Getting the garden ready

This year, for the first time in our lives, we will attempt a garden.
It seems I am always looking for ways to eat more healthfully for less. When you rely on conventional grocery stores, this is an oxymoron.
Why not grow some of our own food?
We have the yard for it, the help (two able bodied, strapping young boys; a considerably less able bodied mom and dad --we're getting old --; a garden savvy housemate; a garden foreman of a grandpa; and some friends who are willing to pitch in and help for a share in the bounty); and the desire to eat better and learn how to do that through gardening.
I think it will be a great project for all of us.
Our garden has the potential to draw us together, to teach us things, to nourish us -- body, mind, soul and spirit.
My good friend Monica, who has been an avid and tremendous gardener, told me that gardening offers an opportunity to commune with God in a way unlike any other. It can be a relaxing, restful activity that allows you to connect with the God of the garden. I think God must have a thing for gardens. After all, it was a garden in which the life of this earth began. And it was a garden in which Jesus prayed, " . . . not my will, but Yours," before making an eternal relationship with the eternal God possible once again for those who would believe -- something we lost for ourselves in the first garden.
So, we will give it a go, and see what happens.
Hopefully our thumbs are green.
I am awaiting my order of seeds and plants, anxiously. Planting season is knocking at the door.
This year, we will attempt to grow peas, snap peas, green beans, summer squash, a lettuce medley, spinach, cucumbers, tomatoes (several varieties), peppers (bell and hot), eggplant, watermelon, strawberries and blueberries.
We already have an apple tree and a mess of blackberry bushes.
I think this will give us a good start.
The realistic part of me knows we are in for a load of work, but work is relative, right?
I prefer to think of it as a dance, a waltz with the earth, a symphony of sustainability.
But then, I've always been somewhat of a dreamer . . .

Dancing in the Breeze

I went to the garden
to pick some peas.
Found them dancing
in the evening breeze.

The day was hot,
so I joined right in.
Tapped my toes
and began to grin.

Peppers in a polka
as the snow peas snapped.
Beans in a boogie
as the cabbage clapped.
Squash square dancing
with the cha-cha chard.
Watermelon waltzing
all around the yard.

Picked my supper
with the greatest of ease --
everything swinging
in the dancing breeze.

Taken from Busy in the Garden by George Shannon