The nights have been cool here in Empire, Alabama. I went out on the deck this morning to dump the old coffee grounds into our flowerbed, and as I looked southward toward the barn the trees had satin sheets from the heavy morning frost.
As fresh coffee brewed I looked through a Stark Brother’s catalog at all the fruit trees. It was all I could do to keep from getting on the phone and calling their operator- “ Yes ma’am, I’d like one of each please…yes, and send them to me at…and is it possible for me to get them tomorrow???” We have a lot of fruit trees in our yard, including pear, apple, peach, fig and plum as well as blackberry and blueberry bushes. I don’t think you can have too many fruit trees. There is nothing like walking our in your backyard and picking an apple from the tree. Jilda loves crabapples, but they are my least favorite. We hadn’t had much luck with our blueberries in the past, but I did some research and found out what was wrong.
Each January when the winter weather chases us indoors, I turn to these seed catalogs and daydream about that time in early spring when the fruit trees bloom. We get Stark Brothers, Burpee’s, Park Seed and many others. The pictures in these publications make you want to tear out a page and taste it.
Within the next few weeks I’ll tune up the old Ford tractor, check my hand tools and start sketching out our garden plan.
I know gardening is in my blood because I love the smell of fresh-turned earth and the way it feels when you walk over it with bare feet. Planting and tending a garden is not easy work. It would obviously be much easier to run down to the farmer’s market and snap up all the fresh fruit and vegetables you want. If I ever did the math it would probably be cheaper too. The need to garden comes from somewhere deep inside and is impossible to explain. I do know working the soil and watching things grow and eating vine ripe tomatoes on toasted bread in the summertime is one of life’s greatest pleasures. Gardening has been often used as a metaphor for life : “ As you sow, so shall you reap.”
I can’t think of a better example of a few words that say so much. On the surface, in gardening terms it simply means the more care and preparation used when planting, the more bountiful your harvest. Life is like that too. The more time one spends caring for the things that matter in life, the better the chance for a bountiful harvest. When bad seeds are planted the harvest is thin.
Another gardening metaphor I love: “Your mind is a garden, your thoughts are the seeds. You can plant flowers or you can plant weeds.”
I know that having a big garden is not an option for some. Living in an apartment in the city or in a subdivision you probably have no room for a garden. Do yourself a favor, get a small pot, fill it with soil, put a few lettuce seeds in and watch them grow.
Let’s have a conversation after your first FRESH homegrown salad and you tell me what it’s worth.
