Last year I had an ambitious garden plan. Much of that plan I did plant, but I failed to heed the warnings of my friends and family that it was too big. "Nonsense!", I said, "I want tons of veggies!"
As you may have guessed, it was too big. Life got in the way, aphids sucked the life from my squash, and some plants never really got going. And, I spent all my free time futzing with the garden.
This year, I have house projects I want to undertake, so I'm scaling way back on the garden. This year I'm planning to garden in the first rectangle labeled "corn" on last year's layout. It's a plot about 3-feet by 4-feet and I was able to till it, by hand, this evening before the sun really set.
As I sunk the garden fork into the ground for the first time in that plot, I heard the distinct whooshing noise of the Karmic Boomerang coming to whack me on the head. Because, get this, digging in this plot was easy. I don't mean, "it's the first gardening of the evening and I have a lot of energy" kind of easy, I mean the soil was nice and loose.
The origin of the boomerang: last year I was watching a gardening show on TV and the host said something about how loose the soil should be and that you can get it that way, even in heavy clay soils like he had in New England. I balked. No way! The soil is way too heavy for that. He must not really have heavy soil!
Well, today that disbelief came around for a visit. The soil was loose, and it was lighter than last year. While being shown that you're wrong is never fun, I am looking forward to working in this plot of ground. I'm planning to grow herbs, green beans, spinach, lettuce, carrots, kale, zucchini, and yellow squash. The rhubarb is on its way back, as is the garlic and mint. I'm not sure if the strawberries will make it as they've kind of been taken over by grass in such a way that I pull up the strawberry plants when I attempt to remove the grass. The rest of the garden I hope to till and sow with buckwheat. Even if I don't till it, the buckwheat can probably give the grass a run for its money.
I'm looking forward to the garden this year, but it's a laid back kind of excitement. Last year I was so intensely focused on the garden that I didn't do much else and it crushed me when some plants failed. This year, I'll have other projects to fill that role and hopefully the garden will be what it always should have been: a hobby and a pleasant diversion.