Every year I plant a garden. Some years it’s quite prolific, others years it’s attractive, but offers less in the way of comestibles, and a few years here and there, it has been the domain of weeds, spiders and bees or left fallow altogether.
After last year’s success with vegetables and what I felt was a very artistic approach, I decided to step it up a notch. I drew up nice plans, back in January and ordered organic, heirloom seeds. I wanted to start everything myself in March, instead of buying seedlings in May. I also wanted to try a green manure.
As luck would have it, we had a super warm spring, and I tilled and planted my green manure seeds, (buckwheat, field peas, spring oats, vetch and mustard) in the last few days of March. An early start like that is unheard of in these parts.
Well, that turned out very successful! By the weekend before Memorial Day, the garden was completely covered, about knee high, with all these wonderful, beneficial little plants.
I mulch-mowed them and tilled them into the soil, as the method calls for, and let the soil set a week before planting (or so I planned)
But then, two things plotted against me to confound my plans. The first was my complete distraction with building… YES, you got it…the chicken coop! The second was a nasty period of rain, every other day it seemed.
Finally, around the second week of June, I had my coop done and the soil had dried out, so I started putting things in. My time was limited to week-nights and weekends, but now, two weeks later, I have everything in. What is amazing to me, is how fast things are sprouting. The stuff I put in two weeks ago has already sprouted and is off to a great start.
I planted Italian plum tomatoes; Poblano, Serrano, Cayenne, Jalapeño and sweet peppers; pole string beans, Romaine, mixed leaf lettuces, pickling cucumbers, black beans, kidney beans, kale, Swiss chard, beets, rutabagas, carrots, zucchini and summer squash, & cilantro. The corners of the beds are planted with marigolds and Grace interspersed all kinds of flowers throughout the garden. Outside the main garden, in the back, and up on the bank, I planted pie pumpkins, hull-less seed pumpkins and French pumpkins, and three types of winter squashes: acorn, butternut and delicata.
Do I really expect a grand harvest in the Fall or lots of tasty vegetables over the summer? Not really. My friend Michael saw me buying some last minute seeds at Agway last weekend (stuff I had forgotten to order) and commented how late it was to plant a garden. For me… it’s not the harvest… that is just the bonus. It’s all the thought and the care; the work and the sweat; the sore muscles; its watching the plants grow and seeing how the “plan” turned out. The garden is kind of a moving meditation for me, and a method for artistic expression. If I’m feeling stressed or anxious, I can go work in the garden (or really anywhere in the yard) and it all melts away. 
I guess it’s the New England gene in my blood that wants to make sure my art or meditation has some practical purpose, at least on paper. Hopefully, we will get at least a salad out of the garden.
In other parts of the world, people practice art and meditation for their own sake; here on Poocham Road, we like to make sure that the things we do are of use…
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