The weather has been auspicous after the last week of freezes. I had my little seed starts by the swimming pool so they wouldn't freeze. Today I planted these special cauliflowers, broccoli and tomatoes in the vegetable garden. The peas are up, and the radishes. Lettuce is ready to be picked. Beans are still sleeping under the compost. The peppers and eggplants are still in the nursery, growing on until they are ready to go into the garden.
My vegetable garden has been our delight. There has never been a day when there was not something for dinner: lettuce, arugula, collards, broccoli, peppers, eggplants. We had tomatoes until well past Christmas. There is something so great about the routine of asking of the cook, "What would you like me to gather for dinner?" Any day it could be broccoli, spinach, peppers, ten kinds of lettuce? Andy, the cook, deals with whatever is fresh today.
I love gardening, especially vegetables. I love to see them grow and I love to eat them! I spend time every day doing major work in the garden tweaking the weeding, pruning things, planting new vegetables, turning over the compost pile. I am so happy to be outdoors, sometimes looking at the sky, hearing the red shouldered hawks, occasionally a bald eagle or a pair of swallowtailed kites, and the cacaphony of the sandhill cranes coming in to land nearby. I love to hear the snort of the gopher tortoise emerging from his burrow at the end of the garden. I bend to inspect a monarch butterfly caterpillar on the milkweed I allow in the garden.
This is so homely, so ordinary, a person growing food to eat. My life.
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