Piapie

Garden Structures

As I focus my attention on plotting garden beds and nurturing the little seeds, Papi Chulo has been busy building for the garden.  He's like my personal garden fairy.  I wistfully say things like, "Someday it would be awesome to have a work table for the garden."  And I mean the "someday" part of it.  Doesn't have to be this year, just someday it would be nice.  But then the next day there's a trip to the hardware store and soon power tools are at work in the yard making me said table.  

Ditto for the trellis frames onto which the peas and beans and cucumbers will climb.

 

And the compost bins that are converting our scraps into nutrients for next year's garden.

His mind works this way.  I mention a need, he works out a solution.  He takes the measurements, takes them a second time, sketches out a plan on a grocery reciept, scurries off to the hardware store, returns to gleefully pull out the tools, and then builds away until he is ready to stand back and admire his work.  He gets inspired by these projects the same way I do with a sewing or knitting project.  Each of us making in our own way. 

Transplanting

I get it.  I get why people garden.  It really didn't take much to win me over.  All it took were some tiny little seeds that we planted in some dirt.  We gave them some water and a little sun.  And I mean just a little sun; we do live in Oregon.  Lo and behold, three weeks later the sprouts of those seeds were begging for more space.   As I transplanted the bigger, sturdier ones I marveled at the magic that has been occuring in our living room window.  Tiny seeds sprouting green stems and leaves which will eventually become our food.  It really is remarkable how simple life can be.

Seedlings

There may have been snow on the ground the other morning and there may be rain in the forecast for the foreseeable future, but we are still working towards that garden.  

Seedlings were planted two weekends ago and they have been doing their magic on our window sill.  It might not feel like spring outside but those seedlings don't seem to know that.  

They keep reaching towards the sun, just like the rest of us.  It's all about the promise of better days, isn't it?

The Promise of a Garden

This past week the weather warmed up a bit, allowing us to venture outside without needing to bundle up against biting wind or shield ourselves from cold rain.  I noticed that the rhodadendren buds are swelling and spotted some early blooms on a cherry tree (I think).  Suddenly spring was on my mind and with it the promise of a garden.

For this past Christmas I gave the girls the promise of a garden.  It came with packets of seeds, gloves and proper tools sized for little hands, a gardening book, and completely unnecessary but ridiculously cute gardening aprons (pattern by Oliver + S).

 

The garden is something that we have wanted to do since we moved into this house almost a year ago.  Unfortunately our attention was consumed by more pressing demands last year.  I couldn't even maintain the plants we inherited with the house, to say nothing of starting some thing new.   My treatment for cancer was on a three week cycle and I quickly found myself operating within that twenty-one day window.  Anything beyond that was too much.

In early December we learned that the treatment seemed to be working.  It was only then that I began to open myself up to thinking about life after treatment.  I started to think about what I might do with my time once my life no longer revolved around chemotherapy.   I began to plan.  Little things, but still I began to plan.  The first thing to plan was the long talked about garden.

Our garden.  The one where we'll plant vegetables and herbs.  The one for when I am in the middle of preparing dinner and will have to ask Funky B to run outside and cut some basil for the pesto.  The one that the girls will go to to pick cherry tomatoes to pop in their mouths while we lounge on blankets reading books under the summer sun.  The one that will change and expand, maybe shrink and then grow again as we learn more about this small bit of land that surrounds our home.

The warmer weather this week brought with it the beginning of the garden.  MonkE and I spent an afternoon digging up some of those plants we inherited to make space for the ones we will put into the earth.  It won't be a particularly large garden but it will be enough to get some dirt under our fingernails and the taste of fresh produce on our plates.   More importantly, it will fill me with the on-going promise of another season.