Planting!

Many of these posts require exclamation points in their title because spring is springing and this is exciting stuff and I want to shout about it.

Planting. Something that I never anticipated falling in love with, well, okay I had my suspicions. Oh how I love to be near the baby plants, whisper little wishes of growth upon them, and watch them grow. Around here in production farm land, we use a tractor. There is a driver (full time farm crew job) and there are the planters (generally the job of us interns). Two little seats on the back for us to put the babies from their nursery flats into the earth, all while the tractor makes holes and pours fertilizer (sea bird guano, yes, it smells fishy). One person follows the tractor to make sure everyone is all tucked in and planted. When everything is in line this works so well. And maybe I can compare everything to juggling, but this really is so much like passing clubs to me. Fast action, doing multiple things at once with both hands, anticipating the next couple of moves, hand-eye coordination, crazy overwhelming at first, and then after a while you can have a conversation with the person sitting next to you without dropping. It is exhilarating. And, you are helping to put plants into the ground that are going to grow big and strong and be good medicine for people.

These photos are from the very first planting that I did, chamomile! Since then I have planted echinacea, wormwood, calendula, valerian, lobelia, hyssop, goldenrod, skullcap, celandine, and plantain. Ooh, and lavender too, but that was by hand.

The littles go into the rubber pads and off they go to the soil.

I am going to be honest with you and tell you that this is a staged photo, but the real thing looks just like this. Oh, the joy.

These photos are courtesy of my friend Masha.