Spring

Spring was made for gardening. Gardeners, believers in the religion of dirt, look to the vernal months of March, April and May for crocus flowers and emergent leaves - wellsprings of our passion for gardening.

For me spring is like Christmas, even though it's far longer than just one day. But it does only come around once a year, a fact that I remember often bitterly in the middle of a January deep freeze. Poets and musicians have penned artful works on the subject of spring since the beginning of time. Clearly humanity from its earliest beginnings found spring fascinating, a time of newness and purity ahead of labor and toil in the height of the growing season. Many psychologists too have long believed in the existence of an innate agrarian urge in the human mind - a longing for growing and nurturing seedlings into something of practical use and value, often as much for the process as the rewards.

Spring celebrates that process. Gardeners know that there are no true instant successes, aside from the immediate satisfaction from having planted something. The love and joy of gardening will always yield greater rewards than a cut bouquet of zinnias or a bushel basket of ripened tomatoes. It's with that earnestness that spring begins in my garden every year, the start of a self-fulfilling journey with no certain ending.

Indeed, spring brings out the best in gardens and gardeners. Filled with the gladsome spirit of the vernal season, gardeners dig like mad, planting every inch in sight in hopes of a fruitful harvest, both tangibly and spiritually. At moments like this I want nothing more than to spend every waking hour in the garden, toiling away the months of April and May doing what I love to do best. Though we're all a little crazy, it's worth making the world a better place one garden at a time.