I'm pretty sure my neighbors thought I was crazy...

They must have thought I was crazy at one point.  Or a glutton for heat, mosquitoes, and blazing sun.  Or looney for exiting the shed each night after dark, shovel in hand.  What the hell was I digging all night long anyway?  Or maybe they just thought I was obsessed.  But I'm not the only one though, right?  Hello, gardeners?  

Something has happened to me though.  In the past few years, my vegetable, shade, perennial, slope garden have all gone to crap.  It's part laziness, and mostly trying to keep too many balls in the air.  After discovering a passion for getting my hands dirty, came blogging about it, then writing about it for publications, then an even bigger project with all its related parts.  But no more.  This year I'm committed to getting back into the dirt.  I'm going to dig and dig all night long starting in march.  I'm going to buy a gallon of  bug spray because I'm going to be out every day.  I'm going to be out there taking extreme close ups of every freaking pollinating element in every freaking flower that blooms.  Oh, and will they ever bloom.  Because every two weeks, I'll be out there spraying with fish emulsion.  I'm going to have my local high school deliver a gazillion bags of mulch.  I'm going to turn that crank on my freaking compost tumbler every day.  I'm going to do all kinds of soil tests.  And I'm going to post pictures.  Lots and lots of pictures of roots orange and white.  Of fruits yellow and red.  Of leaves green and purple.  They will roll their eyes at me once again, and I will stand tall, sweating and dirty, with bug eggs in my hair, trowel in hand, thrilled about what I will create.  

This year, one quarter of the potager will belong to my 8 year old who has decided to grow an all yellow garden.  Yellow bell peppers, yellow carrots, yellow tomatoes, etc.  (perhaps she's a little crazy too).  Other new things I'm trying are black garbanzo beans, and a Seminole squash - a Florida native, just like my husband.  Part of this renewed frenzy for the upcoming season comes from the seed catalogs coupled with the annual wintertime amnesia that always helps me to forget last year's failures.  Today my seeds came in and one need only shake the little packet to feel its power to compel.  But part of this energy is a renewed focus on what caused all the related distraction in the first place - the actual gardening.  

This year, my mail man will once again hate me for my regular packages from Wayside and Bluestone.  The inside of my house will again be neglected until November.  My neighbors will once again think I'm crazy.  And it will be awesome.