Gardens are made of water. It is literally the stuff of life of all growing things, filling and giving substance to cells and tissues and bodies great and small.
At this time of year the garden’s living water is all on the move – if you stand outside in a quiet place you can hear it: a murmuring voice just below the soft surface of the earth. In another few months we will be standing in our parched garden beds slaking our vegetables’ thirst with water from a hose.
It is then, in scarcity and drought, that water seems sweet and precious. Now, with water in abundance – falling water, rising water, flowing water, muddy water tracked across the kitchen floor on boots and paws – it is tempting to wish away the water of early spring.
We can’t easily plant our garden until the water recedes. If you step into the garden now your shoe will sink and the soil will not spring back. Like a piece of tissue, soil is light and full of air when dry, but heavy and soggy when wet. And, like a sodden tissue, if you compress heavy wet soil and then let it dry it does not spring back into shape. It remains compressed, the empty spaces that normally hold breath and living water squeezed shut.
Soon we will plant early spring crops in the CRCC garden – peas, kale, lettuce, radishes and beets. The soil will still be running with spring’s rising waters, and so we will move carefully and step gently. We will be careful not to compress the soil, careful to leave room for air and water to flow through and nourish our plants. And if you come, too, and plant, you will find the living water, and the living soil, and come away with it on your hands and feet.