Cattails, ferns, comfrey, there are so many wonderful plants shooting out of the ground. If it weren’t for the frequent spring rains, none of them would flourish.

I’ve recently learned about Dr. Elaine Ingham, a fascinating microbiologist. A quote of hers I like is: “If we as human beings are to continue to live on this planet we have to stop destroying her.” In this video, The Roots of your Profits, she describes the importance of root biology for growing healthy plants.

Most of the sugars plants create from absorbing sunlight through their leaves, they send down into their roots and into the soil to feed colonies of bacteria. The bacteria attract a variety of predators, and in the process of consuming the bacteria, they leave behind nutrients right at the plants roots, which the plants slurp up. It’s an ingenious method, but is easily destroyed when fungicides, herbicides, and pesticides are used. The video is an hour and a half long, but fascinating.

I don’t have the heart to cut these tulips. They are too beautiful to take inside, so they really aren’t “Out of the Garden” … they are still very much in the garden.

What did come out of the garden and into the house today were some over wintering kale and one of Cognac’s deep brown eggs. After growing produce for a number of years and watching the chickens hatch and raise a new generation each year, my understanding of what food is has changed. Ninety percent of the food on grocery shelves isn’t food. It’s some sort of edible (edible in the sense that it won’t kill you within hours of eating it) stuff that has been processed so much that it’s impossible to decipher from what plant or animal it came from. It’s not really food. It’s some sort of industrial product we’re told is food.

There’s no substitute for eating living things. Take the kale I picked above. We ate it within ten minutes of picking it out of the garden. The leaves were still respirating when we ate it. It’s the way most of nature eats. Even earthworms feast on living things: fungi, rotifers, nematodes, bacteria, and protozoans. They don’t first kill their food and then run it through industrial processes until it’s unrecognizable. They dig through the earth, sucking in living things and digesting them.

It’a fascinating working in the garden and seeing how alive the soil is. It’s teaming with life: earthworms, spiders, bugs of all sorts, and millions and billions of tiny creatures I can’t see. Good food is alive.

I went out to collect eggs this afternoon and made a detour through the woods to see what is blooming. Bleeding hearts, thimble berries, trilliums, and spring beauties were in bloom all along the path. On one bleeding heart leaf, a thimble berry petal had fallen.

In the garden, the apple trees are in bloom. In Japan, when people talk about flower viewing, they are talking about viewing cherry blossoms. However, this was not always the case. During the Nara period (710-784) plum blossoms were adored for flower viewing. Aristocrats would have parties to view a single plum tree and write poems about the plum blossoms. Their adoration turned to cherry blossoms in the Heian period (794-1185) during the reign of emperor Saga who was emperor from 809 to 823 because he preferred cherry blossoms. Some cherry trees those ancient people adored still bloom today.

These days when the cherry blossoms are in bloom, crowds gather under the cherry trees to feast and drink and sing and dance. The feasts are often so elaborate that there is even a saying, “dumplings over flowers”, meaning that people go for the food instead of the flowers.

No day these days is complete without seeing what Skunky is up to. Is Skunky safe? Is Skunky healthy? Skunky is doing well. Long live Skunky!

Leave a bulb of garlic in the ground in the fall and in the spring, each clove of the bulb will sprout, resulting in a beautiful green bouquet shooting out of the ground. If you leave it grow through the summer, you’ll end up with a handful of small garlic bulbs, too small to easily peel and use. But, pull the bouquet out of the ground while it’s still young, and the result is a wonderful bunch of green garlic, perfect to slice and dice, and season any dish which craves garlic.

Winter is now a distant memory. Spring has fully taken root, filling the air with the scent of flowers. After heavy rains during the night, the sky is so blue, it takes your breath away. Clean air is not a luxury. It is a necessity for happiness.

Walkways and roads lined with flowering cherries can be found all over Japan. The longest is more than 12 miles long and lined with 6,500 cherry trees. I have fond memories of biking in the countryside in the spring and seeing rows of mountain cherries in full bloom, looking like low hanging clouds against the dark evergreens.

Even the chickens enjoy a stroll under the cherry blossoms. King Richard is out with some of the hens, looking up at the cherry blossoms and wondering when their blossoms will flutter down so they can snack on them.

The five great cherry trees of Japan

• 三春滝桜 Miharutakizakura 1,000 years old
• 石戸蒲ザクラ Ishitokabazakura 800+ years old
• 神代桜 Jindaizakura 1,800 to 2,000 years old
• 淡墨桜 Usuzumizakura 1,500+ years old
• 狩宿の下馬ザクラ Kariyadonogebazakura 800+ years old