Who knew?

Both my father and my grandmother on my mother's side loved growing things. I have, at various times in my life, thrown some seeds in a patch of dirt and then forgot all about them, only to watch the weeds take over.

(And there was that time when the seeds really were weed. But that was long ago and far away. Another universe, possibly. Certainly another lifetime. Heh.)

But gardening has grown on me, both the food kind and the flower kind. Never have I looked forward to gardening season as much as I have this year. Who knew, indeed? The winter was far too long and dreary.

It's such a joy to look across the front yard and see bright yellow daffodils. I spent quite a bit of time yesterday afternoon cleaning out the asparagus bed and working on the perennials in the front yard. I dumped seven loads of dead leaves at the edge of the yard, available if I need them but I probably won't.

The two big differences between this year's gardening season and last year's are these:

• I'm not working at my part-time job this year, thus opening up several hours a week where I can concentrate on the yard and garden, and
• I have less pain, more energy and weigh a lot less this year, making it so much easier to move and bend and tote and haul.

And that, my friends, is more incentive for me to stick with the paleo/primal plan.

Plus I'll be making and canning my own organic, delicious SALSA in three or four months! (I eat salsa a lot.) I'm cutting the size of the garden in half this year, and concentrating on tomatoes, peppers and onions, with some Italian green beans, okra, and kale. But it's mostly going to be a salsa garden.

I haven't begun cleaning up the herb bed, which was completely neglected last year. I'm hoping the cilantro will reseed itself. But if it doesn't, I'm prepared with several packets of new seeds.

'Cause you can't make salsa without cilantro.