SCRATCHING THAT SPRING ITCH

The winter boots have been stowed away downstairs and my trusty old rubber boots have their first mile on them for 2019.  Well, possibly more than a mile – I’ve wandered the yard numerous times these past few days looking for anything green.  I have this itch to go out and play in the dirt.  I’m all ready to  garden.  The Christmas lights are all packed away and Mother Nature needs to get busy providing any color other than ‘dirty snow’ gray and ‘last year’s lawn’ brown.

Of course it’s way too early to actually garden.  The snow isn’t completely gone yet and there is only cold mud, not warm dirt.  And yet I, and many others, are infected with this persistent condition I have named Spring Itch.  Not the kind of itch that affects your skin, mind you, but the kind that won’t leave your soul alone.

It’s not a life or death thing.  At least I don’t think anyone has ever died of the condition.

But neither is it a mild disease that can be ignored.  The symptoms start as early as January and are probably brought on by the lack of sunlight experienced at that time of the year.  The way to ‘scratch that itch’ in January and February is to pour over seed and nursery catalogues until you’ve worn out the pages.  One must be careful with this remedy though.  Just as prescription painkillers lead to opioid addiction, so too can placing a ‘small’ order lead to a VISA bill your husband must never see.

 This action is no cure though.  The itch continues to fester and as the daylight lengthens out in March those of us infected turn to store-bought dirt and plastic gardens placed on any horizontal surface close to a window.  We tell ourselves we ‘will only plant a few tomatoes and peppers’ but then go into some sort of trance and end the day with several trays of watermelons, giant pumpkins and five kinds of flowers – just because the seeds were there.  By the end of the day we find ourselves amazed that we’ve jumped the gun yet again and try to console ourselves that it will take a week or two for these babies to germinate. 

Which, of course is a lie.  And when the first pumpkin seed erupts an instant plant out of the dirt in less than four days you rejoice over the miracle – even though you know keeping it healthy and strong until it can safely put outside will be next to impossible.

It’s April now and we are up to the wandering-the-yard stage of the disease.  I have managed to find two green things out there ... soapwort and dianthus, coming out of the last snow banks hardy and strong.  Well, actually, there is a third and even more hardy plant out there, but quack grass doesn’t count.

So far I’ve checked my tulips seventeen times in the last two days ... nada.  I’ve paced out where I want my brand new greenhouse to be placed.  I am told that the strawberries came through the winter with flying colors but it’s so muddy over there I will take his word for it.  My umpteenth effort to get hollyhocks to survive is still unproven, but I visit their bed several times a day just in case there’s something to see. 

I long to clean off the asparagus patch so I can commence waiting for it too.

There are some who say that sunshine is the cure for this condition.  It is true that the more time a person spends outside the less anxious they are.  Truth to tell, I am never more at peace with myself than about the middle of June: the transplanting is done, the potatoes are all popping out of the ground, strawberries and lettuce are ready to eat.  That’s the only time of the year when the itch has been sufficiently scratched.  The next stage takes a nasty turn.

During the next three months another condition called ‘exhaustion’ sets in. When a person is up to their armpits in beans to can, raspberries to jam, weeds to pull, potatoes to dig, cucumbers to pickle, and tomatoes to deal with they mistakenly feel cured of ever wanting to plant anything ever again.  This is simply just another stage of the original condition – a kind of faux remission that never lasts past New Year’s day.

Trust me, I know.

It’s been two hours - I wonder if my hollyhocks are up yet?  I should go check.