Straight Furrows

I have been remembering lately when I was a very small child and I asked my dad what direction "Straight" was.  I wanted him to point it out.  It wasn't so easy, and to tell the truth, I've never been good at directions.

But today, after seven years of enriching the orange, pre-brick soil in my front yard with mulched leaves and wood and compost, I tilled and found brown dirt.  It wasn't the black, magic soil of Central Illinois, but it wasn't orange - not even auburn.  It was fructeous, full of earthworms just waking up.  Into a plot of mostly sunny soil, about 20' X 8',  I tilled a few bushels of mulched leaves and a couple of buckets of fine wood mulch, and a couple of buckets of the magic stuff produced by the upturned root ball of the oak tree that fell over several years back.

Into this amazing mixture, I dropped seeds and transplanted some shrubs.  I only worked two hours, because I'm very aware that too much fun in the gardens one day keeps me from moving the next day.  

I tilled horizontally, then vertically, then diagonally.  I watched the bits of green chickweed and grass combine with the shreds of leaves and wood and clay, becoming even better, richer, more luscious soil.  I had to stop a few times to pick up handfulls of this magical stuff and smell it.  I had to take off my gloves and feel it.  The bits had to die to one life to become the next and it was beautiful.

It is beautiful.

And I realized I had tilled straight, no matter what direction.

I haven't had much of a green thumb since moving here to the South, where everything is supposed to grow happily.  I have tried to make Central Illinois gardens in South Carolina clay.  Earth is a bit wiser than I.  More forgiving and more stubborn.

I wouldn't be a bit surprised if the seeds I planted and the shrubs I transplanted today actually grow and thrive.