My garden wakes up to a new world

In just a matter of weeks, the world has turned upside down.

Most of us have been staying indoors or venturing outside briefly to avoid catching COVID-19. I hope all of you reading this are healthy and able to social distance whenever possible. For those of you on the front lines helping others, my deep gratitude for the work you’re doing!

Garden 2020

One of life’s basic needs, especially during this time, is eating good, healthy food. Fresh food. Nutritious food. Just a few weeks ago, when it was still very wintry in Colorado, I pulled out a couple of packages of microgreen seeds and grabbed a bag of potting soil. Using old berry boxes, I started growing microgreens for our salads. The wonderful thing about microgreens is that they are highly nutritious. Who knew? They’re fun to grow because they sprout in a week, but hardly enough to live on. Still, it meant the beginning of a new gardening season. BTW: do you know the difference between sprouts and microgreens?

I’ve had a small backyard garden for years. Now, more than ever, eating fresh food is important and so one of the things I’m going to be sharing in “Happenings” in the months to come is what’s growing in my garden.  

Two early plants have already popped up: chives and garlic. Two of our favorites! I’ve started snipping off the chives for salads and sprinkling them in our scrambled eggs. Yum.

 April can be a treacherous time for gardeners in Colorado – and if you look closely at the photo you’ll see snow from just a few days ago in the foreground.

What is all that grass doing in the garden you wonder? It’s actually a cover crop we planted last fall. When the weather gets warmer and it’s time to plant our seeds we’ll turn the cover crop into the soil which will feed it organic matter and nutrients.

You don’t need a big backyard to start a veggie garden. You can begin with an old pot you can fill with soil, a window box, or even just a sunny patch in your backyard. The important thing is to begin. Begin to dream – that’s what gardeners do in springtime – dream of green and growing things. Life begins anew, so get your hands in the dirt and keep looking up.