Shoveling in the Sweet Peas...

One of my favorite Grant Wood paintings bears the title "Spring Turning," the subject a newly furrowed Midwest cornfield, soil most certainly turned by horse drawn plow, each furrow neatly curled upon the next, following the contours of the land. The painting is so much more than that: it's a celebration of spring, a sign of renewal, a one dimensional statement on canvas that "Hope springs eternal." And the newly turned, warmed soil opening itself to welcome the seed.

March 31. The target day for me to plant the traditional row of sweet peas. Planting them the last of March, early April insures a bounty of fragrant bouquets by late July. I have all new seed this year, some fresh genetics as the saved seed for last year's crop did not perform well. It's eager to go in the ground any time, but sadly the garden is not ready to receive it. My mechanized plow horse is in the shop, awaiting new oil seals so its vital fluids don't seep out. Our world has gone crazy these days. No telling when I'll be able to have my machine back for the spring turning.

Back in the Victory Garden days gardeners did not have access to gas powered tillers, nor were their garden plots large enough for plow and plow horse. The garden patch was turned by spade, one shovel bite and turn at a time. Although I can't remember doing so, as a boy growing up by the river, I must have spaded up my small garden plot to prepare it for planting. My old beekeeper friend Lester Broughton had an ample garden plot on the second of his two lots in town. Each year he raised blue sweet corn, pole beans, and beets (for the greens). Come spring he'd march to the garden with a spade and spend the better part of a day turning the entire plot by hand and he an old man. Though I offered to bring my tiller and work the plot for him, he would have none of it. Like most old men Lester was set in his ways.

Recently I shared my dilemma with the environmentally sensitive Nancy L. Not only does Nancy L have a low tolerance for litter and trash that accumulates on the roadsides of our Valley, neither does she suffer slackers. "Why don't you use a shovel and work up the row?" she recriminated. "That's what I have to do each spring." Well...this old man has his pride, too. And a shovel.

This morning. Shovel and turn. Shovel and turn. One shovel full at a time, three shovels full wide, until I had unearthed a twenty foot section. With no tilling path to follow, I had the tendency to stray from the straight line and bear to the left. I could see the faint trace of last year's sweet pea stubble and used it to keep me on course. Then came the raking, ridding the turned earth of rooted weeds and other litter, smoothing the soil into a level seedbed. Next I furrowed the bed between two fenceposts, planted and covered the seed. As I went about my task, I considered that I'm now about the same age as old Lester when he spaded up his garden and planted his corn, beans, and beets.

At the risk of being called a slacker, I've decided to spade and rake the row in three stages. The first is done. Tomorrow I'll spade up the second. After all, I'm an old man.... And like Lester, set in my ways.

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