Waking the Garden, Part II

The chirp of chilled, fat robins bathing in melted pools of snow along the alleyway is the only wake up call we need. If the snow suprised us in autumn, my boy’s job is to pull the tomato cages from their dried, viney captors. He relishes in the fight they give. He stacks them as neatly as their tines and his 8 year gardening prowess allows. He then gathers the twig markers and assesses winter’s toll. Too short, they become fodder for the first flames of the firepit. Too thin, he buries them in the earth to provide the worms a playground of sorts...”something for them to climb on under there.” We then set upon the task of composting the leaf blanket the trees gingerly left in the fall. With a sturdy old hoe two feet taller than him and his knee high rubber chore boots, he faces a dilemma. The boy in him wants to thwack the leaves and vines into an earthy submission, turning them under like the someone he is, one who hasn’t been truly “boy dirty” for months. The gardener in him knows he needs to be wary of the tightly furled rhubarb heads, tender raspberry shoots, and the creeping strawberry runners that have somehow secretly found their way over to the tomatoes’ spot. To his delight, the chives still smell bitter-green onion grass-just like they did last summer; and the others herbs, although dead and dried, have babies at their feet...tiny green offspring. We chop and turn and smooth the ground, navigating around what we can, properly burying that which we cut down in our enthusiasm...back to the earth. Once turned, the soil is black, fresh, aromatic-nearly edible itself. He balls it up in his hand and watches it fall, creased with his small grip, thudding whole back to the bed we have made. “It’s too wet to plant, huh mama?” Yes, my boy...too wet to plant, but we’ll check again tomorrow. Our hands are caked-a gritty, earthen paste coats our palms as we walk to the shed to put up tools and wash off with the hose. “Glad thing it’s spring, huh mama?” Yes, my boy. It’s a very glad thing.