Time to sow
I've just started my seedlings for what I hope to be a more bountiful garden than last year. I know logically that the seeds will take over a week to germinate, but I can't seem to resist peeking at them every day.

I remember some of my earliest gardening endeavors working with my mom. She kept an enormous vegetable garden, as well as an herb garden and a big, scary raspberry patch. I knew that winter was nearly over when mom planned an outing to the agriculture center. There she picked up envelopes of seeds--some lumpy with promise, others suspiciously lightweight. I loved exploring the store and discovering that Purina made not only Cat Chow, like I fed our tangle of barncats, but also Rabbit Chow and Goat Chow.

It was always a thrill to watch the first signs of life from those hard seeds--one leaf, then two, poking up from the soil. How tender the tiny new plants were. I hated the scary week or so that the plants sat in the cold frame adjusting to the outdoors and "hardening off." Many wouldn't survive the ordeal. But those that did were soon lined up like soldiers in their new soil homes under mom's watchful eye.

I never have and never will like the weeding and mosquitos of midsummer, but I'm still captivated by spring's small magic waiting in a little pack of seeds.