Waking the March Garden

Grandpop’s vegetable garden had no fence. It lacked neat rows with walkways and pavers between the beds. In my childhood memories, I don’t remember beds, and definitely not “raised beds.” It was a rough patch of soil, basically a rectangle, dug into the lawn. The type of garden whose only purpose was to feed a family. The garden came from the Great Depression. No supporting compost pile to the side. In the off-season, the garden was the compost pile, and it welcomed spaghetti and chicken bones as equally as lettuce and apple cores. Lush and wild, I knew this garden well because I played in it, picked its tomatoes, and every March, helped to wake it up.   

Around the spring equinox, as the birds became bolder and more visible, as former snow banks melted into tiny puddles, he would say “It’s time to put in the peas and onions.” Sometimes the seeds would be covered by a surprise March snow, and sometimes they would pop out during a stretch of warm temperatures. It was an unpredictable time. Beautiful days that were both winter and spring, and where I felt like I was both working and playing. 

A physical memory, a muscle memory: jumping up on the pitchfork and using my weight to drive it down, feeling it break through the soil. I was small, and the fork seemed so big and powerful. Section by section, I would help to turn over the soil. This was the first task. Break the winter ground. Smooth it over with a rake. Use a hoe to make the neat rows and drop the peas into the cool soil. I felt part of something, like we were planting hope and possibility, row by row.  

Next week, when I wake up my garden, I will repeat the work I practiced so many times throughout my life. Winter is still around. It’s not completely gone. It's there whenever a cloud passes overhead. But spring is here too, exploding around me when the sun warms my back.   

A garden in March is a special door between winter and spring. I push it open, and there is a moment of nostalgia and hope. A few passing thoughts about melting snow, but also the abundance to come. Morning birdsong returns in this moment of equal day and night. With each footstep on the soil, I feel unsure of the future, but calm in the present, balanced between what was, what is, and what will be.