I suppose when I originally thought "I should write a garden journal" I had different ideas of what I'd be documenting than the current situation of COVID-19 and extreme social distancing. But if the first two and a half weeks of motherhood has taught me anything, it's that the best laid plans are usually turned upside down.
Aside from all the uncertainty, there's also a part of me that feels a large amount of guilt at this present moment for "taking the season off" when our local community could really use another option for local fresh produce. I've decided we will do what we can and offer vegetables on the farm stand as soon as and as much as possible. But that's something a couple months off in the distance.
For now my lifeline here, as usual, is the plants. Every day I walk the property and note everything that's waking up -- the crocuses, daffodils, and tulips pushing up through the soil. Yesterday I saw some buds on the clematis. The azalea is gearing up for a full show. And it's painfully obvious that global warming is real, as spring never appears quite this early and there are many annuals and perennials that didn't die off in the "colder" months. Even the weeds are making an early debut.
And yet, despite the strange times of mandatory lockdown and quarantine, I am hopeful because of the new life springing up from the earth. We need the plants much more than they need us, that's for sure!
The gardens I haven't quite jumped back into yet. I have a list of what needs cleaning up and readying for the season, but I'm just not there yet. I did manage to clean up the asparagus boxes, as last autumn slipped away into winter quickly for me, but that's all that's ready, which is good because asparagus is the first vegetable to peek up through the soil in early spring -- the harbinger of all the good food to come! It has all the magic of the first daffodil, but we get to eat it!