The sweet blessing of rain.

I never in a million years would be guessed that I would be pleased to see rain, so soon after the recent weeks of heavy rain and sodden soil.  But I am.

Just a few short weeks ago we were having the worst spring rain.  The ground was so soggy that it would only take a half hour shower to cause water to lie on the surface of the grass.  Then it stopped and things started to dry out and I breathed a sigh of relief and grabbed my spade and was finally able to start preparing the soil for the spring season.  The soil was still a little damp, but soon it would be the lovely soft crumbly spring soil that is perfect for planting into.

Only that didn’t happen, the rain was replaced with a wind – not all that strong, but persistent, and the sun while not strong and mostly hidden by high clouds, made its welcome warmth felt.  The wind and the sun worked together to dry out the soil and it was coming along nicely until I realise that they were too great a team – they had completely dried out the soil going straight from soggy to concrete in a week, completely bypassing the soft crumbly stage!

Beds that were recently underwater had deep cracks in them.  They needed water – desperately. And in a way that a hose just can’t do it no matter how long it is left to sprinkle over the garden.  All day yesterday the clouds looked full with rain, but were high in the sky and just teased us by releasing a few light fluffy drops at a time that evaporated before they had time to dampen anything!

Then overnight the heavens must have opened, not in flood proportions, but just the right amount that if I hit the previously rock solid lumps of dried soil, I’m imagining they will just crumble away, leaving a perfect growing medium.  Well that is my hope as I look out the window on a dry but overcast  start to the day.  Today I’ll be digging – well maybe Hubby the Un-Gardener will be digging, and I’ll supervise.

Well I can’t do all the digging – I have to transplant my seedlings.  There are quite a few tomatoes and peppers with true leaves now and the ones I did before need bigger pots as there is still three weeks before I’m prepared to risk putting anyone outside in the open.

Then there is all the asparagus I need to harvest.  They looked like they had stalled, there were all these spears half in and half out of the ground, which hadn’t seem to have moved in a week, so I thought I’d give it a bit of a feed and sprinkled goodness all about, watered it in as their bed was cracking too, and I then thought no more about it.  The next morning the asparagus had gone nuts.  There was a forest – the ones in suspended animation had found the will to grow, but there was also all these other ones that weren’t there before at all!  And they haven’t let up since…  I wonder how much longer it will be before the family get sick of asparagus!

Come again soon – I’ve been doing a bit of horticultural healing.

Sarah the Gardener  : o )