There is something about March: no matter what a wild mix it is, March puts a spring in a farmer's step and a light in a farmer's eye. Sure, March is slushy and mushy, meaning our driveway and pathways. March is patchy and scratchy, meaning our ragtag crazily shedding workhorses. March is flip-flop and keep you on your toes and make the best of it, meaning yes, the weather: rainy sunny muddy snowy sleety March.
March is also middling and muddling, meaning all the goofy mistakes we make, starting right in the beginning of our garden season. For example:
For years we have been hefting our ridiculously heavy propagation table in and out of the greenhouse. We built this table ourselves, pleased with its multi-purpose nature: we could start seeds on it in March, April, and May, in the greenhouse, and then move it to our distribution shed for the next six months, to provide a charming, rustic surface for our vegetable crates and trays and baskets.
Over the years, our table became even more useful. First we added a plastic tarp and hooks to cover the tender seedlings at night. Then we added a shelf, to hold supplies. Next we added a hinged door on the side, so that the table would function both as a healing chamber for grafted tomatoes early in the season, and then as a handy place to hide the supplies in the distribution shed, later in the season. When the healing chamber didn't prove to be dark enough, we added layers and layers of cardboard and rags to block the light. Then we added two more legs to the middle of the monstrous table, to keep it from collapsing from all its functions.
Every year required more screws, more patches, more supporting braces, more boards sticking out and straps hanging off to act as hand grips to try to move the heavier and heavier and heavier table from the shed to the greenhouse and back again. Every year also required more sweat, blood, curses, bruises and sometimes tears. The whole project cast a pall on the appointed table-moving day, once in late winter, once in late spring.
One year is particularly vivid. My fellow farmer spent a good hour with drill and hammer and stapler as I worked on the greenhouse beds.
“There,” he said. “I've got it in pretty good shape now.” My fellow sounded pleased. “Are you ready to move it?”
I groaned. “I guess.”
We girded our loins. We flexed our arms. We belted out the countdown. We heaved the table up in the air and . . . Crash! Everything my fellow had just fixed on to the table fell to the ground, whereupon we fell to the ground, howling with laughter, which is a sight better than curses and tears. When we recovered, my fellow said cheerily, “Well, maybe we don't need that part of the table anyway?”
“Probably not,” I quickly agreed, and we muscled up again, ready for our slightly lighter table.
Every year, along with patches, we also added more rules: We are never to carry this horrible table when there is two foot of snow on the ground. We are never to carry this horrible table when it is only the two puny farmers; we either needed our strong daughter, or an innocent visitor.
Plus we are never to carry this horrible table when the greenhouse is already full of knee-high tomato plants, which creak and whimper as we try to wiggle the table out without crushing plants or farmers. Or if we do move the table then, we will tell the daughter or the visitor that if we crush the plants, our entire season will be a disaster and we will probably have to stop farming and go to the poorhouse, which puts a look of high alarm on their faces and sends enough adrenaline shooting through their systems that we get the table successfully out.
Now, this year, there is a new rule. First of all, our strong daughter went off to college, and all our innocent visitors have wised up, which made us wise up.
“We are never going to move this horrible table again!” I shouted gleefully. “It's going to be a distribution table from now on, and we are going to use our little light tables for propagation!”
“Nice!” said my fellow. “And I just found great plans for an easy, light, mobile healing chamber for the grafted tomatoes!”
I looked askance at my fellow. “Really easy? Really light? Really mobile?”
“Yes!” he said “Yes!”
Ah, there it is: March. Such hope, such optimism, such light, such spring, such Yes.
Originally published in the Monadnock Shopper News, Mar 11- Mar 17, 2020