A Celebration of Spring at Garden Snob - 2010

When spring comes, it comes with a rush that pushes everything before it. And it sprouts, and bursts, and seethes with energy, turning the world mad with greeness and with profusion. You can see the tiny oak flowers in their lime green perfection, teasing and tantalizing with all that is to come. Surely Eve gave Adam the apple in the springtime and the serpent might have been spring itself. And so you are ready, you go for it, you give yourself up to wild activity, to great fantasies of accomplishment because everything is again possible in the spring. It is a world of potential and of promise. And it's almost impossible not to plant something.

I wrote that years ago and it's so true. Now it is June and everything is at the peak of flowering. Going outside, the eye is stunned by brilliant colors, the nose by delightful scents and the ear by the trilling and arias of bird. It's a magic transformation of the world and a time for celebration of life! This year in Northern California the rains have brought a profusion of growth and radiant green late into the year. The river is still high and the days just starting to warm up. This is such a gift after several years in a row of hot, dry springs and the danger of fire always present.

So even though the garden was started late because of the rain and cold, I'm happy just eating lettuce and a few asparagus from the old asparagus bed because the new bed can't be harvested until next year. The strawberries, however, are faithfully putting out quarts and gallons of ripe juicy fruit. What a blessing to go out in the morning and pick just enough for cereal, or later, to pick them all, put some sugar on them, and let them sit in the fridge until the juices flow and have the best of all possible desserts in the evening. It makes me grateful to be alive!

June 25, 2010

A Celebration of Spring at Garden Snob - 2010