I’ve followed the current advice traveling throughout the internet and then through the minds of my friends colleagues and clients and finally to my ears, that I should leave the gardening and the yard until we have a significant amount of days with the temperature over 10 degrees celsius, all to encourage dormant bees, butterflies and larvae and chrysalis of various descriptions (of which I know nothing) to come safely out of dormancy and do their thing, you know, pollinate and make sure the planet is operating properly for the everyone, although most of us would like to say, somewhat misguidedly operating properly for us, the humans.
So I have been observing things as they start to push through the dead grasses and leftovers from last year’s garden. And I guess emerging like a promise to me is my trustworthy rhubarb plant that seems to present year after year to give me the greatest show and provide really yummy stalks for rhubarb pie.
A neighbour whose husband is an organic farmer, gave me some tomato seedlings, too early to plant but I will move them in and out until late May. Her husband was in the hospital with some issues and then we talked about the dwindling number of farmers. To me it seems a thankless job, but perhaps an incredibly rewarding occupation; being connected to the land, the weather, and all of nature in a very intense way. The work and worry must never ever stop.
When I saw my rhubarb for the first time yesterday and remembered how quickly it grows, it was, to me, like a promise that, with some attention, I will be provided for, by mother earth. Strange that for all of the crimes we have committed against this home, this planet so rich in her gifts, that she perseveres. Discarded tires, roofing shingles, cigarette butts, paint tins and discretely concealed unmentionables, make their way to the “landfill” (isn’t that a garbage dump?) while we look the other way, side to side, not up and down, or perhaps inside where the truth really hurts. While lawn mowers and leaf blowers and pesticides and weed killers prevail and are removed from sheds around this time of year, to dominate Mother Nature, once again, I wonder how much longer she will do so.
Andrew Binks 