This is the time of year when my To-Do list of outdoor jobs grows as fast as the weeds that we’re struggling to keep out of our garden...and believe me, that’s FAST!
The weather is slowly -- painfully slowly if you ask me -- beginning to warm up. We’ll have several days of cool-ish, wet weather, followed by a day or two of sunshine and mild temperatures. This weather cycle seems to be just what plants like the strawberries and lettuce in our garden (and the grasses in the pasture of Pumpkin the goat) need to go into mega-overdrive growing mode. I go outside thinking I’ll spend an hour picking weeds from the vegetable garden, only to find that the herb garden too needs work. Then I notice that nettles are out of control near the wood pile and I’d better do something about that. And so the tasks just go on and on...
It’s hard for me to grasp, but stuff in our garden -- and in the gardens of our friends who sell produce at our town’s Saturday Farmers Market -- is growing so fast that we’ve already begun the process of harvesting and canning (“harvest” feels to me like a word that should be used in October, not in June.) Leah spent a day last weekend canning asparagus, and life had a decidedly green feel to it.
Though I’d promised weeks ago that I’d pitch in and help with the canning this year, it turned out that Leah did the asparagus herself...while I worked outside, trying to stay ahead of weeds and nettles and other plant life that’s so out-of-control pumped-up on the growth hormones of spring.
