I spent a good part of this weekend in my garden. On Saturday, I connected my homemade drip system — fixing leaks and replacing parts. Sunday, I got down to the business of planting.

Garlic I planted last fall

Due to Northern New Mexico’s mild winter this year, I turned over and replenished each bed in my vegetable garden last month, but held off planting until we returned from a vacation Back East. The garlic I planted last fall went from zero to several inches while we were gone.  

Two, our cat, inspects my  planted beds covered with straw.

So this is what I planted Sunday: two kinds of potatoes, spinach, onion sets, snap peas, rainbow chard, mesclun greens, lettuce, arugula, Italian radish and kale. I covered the planted areas with straw and got the drip system flowing.

I will hold off on the warm-weather crops until the weather is more stable.

I enjoy working with dirt and seed. I plan ahead where each crop will go in which bed. I think of how it will all green up and feed us.

Sunday, I listened to the “chub-chub” call of quail in the sagebrush beyond my garden fence. An early hummingbird whistled past. 

Sometimes I work things out in my mind, usually about my writing. I remember once, when I lived in Western Massachusetts, I was so overcome by an idea for my novel The Sweet Spot, I dropped what I was doing and ran inside to my desk.

Sometimes I am worked up by something at my job but some quality time in the garden cures it.

Neither happened Sunday. I only felt quiet inside and that was also welcome.