While I wasn't looking...

...they started without me. My fellow community gardeners, according to the obvious rules of "they were there before me" got to start on their own plots already. I stopped by after I left the office this evening and found that they'd been scurrying around, digging plots, weeding, clearing overgrowth, straightening, composting, clearing, and planting. I saw mounds for - what, beans? squash? - and rows of a number of kinds of bulbs. Some folks in the back had already planted new bulbs as well as cleared out the undergrowth from around other more established bulbs. I snapped a few photos as part of my ongoing - and plodding progress at - a photo essay over time and seasons, and wandered back to my car, jealous that I couldn't start planning my own plots. I know that I have several things that want a cold start, and a coworker already kindly offered me a dozen seedlings of sugar peas that she and her mother had started back in February. I wanted to grow things, now! The ground was ready, and I had a shovel and trowel and seeds waiting in my car. All I needed was a plot - but clearly I couldn't just go guessing and staking a plot - it might belong to someone already. I'd have to wait until official opening day when a plot was allotted to me. I can live with the rules of community gardening - I was just having a serious bout of spring fever, standing there in the dusk, looking at others' handiwork.