Frost took the twitter from the dawn songbirds yesterday, which made me pay attention to something that had been at the back of my mind: In practical terms, when does spring start? This had bothered me for some time.
“Plant as soon as the soil can be worked in the spring,” the seed packets say. Yet I can’t figure out what that means here, where the ground alternates between frozen and soft almost by the day from late December to March.
It has become habit that I poke at the soil in the garden beds alongside the path to the driveway. I wonder if its resilient bounce one day but not the next signifies that it is time to put in some spinach, peas, or kale, or maybe not. Equinoctial spring is a bit over a week away, but the weeds are already beginning to show, and the garlic that I did not dig last summer has resumed its growth. My garden beds are a mix of compost from the town dump, sand, chicken manure, topsoil, and seaweed, but they dry out quickly once it gets hot. It is probably now or never.
Seed is cheap, so it couldn’t hurt to try a few rows. Of course, there is the boat to think about getting ready for the season. And I should clean up the yard and repair the winter’s damage to the stairs to the beach, and note where I should touch up the paint on the storm windows before I put them away to get out the screens.
By wondering about its beginning, I think I am asking myself when spring is in this place where the seasons meld into one another. “Plant as soon as the ground can be worked in the spring” seems like poetry in its simplicity. Still it seems a mystery here anyway.
I suppose the other question is whether to garden at all this year. There are plenty of other things to fill my time. But then, the African marigolds did well last year, and I saved seeds from the strongest among them, so it would be a shame not to be able to pass through their nodding orange heads when the hot weather finally comes.