Thoughts Of Spring

Day 101: Nothing like being ahead of the game! I've already laid in veg and flower seeds for this year's garden, including two different lettuces, Sungold tomatoes, blue Nigella, black peony poppies, Gazanias and a fascinating Mexican gherkin which makes one-inch cucumbers resembling miniature watermelons. Now I have to exercise that most difficult gardening skill: restraint. All too often, my anxiety to dig in gets ahead of the season and I wind up with leggy plants as a result of starting them too early. When the instructions say, "Plant indoors three to four weeks before last frost," they mean it. That will put your seedlings at the optimum growth phase for transplanting. Of course here in the Pacific Northwest, this requires a certain amount of second-guessing the weather and a dash of good luck because "last frost" can be anywhere between early May and mid-June, so you might want to consider starting two sets of seeds a week apart. And remember, always be prepared for Jack Frost to drop in uninvited. Keep the bubble-wrap handy to protect those tender shoots!

Planting By The Moon

Day 138: The seed catalogs arrived in early January and immediately, I sat down to work on my order. Gazanias for sure, Celosia and Asclepias (neither of which I'd tried before), maybe some Cosmos or Calendulas or Nasturtiums for the hanging baskets. My intentions were good, but one thing led to another and when I had company coming, I piled the catalogs and the list at the back of the kitchen table in a stack of magazines. There they stayed, forgotten until a recent mining expedition brought them to the surface again. It was already too late to start the Gazanias indoors, so I shrugged and told myself I'd just pick up seeds at the store this year. Well, I couldn't find Celosia or Asclepias, so I settled for Painted Daisies, Red Flax and in a swing from my customary florals, Coleus for foliage color. I'll probably grow a few of those as houseplants as well.

Now it must be said that I don't hold with planting by the phases of the moon, despite my long association with The Old Farmer's Almanac. Their map shows my area in Region 2, but because I live in the mountains rather than the lowlands, I'm in Zone 7. I can't put anything out until June 1, and even then, it's a risky proposition. No planting timetable accurately reflects the growing season here, and if I waited two weeks for a "favorable moon," it might mean the difference between flowers and no flowers. More than once, I've had plants killed down by the first frosts of Autumn just as they're starting to set buds. Planting timetables are guidelines, in my opinion, and if they really worked, we'd all have perfect gardens.

'Tis The Season To Be Puzzling

Day 79: Snow, rain, wind, and cold mean it's time to break out the jigsaw puzzles. I only work on them in the wintertime, but I do the same ones year after year after year. Sometimes I make it through the whole stack (about two dozen). Other times, I'll only put together two or three before some other project takes my fancy. My preference is for 1000-piece puzzles, and although I generally choose those which look the most challenging insofar as color palette is concerned, this montage of old-fashioned seed packets is one of my favorites. Hmmm...this conversion to a sepiatone photograph looks like it would make a pretty good puzzle, too. Puzzle within a puzzle! Now that's something I haven't seen on a store shelf.