Back to the Garden

The rain has driven me out of the garden just as I finish planting cilantro seeds into the back left raised bed with the basil. I had aspired to get the lettuce and the beet seeds planted as well.

Stephen is replacing the stone, which has lined the beds for some nine years now, with wood. He thinks that the wood will help us keep the weeds down. We try a different tack toward weed control this year, mulching with wet newspaper as we plant. I carefully rip the old editions of The River Reporter into three-inch strips and lay them between the cilantro rows.

With the peppers, I lined the entire bed with newspaper, and then cut holes for the plants. It was tedious and easier to lay strips around the basil. I am covering the wet newspaper with hay so that it does not dry out and blow about. There a sense that we must hold in the little moisture in the ground as sustenance for the plants, and to cut down on the need for watering as our own water supply seems fragile.

I have a sense that the whole world is fragile. And even as I hold this sorrowful thought, it is balanced with the sure knowledge and trust that the cilantro seeds, in some seven to twenty-one days from now, will sprout forth with life.

I bless them as I poke them into the warm earth, thanking them for their future of seasoning our daily food.