Spring Planting: A Brief Catalogue of Minor Injuries

by Zach Hawkins, Hawkins Family Farm Garden Manager and 4th generation Hawkins Farmer

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Blister, inside left thumb

They came from someone who knew someone who was just going to throw them away. Twenty blueberry plants means twenty holes in the garden bed by the asparagus and the raspberries, each one fifteen inches deep and fifteen inches across. David and I dug with garden spades, overturning clods suffuse with earthworms. I should have worn gloves, my hands still soft with winter. I didn't even notice the skin pulling loose with the work. Not as the bright plastic tags--green, yellow, and pink--offered new names to turn over on the tongue: Berkeley, Sierra, Bluegold, Bluejay, Bluetta. Not as the masses of roots pulled free from the flimsy nursery pots. Not as I moved the cool earth back into place and the tender twigs held white blossoms to the sky.

Incised wound, left index finger (knuckle)

Nathan Fingerle at RiverRidge Farm carries his harvesting knife in a sheath on his belt and his greenhouse smells like August in the middle of May: tomatoes and basil and heat. He uses the serrated blade to slit the stems of basil, ten to a bundle. I'm used to using scissors but Nathan got me wondering so when I went to harvest the weekly vegetables shares I grabbed a paring knife on my way to the high tunnel. Dad planted the lettuce in January and now it is growing thick and tender and shades and shades of green. The knife was sharp and the harvesting was fast. A bit too sharp; a bit too fast.

First-degree sunburn, neck, arms, and kneecaps

It was a day for the record books--eighty-eight degrees on the eleventh of May--and we went out to plant onions after lunch. David and I put down the black plastic and covered the edges with soil. Kira made the holes and Sarah tucked in the onion sets. I'd cut the sleeves off the shirt the previous summer to confound my perennial farmer's tan, and the jeans blew out at the knees years ago. How the winter stays in the skin, so pale and pallid. Not today. Give me some air. Give me some sun. We are planting for the warm days ahead of us.