working the dirt

I sowed beet seed today. Remembered to soak it. I don't recognize this packet, must have got it at a plant swap during one of those years I wasn't planting the garden. It's not from any of the seed companies I used to order from. Detroit dark red.

I pulled off the straw mulch from half of bed 3 (the other half will have leaf beet chard and green beans on the trellis is my plan). There were just a few wheat sprouts, easy to pull. I turned the soil over with a trowel, picked out some of the heavier lumps, made shallow furrows and dropped the seeds in, spacing them by hand. Swept the soil back over top with my fingers, patted it all down firm and watered. The work so dearly familiar and soothing. I should have gone back inside at that point but then set down to pull weeds from behind bed 1 against the house wall- where I've been dumping pistachio and peanut shells as mulch.

While none are coming up yet in the front yard around the mailbox, there's one borage plant come up in bed 1,

and another in the mulched path behind it. Debating if I will try to dig them up and transplant elsewhere, though I think they're too far grown for that.

And then I sat with the fire pit, letting pieces of downed tree branches turn to ash (which I will feed to the lawn later) reading a book I have been dragging my feet to finish, while doing another pleasant thing I have avoided for too long (fire). I felt like I had forgotten how to start a fire- after going through five matches and the flames smoldered and died twice, I went inside and hunted up the very last of those lint/egg carton/dipped wax starter lumps once made for camping. One left. I used it to get this fire going, and then even with my wood slightly damp it went merrily for another hour or two. And I finished my book.