Sewing a garden

Please forgive me for not having a picture, I've used up too much bandwith this month so I am on a multimedia diet.

I thought I would not be able to have a garden this year, with full time job and a new foster baby in the house, it really seemed like an impossibility.  I went to the garden just to see how things were, thinking I could tidy it up then sit out there and day dream of plants, life, bugs, dirt, and the connection I feel with the great mystery of life when I'm there. I delayed the visit, partially due to spring snows but really because I was so sad.

But, my garden kept calling to me, so one day, when the kids were napping, I mustered up my courage and went to see my gardens. To my amazement and joy, I received the best mothers day/spring present ever!  The Salad Bowl Garden (a raised bed made of concrete blocks about 4 x 5 feet) which I didn't have time to clean before winter, had reseeded itself.  There were about five different salad greens plus carrots growing already.  All I had to do was add some radishes and my fresh salad garden was as good as ever.  The miracle of life didn't need me to continue!

Encouraged by the Salad Bowl Garden, I checked my main garden.  To my amazement, it was just laying there, waiting.  I mulched so well last year, with wood chips, newspaper, and cardboard that there were very few weeds.  I don't deserve all the credit, the garden also mulched itself with layers of squash vines; at the end of last summer they were a few layers deep. Weeds didn't even have a chance. 

Joy of joys, I did have time to garden after all.  So, I called in some young, cheap, slave labor (nephews) and we started planting, putting up wallowaters, and remulching.  A month later, I have even more planted than last year.  It reminded me of what my mother always said about sewing, the most important part was the preparation, not the actual act of sewing itself.  To sew successfully, you have to measure and cut carefully.