid 20’s. Maybe after that. The 10-day forecasts on weather.com help. But I wonder if it’s made me a bit less sensitive to the nuances that indicate how it might be. Sky color. Buds. Robins. Shadows. Birds. Worms.  Soil temp. Smells. Knee/shoulder aches?

Last week I experimented. Set out one each of very tender spinach, broccoli, lettuce, radicchio and kale. That night the temp was 24 degrees. They survived but have not recovered. And the rest–outside today, beginning the hardening off process:

Some amazing women are working the garden with me this year. “Dirt devas.” This is where we are now:
rows ready for seedlings–rich soil separated by straw and leaves. Soon–cabbage, broccoli, kale, collards, swiss chard, turnips and potatoes. This is 1/3 of the garden. Spring garden/fall garden. The rest of the space will house tomatoes, beans, cucumbers, beets, lettuce, radicchio, radishes and sweet potatoes.

and outside the fenced in garden–the start of an herb bed and a modified hugelkultur bed for winter squash.

This cloth I’m liking. Haven’t added much except rows of stitching and noticing the shift in my attention. From cloth to dirt. Looking for the common thread.