I scooped the sand one cup at a time from one bucket to the other. When one was half empty and the other half full, I was done. I couldn’t carry the five-gallon bucket of sand that we used in the winter to melt the ice on the back porch. It was too heavy. But I could move a bucket half full of sand.
Once both buckets were in the barn the reality that spring was truly here hit me.
All those seeds Jon and I planted a month or so ago in the little greenhouse blew over in a gust of wind. I came out of my studio one afternoon to find the peat planters toppled on the porch steps. The soil and seeds spread thin around them. I salvaged a few and planted some more seeds, but the disappointment lingered inside me.
This time I tied the little greenhouse to the post on the back porch. It didn’t blow over, but most of the seeds never came up. The ones that did I planted in the garden today.
I put the marigolds in two small areas in the backporch garden and put a little wire fence around them to keep the chickens and cats out. I planted the cilantro on the herb mound and put up a little fence around them too.
Then I dumped the rest of the soil from the peat pots into the garden. I dismantled the little greenhouse and put it in the attic.
Jon and I agreed that our seed experiment didn’t go very well.
Jon will plant the rest of the zinnia seeds directly in his raised bed garden toward the end of the month. And I’ll plant the rest of my seeds directly in the ground too.
Despite our failed seed experiment, my perennials gardens are filling in and I’m planning my vegetable garden. The kale from last year is growing back and I have more bean seeds that Marsha sent me along with a few I saved from last year. I bought a mix of lettuce greens which I hope to get in the garden next weekend.
I filled some of the planters with pansies and petunias and decided to try Hens and Chicks in the Cement head that we got in Provincetown.
Minnie spends most of her time on my Rapunzel Chair and the chickens come by for water and to see if they can get some leftover cat food.
During the winter the backporch is a place to keep clear of snow and ice. Before the flowers start to come up, it’s an in-between place. But once it’s warm enough to leave the potted plants out without having to worry about a 4 am frost, it’s as if we gain another room in the house.
During the winter I can’t imagine what the backporch and garden are like in the spring. And now I can hardly remember what it’s like in the winter.
