Back To The Garden

I spent a couple of hours this week starting to dig over the vegetable patch. One pleasant surprise was finding that last year’s garlic which didn’t grow has sprung to life over the winter and is looking fine and dandy. I began by weeding around said garlic, and then got carried away into the next bed and the one after. It was great to be digging the earth again – I’ve really missed the fresh air and exercise these last couple of months.
The weeding was surprisingly easy, partly because the earth is moist and the weeds haven’t really got a foothold yet, but also because I’m reaping the benefit of having done a lot of deep digging last year, to rid the garden of Japanese Knot Weed. I found myself thinking about how gardening is so much like life – digging deep is hard work, but definitely worth it in the end. It seems that I’ve swapped one problem for another though (so like life!). Where the Knot Weed has gone, Fat Hen has now run wild. Still it’s a lot easier to get out of the ground as it doesn’t root deeply. (For some strange reason I always want to call it Fat Chick. Best not go there!) I guess in the end, if the new weed is less tricky than the previous one, you at least can say that things are moving in the right direction!