feelin' dirty

I long for spring. Ache for the smell of grass. Pine for my tiny blue spruce. Lust after ladybugs. Yes... this post is about my garden. Wish I had a digital camera so I could include a picture of what it looks like now, but you'll have to use your imagination. Close your eyes and bring into your mind an expanse of white. Now add a couple of dead twigs to the image, and you'll have it.

I bought an organic gardening magazine. It hasn't helped. I have seeds ready to get started, but I have to wait until April to plant them. In place of action, I fantasize constantly. I dream about removing the leaves from my perennials, and spying the first green nubs that are pressing out of the soil. About dirt under my fingernails and the hot sun on my back.

In years past, I have tempered my craving by working at the Green Spot. Transplanting starts in late February and goes until the end of March. Five evenings a week, I would stand chatting with the other women, poking my dibbler into the soil, tucking the roots in. The air in there is moist, and filled with the scents of spring.

The smells are what I miss the most. The rich, rotting tang of humus. The scrotty odor of marigold. The way tomatoes smell like tomatoes even when they are an inch tall and only have two leaves. I'm planning a trip to the Conservatory at Assiniboine Park this week. Maybe I will subversively shove my fingers into the loam and blacken the creases on my hands. It's the closest I'll come to the real thing for eight or so agonizingly long weeks.