I have a desperate secret...I am a chronic pea planter.
Yesterday, the wind got hold of me, the sunshine dragged me by the ears while the wheel hoe flirted with my desires. All sources combined strategies and set my body in motion to plant too early, too much and for no good reason really! I'm selling. Can't take the garden with me! But by golly, can't take the gardener out of me either...what's a girl to do? Plant peas, of course. I mean- the still perfectly good fences are up from last year, I rotated the crop to the opposite side...and stuck little seeds in the ground and covered them by kicking the soil over them (lazy farmer method), is there no help for me at all?
It's really the lettuce's fault. Had it not grown, had it just remained in seed form, never germinating- the nursery is nice yes- but! I innocently started the whole shebang in February- no reason to think it would really grow...but, alas- not much thought goes into my planting. I pretty much just hope and hope and hope some more!
One more tiny confession...I worked the ground between the fences and added...more lettuce seeds! Someone stop me please- before it's too late, before I end up selling a farm with a huge market garden to boot! The zeal I feel from my planting escapades is getting out of hand truly, though I vow not to plant a single solitary tomato...or pepper...or nary a green bean. That would just be silly...but oh my! The dill that will surely volunteer again would go so well with green beans, and the basil I accidentally scattered in the raised bed by the summer kitchen- how lonely it might become if their were no tomatoes about...
It is a very good thing my children don't take to laundry chores, they might find the cosmos, zinnias and marigold seed packets in my pockets(I scattered minuscule amounts amid the pea beds...) and verify me unhinged and unreliable when it comes to leaving the soil alone.
Thank goodness and all that is holy in my broken down Betsy Ferguson, that'd be my little ol' tractor- she is unable at this time to turn the soil. (Although I did buy the parts to fix her leaky radiator hose...and I'm fixen to travel to local farm store for the hydraulic fluid needed to replace the old juice.) I am only fixing the old Ferguson to brush hog. Period. No, I mean it...only to mow and keep this place looking top level best. I will not drag the plow behind her, never- not once. And if you believe that...could you please come and make a believer out of me too?! Or perhaps you might be in the market for a certain Golden Gate bridge?
Please pray for me if you will, because already just this morning- I caught sight of the little Edelweiss flowers waving to me, throwing off their sweet scent, enticing me to work the soil around them so that the hostas coming through might have a bit more leg room. And the darned phlox just about tripped me with it's urgent message of "Look here! Bare soil! How about some pansies just in case we can't cover it all?!"
Oh Great Spirit, give me rest
lay aside this dirty test-
In my soul I feel a need
to plant, and plant and plant the seed.
Take the hoe from my hand
deliver me from this lusty land
Where everything my thumb doth touch
turns to greenish green and is lush too much.
Give me wine and let me drink-
(tis much better than when I think)
of planting the seeds and dragging the plow-
Thank goodness the tractor is crippled for now...
Amen
