I’ve been thinking of Andrew Marvell and his garden lately as I work in ours and begin to see the results of all the work of February, March, and April when we reconstructed the whole area after drain field repairs and replanted the potted herbs, flowers, and even an apple tree which had patiently (I can only see it that way!) waited for us to return them to the soil.
“…their uncessant labors see
Crowned from some single herb or tree,
Whose short and narrow-vergèd shade
Does prudently their toils upbraid.” (from “The Garden”)
Most of the plants are thriving.
And mostly we are too. It’s a pleasure to pick kale each day and salad in the evenings. A pleasure to pull up a clump of spring onions, as green as anything dreamed of by Marvell. To guide the bean vines up their teepees, to see the Mendel peas climb their wire and see them begin to bloom. Last year I loved steaming these peas — I brought home the seeds from the Augustinian abbey in Brno where Mendel conducted his experiments with peas — with garlic scapes and the timing looks good for the combination this year too.
...Theresa Kishkan 