Our last frost date was February 25…

No deep thoughts this week, so here’s the garden update:

The scraggly bush-tree that was a stump when we moved in 2 1/2 years ago has shown its true colors.

It is most definitely a Japanese magnolia, which I have wanted in my yard since I first met one almost 20 years ago at Tulane. Score one for the house, and one for being too lazy to dig out the stump before we knew what it was.

It’s time to bring in the cabbages, but I’ve lost the cabbage soup recipe I used last winter that the kids loved. If you have suggestions, please send them my way.

I harvested about a gallon of curly kale yesterday, all from a roughly six-inch by two-foot space. Bunches of cilantro are next.

I wouldn’t have harvested it all now, except that it’s time to start planting, and I need to sheet mulch this bed before we put tomatoes in it. Craig is determined to have a repeat of last summer’s Wall of Tomatoes.

I invested in a grow-light this year, and the first seedlings are ready to harden off, so that we can plant them in…

THE SPACESHIP BED! We have grand plans to turn the whole back yard into garden beds, and this one is the first. Three walls complete (thanks to a diligent and creative husband) and it will be a while before the fourth, so it’s been double dug and will soon be planted with the zucchini, anise hyssop, and oregano from under the grow-light, as well as lots of other goodies. It just happens that, with the keyhole walkway, it looks a little like a spaceship. Hopefully it will be less noticeable once the plants are in.

I also pruned the climbing rose WAAAAAY back, which is a little terrifying. But the guy on YouTube said it would make it happy…I guess we’ll find out soon enough.

Turns out I have one Deep Thought after all – it’s been a good two days (or week…who’s counting?) digging and lugging and planting a little. Even when it seems like I’m just piddling, not really accomplishing much, it’s still been refreshing, and at least felt like I was doing something worthwhile. Which maybe says something about the importance of the worker part of Peter Maruin’s worker-scholar ideal.

And, God willing, there will be vegetables from some of this work on our table three months from now.