Chronicles of a Postage Stamp Gardener: I'm Back!

You may remember my wasp sting incident last summer which sent me by ambulance to the hospital to avoid a potentially severe allergic reaction. Well, if you don’t, it spooked me quite a bit from my Postage Stamp gardening. But many of you offered encouraging advice and solid recommendations to get me back in the garden. You suggested that I dress more like a gardener and wear long sleeves and gloves. (Yes, that would help!) You also said to keep the Epi-pen close by and brave those pesky bees.

Around the time I was contemplating the gardening concept, my daughter asked me if I would be planting radishes again. She said how much she hoped so, since she loved coming home from school, pulling the radishes out of the ground, hosing them off and after a sprinkling of salt popping them in her mouth! And just to note, she’s never asked me to buy radishes from the grocery store, testimony to the fact that there’s something magical in growing your own food.

With a plea to eat radishes from a 12 year old, and your good solid advice, how can I NOT garden again?

So watch out bees, wasps and worms, here I come! I’m gardening again. And as the bees buzz around my face, threatening my very existence, I’ll dress for the role and pray that I don’t get stung again.

Last week my Dad was a savior in getting the garden started. First, he heroically removed the mud crusted wasp nest above the window behind my garden and then he helped shovel our compost and bring it to the garden to enrich our soil. While shoveling the dirt. . . .

And what to my wondering eyes should appear? — A mound of kale, handful of carrots, a fistful of beets and a few tiny scallions so plump and sweet. How’s that for the good earth in motivating the soul? Or maybe it’s just a sign that we had a freakishly warm winter. Whatever it is, I’ll take my early spring salad as a sign of good things to come.