Dirty Girl

There is something that seems rather obvious that I've just noticed about working in the garden. It's really dirty work.

Wow! What an insight!

I was just thinking about how magazines usually show such elegant people in the garden with designer gloves and garden clogs. But no dirt. Everything looks so beautiful! To say that I was dirty today, and everyday, doesn't really sum it up. I feel like a chronic dirtball. Usually I tell myself that I'm just dirty for a little bit today but then I'll wash up. But I don't ever end up washing up until late at night. It occurs to me that most people only ever see me when I'm dirty. In their minds, I think I must be a farmer. In fact, as I crawled around my small little vegetable garden I realized that I am a farmer. A very teeny tiny farmer.

The bucket of manure really got to me, that tangy, nasty smell going right to my brain. It's ground into my pants and under my nails. Dirty girl! There is still junk all over the patio, piles of pulled weeds, tools, spilled dirt and manure and across the vast, wastefull lawn is a trail of leaves and roots and dirtballs that I yanked out of various places and dragged back for composting. The vegetable garden is not something you would see in Better Homes and Gardens. One of my son's friends stepped on a small marigold totally squashing it. There are footprints all through the dirt, in spite of the fact that I laid out a nice brick path to help me reach the plants in back. And then there's another trail of weeds and leaves headed for composting that seems to spread all over. It's not pretty. How do people make pretty gardens? Maybe it's not time for pretty, yet since it's only mid-spring. Besides, it's a vegetable garden, a working garden, not a show garden. It's hard work in there! The perennials are much easier to deal with and look much neater, but the vegetables look like they are being bothered every day.

The upside to all of this dirt is that my early girl tomatoes are already starting to flower!!! Tomatoes!! In May!!!