Two questions this morning. WHO HAS BEEN EATING MY PUMPKIN PLANT? And HOW DARE YOU?
Growth /
Happily the vegetables seem to be doing just fine a week after they first started emerging from the ground! The corn sprouts are lengthening, cotyledons are peeling back to make way for the first baby squash leaves, and new seedlings include cushaw and Hopi yellow watermelon.
Ground /
Whatever happens with the vegetables themselves in this garden, it’s already satisfying to know how much richer and healthier the ground itself is becoming thanks to all this work.
Sound /
My new favorite sound is the silence that follows the gushing of the hose nozzle each time I water the garden, and how it isn’t silence at all. It’s a faint snap-crackle-pop in the soil, the trickling of water as it absorbs into earth.
Sight /
Did you ever play with Magic Eye images? I loved them as a kid, and found them extremely frustrating—one or the other with little sentiment in between, based entirely on whether I was able to conjure the latest three-dimensional shape from nothing with only the power of my own focus.
I feel like that’s what I’ve been doing in the garden ever since spotting the first tiny blade of corn last week. Each time I visit to water, weed, or add compost to each seedling, I scour the ground for fresh signs of life. It seems to shimmer with tiny shapes and shadows, a kaleidoscope of earth tones. Flecks of green pop up at me, then resolve back into stray leaves that blew in or a new weed. Come on, little seeds, I can’t work any more magic on this, it’s up to you to emerge and take form in the real world.
Sweat /
A lot needs to happen between now and harvest time, of course. Weeding, for instance. Now that the garden bed is rich with compost and starting to sprout, weeds have begun to thrive in there too. I don’t mind signs of life in all shapes and sizes—they mean things are going well in the soil, right? But I insist my plants get first dibs on all that goodness, so in between my morning and evening watering sessions I’ve spent some time sweating in the afternoon sun, pulling weeds and checking for new growth. (So far we’re up to three corn shoots, three squash seedlings, and as of last night a pumpkin sprout.)
Sweet /
I don’t know what’s sweeter, the earthy scent of the humus I spread earlier this week, the relief of seeing a few seedlings finally find their way out of the soil, or the flavors I’m already anticipating come harvest: grilled ears of corn, the juiciness of baked squash, and hopefully more to come. Sweet, sweet, sweet.
Giddy /
Another seedling! Look! Cotyledons! The tips were still tucked into the soil when I spotted their bright little necks beginning to poke up, but I brushed a bit away and there they are, seeing sunlight for the first time. They’re not fully green where they hadn’t yet emerged, but they’re on their way! This one’ destined to grow into Magdalena Big Cheese, the giant orange squash whose flesh we roasted for lunch at Native Seeds/SEARCH last month.
GASP /
I actually, honest-to-goodness gasped when I arrived at my garden this morning. There it is: my first little half-inch seedling has emerged! A single shoot of corn.
Humus /
There it is: a fresh layer of purchased compost rich in humus, alive with beneficial fungi and bacteria or at least ready to serve as their buffet when they move in from the surrounding dirt and atmosphere. Kept moist and thick, protected from evaporation and wind erosion by some mulching, this should serve as a healthy bed for young plant life. I’ve raked it into the entire garden, lightly, to avoid disturbing the seeds I’ve already sown. Here’s hoping this improvisation isn’t coming too late as the days get hotter and hotter this April.