The vegetable garden

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The sun went off to war and won?  Outside the sky looks blue and the sun is shining again.  It has been raining for five days straight.  The sun battled hard yesterday and lost.  At times, the rain is slow and steady.  Then it drizzles and when you think it is over, it pours.  Almost beautiful, how God is babysitting my gardens for me.  My second floor neighbors have bought a new house and will be moving soon.  They have asked, I said yes.  I will take over their outdoor gardens.  The botanical garden is in the far corner of the property.  I will not go to it until after they leave Gloria is sentimental.  Wayne is her opposite.  The takeover of his vegetable patch has been almost immediate.  The vegetable garden is a fenced in area roughly 20ft by 20ft.  He has tilled the soil for me with his machine and I have wasted no time in planting my vegetables and fruit.  I am here at the kitchen window looking out at it again.  With my forehead pressed against this window, I have the power to shoo birds with my mind.  The corn, tomatoes, boxwood basil, marigolds, Garlic, lettuce, zucchini squash, bell peppers and spinach are all still in place.  The outdoor vegetable garden is mine and I am happy with it.

As is usual these days whenever I look out at the vegetable garden my mind runs on earthworms.  They are the bees of the underground, under there working?  The big day came when my seedlings were an inch high.  We started early.  My three four year-old helpers and me went out and into the garden.  I sweated and shaped perfectly straight rows and gutters.  They discovered life.  The earthworm family, Father Mother little son and teen-age daughter.  What a perfect opportunity it was for me to lecture on the nature of farming and the important role of the earthworm.  The panic came shortly after they realized that the worm family was bigger than their families.  That a member of the worm family, although hard at work growing plants from below, could quite literally pop up at any moment.  After that came all the screams and the jumping.  Upstairs, washed up and reassured, we looked out the window and down at our work.  I had sculpted three equally spaced rows and gutters, in which we had planted the corn still sitting in their egg box planters spaced twelve inches apart.  The rest of the plot looked like we had set the hogs out to sun.  Is it any wonder the earthworms came out to play?  What a mess.

Earthworms are big and beautiful, god’s original farmers preparing the soil making it easy for the roots of plants and vegetables.  They should have their own blog.