It's early March, far too early to plant outside, but just the right time to begin replenishing the raised beds in my front yard. Two of them...my four by four bee-feeding wildflower patch and my four by eight asparagus bed...won't need much help. But the rest of them will need a bump of nutrient rich earth, hand-tilled, if they're going to continue to yield.
That fresh soil amendment will come from one of my two large compost piles, specifically the one that I started with the leaf-fall the autumn before last. That pile absorbed a 2024 summer's-worth of nitrogen-rich grass clippings, and twelve month's worth of coffee grounds and vegetable scraps. Through the miracle of worm-tailings and a the devouring work of a complex microbiome, it's become a half-dozen heavy wheelbarrow loads of dark, complex soil.
I'll shovel it into my tippy old barrow at the pace of a load or two a day, usually when I realize I've been sitting on my behind too long, then push and drag that load up the little slope to the beds that rest in my light-filled front yard. I'll dump it out, and shovel it in, and rake it level. One or two beds at a time, over a week or two in March, and by the time the last frost date has passed, the garden will be ready.
This has happened for years now, because if I want there to be a modest harvest at our table in the summer and fall, it must happen now.
There are no guarantees as to what happens next.
It may be a season of wild abundance. Or not. It could be desperately, relentlessly dry. It could be drowningly wet, as rain follows rain follows rain. There is no way for me to know precisely how things will be, because that's too complex and chaotic a reality to project. I can only do what I know will maximize the probability of my desired outcome, and leave the rest to Providence.
Now is the time the soil must be prepared, no matter what the year may bring.
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