The green I am writing about is not recycling to save the earth. I'm writing about that time of year when we till up our ground, sprinkle on some fertilizer, and till it up some more. We then painstakingly create our rows wide and tall for proper drainage, and we begin our summer garden in the new birth of spring.
This year, however, there seemed to be some dispute as to when to plant our gardens. Each year there are those early eager beavers who cannot wait to start putting out plants and seeds everywhere. I am one of these people. And every year there is that last cold snap that messes with my young sprouts, and my husband tells me he told me so.
But this year with Easter so late my husband kept putting off and putting off getting my garden started. All I need him to do is work that stinking tiller. Everything else I can do. But I can't get started until he does that first.
Well, this year the pollen started up as usual in the last week of February. Last year it happened a little late because the ground hog saw his shadow, or the extra cold winter refused to budge, or Mother Nature just overslept. Who knows, but this year it seemed everything was on schedule. And then the bumble bees arrived. Both my Grandma Smith and Clay's Grandma Nezzie always said that you plant when you see the bumble bees. And I still had no upturned soil.
Then, to make matters worse, a farmer told my husband that if you hear thunder in February you do not plant until after Easter. Well, here is my argument: Is there ever a month down south when we do not at some point during any thirty day stretch hear thunder? It might be a distant groan. It might be a few quick shouts warning that rain is about to fall, but there is always some sound of thunder unless that farmer sleeps very hard at night! And once more I reminded my husband that Easter was late this year.
In truth, I have no clue when the proper time to plant might possibly be. My husband looked it up in the Farmer's Almanac, and it was still too early to plant, but it seems that the author of the Farmer's Almanac does not have a nagging wife who is so overjoyed to be past the damp cold days of winter that she can't wait to dig her newly manicured nails into the dirt.
So here's to my fellow gardeners. May your vegetables be many and your weeds be few. May the critters eat only what they absolutely have to, and your good insects eat the bad and great bounty is to be had! May your husbands now prop their feet up and await their fresh summer salads and fried green tomatoes. And may your stubbornness come in handy with those tricky gardening challenges.
(This is a partial column written back in 2010. It seems some things never change, and the love of gardening continues to descend from my past grandmother's and theirs. I just picked my first tomato yesterday and many blooms are popping out. Grumpy Gardener move over!)
