it’s finally here: dirt! i’ve turned all my pots and pruned the peonies. and i’ve got garden-lust, big time. i have to sit on my hands when i pass a garden center. (i sing to myself: musn’t fill the pots with pansies, musn’t fill the pots with pansies.) but i see my neighbors with little resistance and window boxes full of first flowers, pansies and violas.

and this year, instead of just a rambling porch garden, we’re expanding into the parking lot out back. our tomatoes starts arrive the third week of may. then watch out: we’ll be nursing gold medals and brandywines, sheepnose pimentos and burans. and lettuce! an entire salad just waiting for me next to the garage!

i probably shouldn’t admit this, but i have a secret little wish tucked behind all the normal things i seem to be wanting these days (a disposal, a garage door, a husband with a job, plush carpet)–i want to be earth mother to a sprawling garden. to live off my own fruits and vegetables. to wander into the grocery store as an afterthought: maybe for lucky charms or a rotisserie chicken. to wander out again without buying anything and harvest my own beets for dinner.

but i probably won’t ever be the green queen. you have to admit that paper plates are incredibly convenient.