Simple Living with Wanda Urbanska

Wanda's Diary Entries

Sunday, April 19, 2009

I love this season of spring with all its promise. The promise of new life, new fruits, vegetables and flowers. I bless the plants that returned from last year: the hostas, the rhubarb, the lemon balm along the back fence. The sweet basil at the edge of the main vegetable garden. The blackberries inherited from the previous owners of the house have sprung back with new vigor. A peony and lilac cutting contributed last year by a friend have returned to life with more confidence than when they were touch-and-go newbies. (The little lilac is looking good but needs to be transplanted to a spot where it will get more regular sun in order for it to reach its splendor; this I will do this week.)

The ground has been tilled along the same perimeters as last year’s garden, our first in the Sunflower House. Because Henry had his heart set on growing watermelons last year (and because they consume so much space), we decided to create a new garden plot, just for them. We tilled out a patch of land adjacent to the compost pit, which, not surprisingly, has the richest soil in the backyard. Yesterday, we planted watermelon seeds in little plastic containers, which when sprouted will be transplanted into this new section.

Last year, I saved some seeds from my favorite tomatoes of the season, an organic Brandywine variety, and planted them along with the spaghetti squash seeds contributed by cousins Tad & Ola Tuliszka on their September visit here. Some of the spaghetti squash were planted in plastic mini-containers (saved from plants purchased last year). Others, we planted directly into the ground, along the fence where the squash will be able to grow into vines. (These seeds were placed into a clay soil, improved by mixing in some of the wonderful organic material from the nearby compost pit.) We also planted beets from a packet of seeds picked up at the local K-Mart the previous weekend. (Red peppers seeds were placed in a large plastic container that had once served as a litter box.) I plan to plant more tomatoes, and buy some eggplant and zuccini plants. And my neighbor, television gardening personality Joe Lamp’l, is raising tomatoes from seed and promises to give me some of his extras.

Today I purchased a single strawberry plant, a tray each of green peppers and Rutgers tomatoes, and a single lettuce plant. I’m anticipating some warm weather late tomorrow afternoon when I plan to sketch out my garden on paper, then put some of the plants into the ground.

But in the meantime, I’ve placed all these plants out on the deck on the newest piece of “deck furniture” — a weathered wooden bench that someone had placed out on the curb for recycling or disposal. All this life, and even bringing an old thing back to life, is enough to make me smile from the inside out.