Garden Fairies Have Quite a Month, So Far

Garden fairies here.

We are garden fairies and we are posting on this blog in the middle of the week because we have a story to tell you. It’s quite the tale, and before you get all nervous and worried about it ending with a thud, let us assure that it has a happy ending.

First, let us say that we were pleased when Carol planted out all the violas and a few pansies way back on a quite lovely day in early March. As we recall, it was on a Friday, the 6th of March, though as a general rule, we garden fairies don’t concern ourselves with calendars.

But for this story, the calendar has some importance, mainly because certain things are done in this garden on certain days and we do not like variations of those days!

So, we were going merrily along, as we garden fairies do, riding the teetor-totter of weather. We’ve had snow and sustained cold and wind and rain this March, but we are garden fairies. We have kept our end of the gardening bargain around here in spite of Mother Nature’s wintry hissy-fits. Hissy-fits! See the picture of the Spring Beauties above that Carol transplanted into the garden several springs ago, which we have since kept going and have begun to multiply for her as proof of our goodness.

We are garden fairies and those flowers are emblemantic of the kind of thoughtful, helpful, considerate things we do around here. And no, we are not responsible for Carol leaving her best trowel out all winter, which she wrote about in her weekly newsletter. We are garden fairies, not thieves. We recognize the quality and value of that tool and would never treat it with that kind of blatant disregard.

Anyway, we are garden fairies and as we noted, we were all getting into the swing of spring, doing our best to take care of the violas even when it snowed. Then St. Patrick’s Day arrived, a day as cold as winter it was, but also the day to sow peas in the Vegetable Garden Cathedral. However, we all agreed that it was far too cold for Carol to sow the peas on this day, as is her tradition, as is the schedule, so we were pleased when she was nowhere to be found and didn’t sow the peas. But, we thought for sure she’d be out to sow peas the very next day, which wasn’t too bad, weather-wise.

But she didn’t come out and sow peas. And she didn’t do it the next day, or the day after that, or even the day after that day, all the way to yesterday.

As you can imagine, Granny Gus McGarden, who lo’ these many years has tended the Vegetable Garden Cathedral with love and care and kindness, was fit to be tied! It took all of us—Seedy and Soddy, Hortense and Honoria, Deema Mae Flowerweaver, Ol’ Rainbow Tanglefly, the Right Reverend Gus McGarden, SweetPea MorningGlory—to calm her down and reassure her that somehow, we’d get Carol to come out and sow those peas.

Then yesterday, while we were just getting settled down to rest for the day in the morning, as we do, suddenly out of nowhere the garden gate flung open and in walked four guys we had never seen before. Granny was appalled when they came back to the Vegetable Garden Cathedral and commenced to tossing those concrete edging stones around and ripping out the landscape fabric (which we thought was ugly anyway.)

Then one of them fired up some kind of machine and proceeded to cut a nice edge around all the borders and beds. And then they cleared out the path that runs through one border and added gravel to it. Oh my!

Back in the Vegetable Garden Cathedral, Granny was hiding by the compost pile, quite shaken to have her garden so disturbed, so violated, so torn up. We were rightly appalled, too, that she was not consulted, informed, or otherwise made aware that this was going to happen!

Honestly, it was one of the most disruptive days of our lives!

But then, as the day wore on, we began to see a transformation, a revival of those garden beds, as it were. By the end of the day, we were amazed, delighted, even thrilled to see that those beds were properly squared up , and the paths were covered with proper landscape fabric covered with proper mulch. It was all so… proper!

We are garden fairies. We stood there with our mouths open. How many years had we wanted Carol to do just what these guys did in ONE day? Well, Ol’ Rainbow Tanglefly did a little investigating to find out what got into Carol and discovered her last blog post, about something she called Spinstercore Gardening.

Well, if that’s what the end result of Spinstercore Gardening is, then we are all for it! We are garden fairies.

And finally, the happy ending, the icing on the cake, the cherry on the top, was that the very next morning, Carol came out and sowed seeds for peas, radishes, lettuces, kale and spinach. We are garden fairies. We were delighted. The month is saved. Granny is back to her usual cheerful self and we are planning a big party to celebrate.

The Vegetable Garden Cathedral is officially open for the season and has never looked better!

Submitted by

Violet GreenPea MayDreams, Chief Scribe and Head of the Committee to Promote Spinstercore Gardening

P. S. – Pictures or it didn’t happen!

Before

After