I’ve been putting off my gardening. That wasn’t a matter of choice. The warm weather we’ve been having for some weeks has been conducive to getting out and putting seeds in the ground. In some ways I thought that somewhat premature so I held off and, lo and behold, we did get a late snow. Some people, I understand, lost a portion of their gardens because of that. I didn’t. I didn’t have any garden to lose. But the last few weeks I really wanted to get started on planting and then everything began interfering with that—more important things, deadlines, meetings, rain. But last weekend it was nice weather, a bit hot, but nice, and I set aside time to work outside.

The final impetus for planting occurred Saturday a week ago. My son, Joe, came down for my book signing and he brought me a present, two raised bed garden frames. The lot on which I live is very wet and I have been intending to try raised beds to avoid having to plant only rice. I intended to build my own frames and had scheduled a trip to the lumber store to buy material. The book signing took priority, however. I’ll take care of getting material right after the book signing, I vowed to myself. And then Joe showed up with the raised bed kits, two double frames approximately 4’x 8’ each. Serendipity.

I undertook the assembly of the kits last Saturday. It was a hot day—approaching 90 degrees—and I knew I’d have to take it easy. I did that, working for an hour or so and then taking a break. I worked that way all day and I surprised myself by getting both frames assembled and filled with dirt, ready for planting. Moreover, I felt pretty good. No exhaustion as had been known to occur on other days requiring physical labor and as a bonus I got some other projects completed.

Now I’m really enthused. This summer I’d like to have: a successful, if small, garden; more herbs; an area with ground cover and a few stepping stones and maybe a bench; and a rain garden to utilize the natural wetness of this location. I’d also like to transplant a few things, plants that are really nice but simply located in the wrong places. Maybe that’s a bit ambitious for me. We’ll see.