We are FINALLY starting our garden and are so excited!!! I don’t think I’ve been more ready for spring in all of my life.
The boys and I picked up a big bag of really good garden soil to work in (I have no clue what I’m doing…I just thought it might be nice to give back to our hard working garden) and some vegetable and herb plants (tomatoes, bell peppers, rosemary, and lavender) that we saw on sale this morning.
They were all big helpers to Mommy…transporting the plants and soil from the car to the garden, spreading the rich soil out, and planting our vegetables and herbs (and even a few perennial flowers we decided to add this year…echinacea and hollyhocks).
Big surprises this year are a three year old rosemary that didn’t make it through the cold winter, a few blackberry bushes that have come up voluntarily, and a handful of bulbs that we had to rescue and plant in pots because the waterlogged soil where they were planted was pushing them up and out of the ground (we’ll be moving those in the fall).
We’re also looking forward to planting our carrots, onions, and cucumbers that we’re starting indoors.
You know…it’s funny…when I was out planting a few of the tomatoes during nap time…just the smell immediately brought me back to childhood summer memories of working with my Grandpa in his garden. It was enough to bring up all of that missing him and made me want to cry. But how blessed is it sometimes to have our memories so attached to our senses that, from the simple action of putting a tomato plant in the ground in early spring, we can be instantly taken back to walking the rows of our Grandpa’s garden in the heat of summer with a stainless steel bucket, enjoying our quality time and watching carefully as he points out the ones that are just right for picking. A beautiful forever memory…hopefully we’re making some too.
