Salvation Amy

I had this idea to build raised beds out of free pallets from my local garden shop.  I had no idea how I was going to do it, but figured I’d figure it out.

Instead, Scott started taking them apart this weekend,

in a project to rival the Taj Mahal.  This is what he came up with.

It’s hard not to adore him.

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My existential anxiety seems to dull with the changing of the seasons.  Things start to melt, snow falls, leaves drop, and I find myself something approximating happy.  I get stuff done.  I’m not as tense.  I’m nicer.

It’s having something to look forward to, right now.  Lately, each morning, I have seedlings where I didn’t have any before.  10 sweet peas.  3 sage.  A ton of alyssum. And TWO ARTICHOKES.

I’m sorry.  Maybe you didn’t hear me.  TWO ARTICHOKES.  And if you would like to tell me, like my father-in-law did, that artichokes require a longer growing season than we have, then don’t.  Because I don’t wish to hear it.  Thank you very much.

So I’m plotting where I will put things, between now and the first of May.  And I’m running out of indoor growing room.  And I’m smiling.

I just don’t.  Up since 4 a.m.  Still groggy at 730.

Oh!  I know.  Artichocke seedlings are up!

Charlie got his hair cut yesterday.  It’s probably been close to a year since it was last cut, as he was experimenting with hippiedom.  But finally the tangling got to be too much for him.

So he picked a sort of spiky cut, that I think he thinks makes him look like Derek Zoolander, as he is working on some new looks, and he goes around saying things like, "we too can’t not die in freak gasoline fight accidents" and has gone through about a gallon of hair gel since yesterday.

This morning as Scottie & I were waking up, we heard the shower running, and got quite confused, as we were both still in bed, and Carly was deep in REM land.  Scott looked at me and said "Did YOU tell him he had to take a shower?" and I said "No, Did YOU tell him he had to take a shower?"

And then both of our heads exploded from the unexpectedness of it all.

So, it turns out that my great great great grandfather and great great great grandmother were first cousins.

Which makes each of them my first cousin, 5 times removed.

And I think makes me my own fifth cousin, or something.

It may be best not to eat the fruit of the family tree.

I am going on and on again about the garden.  It’s already heating up, and the ground is still frozen, which I figured out, this morning, when I ran out to see what was happening in my bare feet.  After I’d been out there about 10 minutes.  While the frost bite was setting in.

Outside, daffodil leaves are poking out, and there are one or two purple poppy anemones that have foliage and one that has a little bud on it.  Last week I had one or two snow crocuses, croci, throwing little dabs of pointilist color in the brown front yard, and today there is exactly one scad.  The periwinkle vinca I planted last year, which I thought was an annual but apparently is not, is starting to bloom a little, although there is a huge footprint in that bed.  I am measuring the feet in my household for removal.  In other news, the strawberries I planted in the fall appear to have survived the winter, as did the garlic and the chives and maybe even the rosemary.  It turns out a lot of the herbs I thought were perennials are actually annuals, which is not quite the treat to find out as it is when you think it is the other way around.

This weekend I’m going to go beg some packing pallets from my local overpriced but friendly garden store, where, if I hang around there a lot and buy something every three months or so, they give me free stuff.  Really.  After Christmas they were having a huge winter sale just at the same time I had a hankering for an amarylis.  So I got the amarylis for I think 75% off, and then I found some paperwhites that I got for 50% off because they came with a very pretty fancy vase and colored rocks.  Then I bought a bunch of discontinued seeds for 50% off and as I was leaving the guy said, "these have to get planted soon, so I’m just going to give em to you" and he gave me a handful of paperwhite bulbs, which I passed on to my mother in law to brighten her winter.  All in all, I think I maybe spent 20 bucks for a big bunch of potential life.

Early March late february meant I could start sowing seeds indoors, and so I did.  Would you like to know what I planted?  I will tell you. Sage, oregano, thai basil & coriander.  Artichokes because I am crazy but what I really want is to grow everything we eat most of the time and Scott is starting to get very nervous because lately I’ve been saying, you know, if I had a grain mill I would never need to buy flour again, as I eye a patch of ground and he says we are not growing wheat.  Coleus, which I don’t really care that much about but Scott keeps saying he wants to plant something besides flowers and I am afraid if I don’t have something to put in certain places we will end up with hostas or ornamental grasses or some sort of bush.  He really likes the bushes.  I really only like them if they bear fruit.  Which, now that I think of it tells you everything you need to know about my politics.

And alyssum, snapdragons, which I think are kind of the cheerfulest of flowers, except I can think of a couple that are equally cheerful, but when I was little I always kind of thought the buds looked like some kind of mouth, which, now that I think of it as an adult, is probably why they call them that.  Sweet peas because I want to be just like Thomas Jefferson.  Impatiens because James Crockett who wrote my favorite gardening books which are just packed with information goes on and on about them, and I am not entirely convinced, but I do love the Crockett so.  Four O’clocks and viola.

Spring has sprung…

I just checked the seedling 500 I have going on in the computer room.  The first little seedling of the seedlings I planted March 1 is poking its head through the snow.  We’ll see what it does. 

And the winner is…. Carpet of snow Alyssum.  It’s the tiniest thing ever.  It looks like when you look at some kinds of moss right up close and they have teeny weeny stalks with itty bitty heads on them.

But still.  In the garden?  Every morning is Christmas morning

We keep having snow storms the day after 60 degree weather, and the ground keeps freezing and thawing, and all the leaves are out of all the trees and you can see the left over bird nests, I can smell the spring in the air.