For the past year and a half, I didn't care that there were dead plants that I hadn't even felt like pulling out of the pots. When they say it takes eighteen months to two years to recover from divorce, even if you asked for it, "they" weren't kidding.
So, here I am, on the other side of that abyss and Spring has sprung and I am a planting savant!
Even when I was first married and all I had was an apartment balcony, I loved planting containers. When we had our first home, a sunny back yard cried out for a vegetable garden...asparagus, dill around the tomato plants so the worms go there instead of to the fruit... and lots flowers that reminded me of my grandparents, especially my grandmother - consummate gardeners. How I wish I had asked then all the questions that flood my mind now; but I was young and I didn't know I would love gardening, so I never asked.
Trial and error, I gardened my way through many years of marriage, a couple of apartments and two houses, cats doing wheelies between my feet as I dead-headed flowers, watered container pots, added bird feeders, yard sculptures, stone features...dug in the "life."
Soil is life.
And there is such joy derived from looking at a small flower bed that has been weeded, freshly turned, and planted with whatever I fancy at that moment in time. I used to get up in the middle of the night and look out at the pots and beds by the light of the moon...fresh plantings gave me that much happiness: a sense of satisfaction, the spark of creation, order out of chaos, the promise of growth and beauty.
Soil is full of life. Ants churning underground, turning the soil, doing the ant-work...earthworms aerating and tilling even the hardest clay soil (how do their soft mucosal noses not snap off from the effort of pushing up through hard packed Texas dirt?) , adding nutrients to the mix...both creating space and a habitable environment for all the organisms that are needed to enrich our earth.
Soil is not just dirt. Soil is the foundation for everything we eat and for everything that we eat to eat. But we haven't been good stewards of the land. From chemicals and fertilizers to pesticides to rain forest destruction to scraping the top soil only to come in with filler after all the trees have been cut down to build a parking lot, we are destroying this rich and vital few inches of that which sustains us.
What it requires of each of us, even if just in the few square feet over which we may have control, is an understanding of the implications of our choices. Many may argue that man was given dominion over the earth, but destruction of it's precious resources is not the act of a kind and benevolent or wise ruler.
A little TLC of the soil leads to the joy of loving something, creating beauty in one's midst, teaching by decisions congruent with core values. Then there is being outside in wonderful weather, painting a picture through the palette of well chosen plants and flowers, building a habitat for birds, butterflies, ladybugs, praying mantises, worms and ants!
Digging in the life is better than a trip to a shrink...while you plant, you can problem solve, chart the next steps for the life you are creating, spend time with kids or grandkids, and create an oasis of peace and beauty in the midst of a hectic and toxic world.
And it is a wonderful sign of hope for a better tomorrow and faith that the future holds promise!
You might want to watch this and pass it along to friends:
http://www.foodrenegade.com/the-soil-crisis-and-the-problem-solvers/#more-1774
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