Spring

I'll tell you how I know when a day has reached the apogee of perfection - it's when I feel guilty for being inside.

Today is that day. What's the first thing I saw this morning at about eight a.m.? Swallows! Right on cue and on time the swallows have arrived and I'm thinking they must be convinced this is paradise. The sun is shining and there isn't a cloud in the cerulean sky. The sun is warm. I dig my fingers into the earth and even the earthworms are wriggling with pleasure.

I hoed the garden and sowed my heritage pea seeds and my first batch of salad. Yes, I know it's lettuce, but really, salad is what I have to call it. Here's what I do: buy a couple of dozen packets of every available kind of lettuce (except iceberg of course) - open all the packets and dump them into a container. Mix them all up and then sow very wide rows - 2-3 weeks apart. What comes up is a ready-made salad and I pick young plants all spring and summer and right into the fall - I usually do my last sowing in August.

The important thing  is wide rows - as long as you can reach the middle from either side, it's good. I am always amazed that people still sow plants in one narrow row and then walk on wide paths on either side of that row - what a waste of good garden space! I plant absolutely everything in wide rows.

At any rate, there's my gardening tip for the day. After lunch I'm going to Notch Hill With Abby. If I didn't I'd feel really guilty - not only for me but for Abby too! Time to soak up this day!