Spring planting + pickled avocados (it's a thing).
The good earth.
Back when my kids were young and we lived in an expanded cape cod with a giant backyard, I'd spend hours in the spring digging in the dirt. I cleaned up messy underbrush and planted a row of hydrangeas along the side of the house. I dug up hostas to divide with a spade and lined baskets in moss to plant annuals to hang next to my front door.
I'd get so involved in pushing my wheelbarrow around to dig and pull and put back into the ground, that a whole afternoon would drift by and kids' dad would have to pull me out of the yard to come in for dinner. Dirt would be caked under my fingernails and the cracks in my heels would be stained brown from the soil seeping through my sneakers into my socks, and I'd stand in the shower under the hot water and watch the brown water swirl into the drain. I'd go to bed exhausted and sore from the strain of bending over all day but jump out of bed early the next day to go outside and admire all my hard work.
Not only is working in the dirt therapeutic, but I also see it as incredibly creative, mixing and matching colors, heights and textures for it all to come together as one pleasing visual. I'd just get so into the flow of digging and planting that time would stand still and it would be just me on my knees loosening the soil in a hole and adding handfuls of compost and bone meal. It's like that with writing, too, when you just find that flow and get lost in all the words.
One summer we were having the outside of our cape painted a charcoal gray to replace the pale yellow it had been when we bought the house, and the painting crew were a bunch of Irish guys. Like, not NJ or Long Island Irish dudes with name like "Sean McCarthy" or "Brendan O'Neal," but from legit Ireland. They watched me all week as they were painting running around the yard with my wheelbarrow and spade while managing my three small kids, in my GAP overall shorts. Finally, towards the end of the week after we'd all felt a llittle more compfortable around each other, one of them asked in his lovely brogue, "What, are you getting ready for some garden competition?"
I've long since gardened with such gusto. Nowadays I fill some planters by my front door and on my sunny patio with seasonal annuals. For the last few years, I've been doing an herb planter as well. but until last summer, it had been a long time since I'd dug a hole in the ground. I'd bought a couple of Hostas at a nursery I'd been obsessed with, and it felt really good to work with bonemeal again.
This week, I've been busy with the herb and flower planters and thinking I'd really like to do more. Every time I finish a job, I wish there was more to do. What I'd really like is for someone to build me a raised bed to plant some tomatoes and help me make a big bed for flowers. We have a community garden in town where I could get a plot and plant some veggies, but it's not the same.
At this moment, I am sitting at my patio table under the shade of the black and white umbrella we've had for years and stopping every once in a while to admire the nasturtium leaves that are draped over the side of the herb planter. The row of boxwood my son and I planted last fall are bright green with new growth, and my two daughters are lying on beach towels in the grass, laughing.
This is what I love about pandemics. Sheltering alongside things that bring me joy: my two daughters giggling together, birds chirping in the big evergreen that shades the deck where I work, the spears of newly-planted chives blowing in the wind.
Be well, all.
xoAmy
Friday Faves
I AM OBSESSED WITH THIS MAT OF SEDUM. I cut it up to use in a big concrete planter on my patio coffee table and a smaller pot I had that's on the wrought iron patio table on the deck. I planted what was left over along the walkway on the side of my house. Love. Love. Love. (Daughters making bets how long it will take for me to kill all the sedum. My reputation precedes me.) I bought it here.
My younger daughter has been home for a few days and so far has power washed my shed and front walkway, hot glued/taped my broken herb planter and made pickled avocados. Sound weird? It's totally amazing and now rivals my beloved pickled red onions.
I am all about recommendations. I love knowing what people are reading/watching/cooking/listening to. So I thought this Google doc that compiles how a bunch of newspaper editors were spending their time during the pandemic was fun. This one was especially entertaining.
Okay, have to run to finish planning our house's first-ever pandemic birthday party. See you next week!!
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