How to Love Spring

The quality of the air, light, and soil has begun to change all around us as we are fully immersed in the changeable and erratic spring of the Pacific Northwest, and while the sun only peeks out at us here and there these days, the feeling of spring is infused in everything! This is the time of year where the excitement of growing things and starting gardens is contagious and people walk around with their seeds and starts and spring bouquets held like shields against the memory of a cold and dark winter. If you are looking for a way to embrace spring and let go of winter the best way is to plant your garden... Even on the coolest grayest day, a spring garden whispers of growth and youth and potential and life. Its very difficult to be in a spring garden and not feel the bloom of hope inside of you.

Here at Rainbow we are doing our best to encourage this space, both as a healing activity and as a way to really love the moment we are in:

We now have a beautiful rack of herb and flower starts from Rents Due Ranch, a local and organic small farm that supplies various co-ops and farmer's markets around the city. Some of the staff favorites are the Chocolate and Apple Mints, Oregano, Lobelia, Strawberries, and Bronze Fennel. Its hard not to love them all, and with over 25 varieties of plants, we have had really great feedback from customers, and are seeing the little babies going to new homes all over the neighborhood!

We are expecting a special bonus from Cascadian Edible landscapes, they will be dropping off a "candy machine" filled with seed bombs (packages of hardy herbs and flowers that can be tossed into any space with exposed soil to increase our greening and beautifying of Seattle) the proceeds will all go to supporting Seattle Tilth's Just Garden Program.

For those days when being outside is just too blustery, cold, and wet, we have some remarkable new books in our book room to help inspire and motivate:

This Organic Life, confessions of a suburban gardener (by Joan Dye Gussow) this lovely book is full of anecdotal moments, recipes and inspiration for suburban and urban Farmers. Gussow weaves the complexity of life with the elaborate details of a garden. Michael Pollen is quoted as saying this book is "one part memoir, one part manual, and one part manifesto."

The Urban Homestead, your guide to self sufficient living in the heart of the city (by Kelly Coyne and Erik Knutzen) This incredibly useful manual covers everything from how to grow your own food to canning to raising bees and chickens to foraging to water and power management. This is a must have for anyone interested in good old fashioned living off the land in the midst of the city. If everyone followed the words in this book this city would be something to behold!

The Natural Kitchen, your guide to the sustainable food revolution (by Deborah Eden Tull) This book brings the garden into the kitchen and the kitchen into the garden, helping us realizing that what we eat is both extremely important and highly political. Tull combines "the principles of sustainability into the rituals of mealtime" and comes up with insightful and useful explorations of how we use food and thereby the world, from the smallest detail to the largest global perspective.

Hopefully all these little gems will help to open the many possibilities and joys of Spring to all of us, and encourage us to participate wholeheartedly in the experience of growth, renewal, and nurturing of the earth, our community, and our own bodies.