I love spring anywhere, but if I could choose I would always greet it in a garden.

–Ruth Stout

And so it begins…We wake up each day with hope in our hearts that spring is back once again.  We see the flowers peeking out to bloom, despite the risk that winter’s last cold grasp will take them.  We hear the birds beginning to sing their sweetest songs as though greeting the warm spring winds is dependent upon their beautiful melodies.  And we realize so many of nature’s babies are arriving to shake off the cold, and stand and call for their mothers in the fields made fresh and new by the arriving season.  Is there any time better than the newly arrived spring?  I think not.  

But the best thing about the coming Spring is the ability to meet it face to face in a freshly turned garden.  The smell of the soil grounds me and takes me back to my childhood, to a time when I was too young to avoid the new plants which were breaking the surface and so was exiled to making mud pies in the corner of the garden.  Then, I remember getting older and being made to work, and trying to resist said work quite poorly.  Finally, I am brought to now, when I long for the spring to arrive so I can get my hands in the soil, eager to help new lives arrive in the form of little green herbs, flowers, and vegetables.  All of these memories remind me of how much I eagerly await spring each year and how excited I am when it finally comes.

It is that time once again.  Soon, winter will be a recent memory as the temperatures no longer dip below that dreaded freezing number and we can put our seeds and plants in the garden, excited to see what arrives as they grow.  So, join me, folks.  Join me in raising our heads to the sun and luxuriating in the warmth.  Join me in reveling in that sweet smell of spring’s very first fresh flowers.  Join me in enjoying the renewed life that sings in the trees.  But most of all, join me in starting a new garden each spring so you might also have the wonderful associations that I do to that newly turned-earth smell.  You might just be renewed by the experience and end up with a harvest so bountiful–and a memory so wonderful–you just have to share with family and friends.