changing from season to season to season: winter to spring

Grandma 's Garden

I have no doubt that Grandma 's garden , and her love of it was a major force in her active lifespan of ninety-one years . It covered a double-lot and for her young grandchildren it was an immense playground and wonderland . Up to her last year with us she was never so alive as the day every Spring she declared the risk of frost was no longer to be feared . Now what had been covered with snow and ice was a verdant landscape . There would be no more icicles from the

tree branches or a skim of ice in the birdbaths . Bent with arthritis and dependent upon a cane she walked into her special retreat with a vigor that belied her age . Her first and most important inspection was her fig tree , more a huge bush than a typical tree . It had been brought over , clandestinely from her birthplace in Sicily . Everyone with any knowledge of figs was certain the climate of her new home would mean certain death to her precious fig . She knew otherwise

Every fall she would have her grandchildren assemble a mass of coverings she had collected during the year . We would sort the pile by shape and size and then cover the fig bush with the old blankets tarpaulins , sheets , and carpet segments Grandma would sit on a kitchen chair in front of the bush and direct our placement of the coverings over her beloved fig bush . Every spring the ritual was in reverse , and sometimes we would discover frost between the layers , the last Winter survivor . Grandma would gently examine her patient stem by stem to determine how it survived the winter cold . Some years with mild winters the process was uneventful but in years with harsh winters we would eye her activity with great concern as she carefully snipped off damaged branches with the precision of a surgeon

Assured her pet would produce her beloved fico ' she moved on to her next inspection , grandchildren following like so many excited goslings behind Mother Goose . Grandma was an organic gardener ' well before the term grew popular . She was of an age and tradition where nothing was wasted . Virtually anything of an organic nature - kitchen wastes leaves , pulled leaves and grass clippings - made it into her compost pile alongside an ancient shed . It was bed by snow crocuses and hyacinths , there early blooms a time-clock for her to determine the readiness of the compost . The boys would take turns shoveling out the compost , dark moist earth like devil 's food cake , filling the air with a rich perfume of earthworms and soil . She had assembled a variety of recycled boxes and the boys would fill each with the potent fertilizer and Grandma would assign her granddaughters to box according to size and then direct them to various spots in her garden . There was never a shortage of the natural fertilizer . Grandma was always thinking ahead and would have us collect grass clippings during summer...