Spring! Never mind that we had a real stow storm last week that blotted out our spring greens, pinks and yellows the day before Earth Day. Redbuds and dogwoods shook that snow off their shoulders and carried on. So should we — or so I tell myself. Even the robins have been huddling on bare braches, fluffed out and stunned these last couple weeks. They remind me of the parents loyally headed for the bleachers at Crawfordsville High School — in parkas and wool hats, carrying thermoses, their jaws clenched — ready to cheer. Rah. Rah. The kids just shivered and ran and stamped their feet whether they were on tennis court, ball field, soccer pitch or warming up to long jump. It’s been quite the scene.
“You resist getting out there,” says my pal John, “but once you do, you can’t quit.” Good to hear since John tills gardens and you believe him. Time to give yourself over to spring. It’s just so daunting to see all the weeds and work even a small yard with some trees and beds offers up. Pleasant enough, though, to watch spring come through the window, cup of tea in hand, able to ignore the thermometer. One wants to linger. But this isn’t what humans were built for. We and the natural world grew up together on this planet. Time to go out and have a go at it.
The half-moon of ground along our outbuilding has only recently been converted from lawn grass into a pollinator garden. The patch in spring is home to soil-builder plants like wild onion, creeping Charlie, coleus and violets. A path of stepping stones runs behind the bed, separating it from an older bed of daffodils, sedum, coneflowers and bachelor’s buttons. The pavers warm the soil more quickly and between each pair of them is a riot of purple bloom. “Sweet violets, sweeter than the roses” (as the song lyrics have it) crowd the scene there and in the new bed, their dark green leaves foil the lighter, smaller leaves of a plant with delicate stalks of lavender funnel flowers. The littler ones are more prolific than the violets. Together the two make a curved, purple haze carpet in the early morning light.
The small, super-abundant flower is ground ivy, best know around here as creeping Charlie. Whatever you call the plant, it is universally despised for growing everywhere, always. If it weren’t so insistent, and therefore more powerful than we are, we’d be fond of the thing. Creeping Charlie (also known as creeping Jenny, gill-over-the ground, alehoof, tunhoof, catsfoot, field balm, and run-away robin) is an aromatic evergreen, a close relative of mint. While ground ivy is toxic to horses, cattle, and swine, it has a long culinary and medicinal history among us humans. Prior to the use of hops, it was used to add bitter flavor to beer and ales. It’s rich in Vitamin C and can be used in soups or eaten like spinach. So there! What do we know? (If you must subdue your “Charlie,” just overseed it with grass. Don’t use pesticide or herbicide.)
I’m out here this early morning both to overcome resistance and to do a bit of hand-to-hand with spring. From standing height, it looks hopeless, endless. My job (self-assigned) is to pull and dig out the noxious troublemakers — the thistles, the dandelions, those tubular-stemmed monsters that hug the ground and resist trowel and spade alike. Mainly, though, I’m here to get reacquainted with the out-of-doors.
As the early sun lights and warms all of us creatures, it falls upon the big clumps of white narcissus along the building. The trumpeted daffodils are done blooming but these spring brilliants are in their prime. Cluster after cluster of delicately whorled, cream-colored flowers scent the air. That perfume mingles with the smell of warmed earth and fresh green plants. Taking up a trowel into my gloved hand, I home in on a nearby thistle. I come to hands and knees, ready to begin. I take the supplicant’s posture. That seems just right. Resistance ebbs. I dig.
Saturday is the day! Come on down to the opening of the 2021 Crawfordsville Farmers’ Market. You’ll see friends and can grab a coffee or a breakfast munch. Mostly, though, come to see what fresh, green things our wonderful farmers and vendors have brought for us, proving it is indeed spring. The Farmers’ Market is open from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. every Saturday, May through October. Opening day will feature the popular musical group “Nuthatch,” and also be offering Fitness at the Market (yoga this Saturday). The Farmers’ Market is also pleased to launch our Market-wide SNAP program on Saturday. See you there!
Dr. Helen Hudson contributes her Real Food column to the Journal Review.
