Vegetables
To northern gardeners, this time of year [March] is full of anxious pleasure. Even as they daydream about the botanical pleasures of June and July, ordinary mortals find themselves nearly defeated by the gardening deadlines that pass so swiftly in March. Extraordinary mortals--whose seeds arrived two months ago, whose windows are now full of seedlings, and who are ready to sow peas and carrots the instant the soil thaws--will suffer torments of their own when the perfections they're planning somehow fail to germinate or blossom. A garden is just a way of mapping the strengths and limitations of your personality onto the soil. It would be too much to bear if nature didn't temper a gardener's ambition or laziness with her own unsolicited abundance.
If tending a garden has meant coming under the yoke of the seasons, my capitulation is complete; it is a willed captivity, however, perhaps like any other kind of passion.
Speaking of extreme environments, garden-making in Greenland is said by gardeners there to require tamaviaartumik, Greenlandic for passion, ambition, and commitment.
Getting rid of poor plants is as important as seeking out the best.
Here is a landscape pronouncement of possibly dubious value: Any ilex ought to be planted in front of or below windows for winter beauty, simply because you stare out of windows so much during that season.
Every spring offers another chance to undo the damage done by winter and finally get the garden right.
Men with trucks do not see new plantings when reversing or unloading, so trees must wait [to be planted] until all hard landscaping is done.
It's the gardener's job to choose those that will thrive in his or her climate, rather than trying to force the plants to grow where they're not well suited.
Gardening is only a refined form of gambling, after all. Sometimes the odds are fearfully against us; sometimes we win; but once the passion seizes us we are the victims of its fascination for life.
In a lot of ways, I'm just hitting my stride, just a little more tired while striding.
It will never rain roses. When we want to have more roses, we must plant more.
I'm always pleased when the garden is neat and tidy. That's when it looks like a garden. Nature is plants and the complicated ecosystems that support them. But even the most natural of gardens is an unnatural arrangement of plants. We stamp our will upon the landscape, even those of us who prefer to work with nature. And often, like this weekend, nature stamps back. Maybe it's that dramatic tension between artfulness and chaos that keeps us coming back to the garden. Or maybe it's just the flowers and blue skies and finding two little snakes under a rock.
In the end, this may be the most important thing about frost: Frost slows us down. In spring, it tempers our eagerness. In fall, it brings closure and rest. In our gotta-go world--where every nanosecond seems to count--slowness can be a great gift. So rather than see Jack Frost as an adversary, you could choose to greet him as a friend.
