It Can Be Easy

being green....

Here is my entry for Gardening Gone Wild's April Picture This.

A leek root salvaged from a batch of Ginger Fried Rice was water rooted, transplanted into the garden and allowed to grow.  I love the sculptural shapes even more than the tiny clumps of flowers after they open.

Dashing Out and Dropping In

Just because I am precluded from spending time out of doors due to a sincere wish to keep breathing without breaking the world record for most sneezes in a row, does not mean the garden is lying fallow.

Far from it.

Just about everything I can see out there is blooming up a storm.

Every so often I can't stand how restricted the view of the flowers from our windows is, so I dash out with camera in hand and try to take as many photos as I can while holding my breath.  It kind of works out.

Appropriately, April is Poetry Month. These flowers speak to my heart the way any good poem will do.

And, like a good poem, they beg to be shared.

Toadflax, laurel, oxtail, rose, bluebonnet, primrose, fleabane, varying allium, shasta, scarlet flax- arranged like so many stanzas in the poetry that is Springtime.

For the Record

I believe I reported here earlier that the Hub had put together a very respectable small greenhouse from a kit purchased over the interweb.

While it is cunning as can be, it lacks an independent heat source, and so far, whatever the high or low is out of doors, it is replicated in the greenhouse with perhaps a degree or so variation.

For this reason (and no other) I had resisted the Hub's repeated advisories that  I "should" put my baby tomato plants in the greenhouse.

You see I'd read in several places, and believed it when I read it, that tomato plants are sensitive to being subjected to temperatures under 50 degrees.  They don't like it and repay the injury with the insult of a low to nonexistent crop of fruit set on plants not appropriately protected.

As a matter of fact, I attributed the Great Tomato Crop Failure of 2009 directly and repeatedly to a combination of early exposure to low nighttime temperatures in conjunction with our drought and ovenesque summertime highs.

"The evening low temperatures are not yet reliably staying above 50 degrees" was my stated hopefully not personally insulting rationale for resisting Hub's ongoing campaign to help populate his completed greenhouse.  "You know the greenhouse is running at the same temperature as the outside air.".

His reply to my resistance yesterday evening?  Another question.

Hub: "What temperature is it outside now?".

This was around 7:30 PM and, after glancing at the thermometer outside our kitchen window, my pro forma reply was "Seventy-seven".

Hub again.  "And the temperature inside the greenhouse?".

Me [sighing slightly]:  "Seventy seven.".

The Hub then launched into a bit of a verbal broadside, maintaining the tide has turned, the weather she has warmed, and furthermore there are no forecast lows below 50 for the next run of days. He calmly stated if I would simply move the seedlings he would see to it they were watered and fertilized.

I replied I was up to my spatula in dinner prep and he had my permission to move the plants with my gratitude for the small favor.

So he did.

Predictably enough (those of you who are in long term relationships will see this one coming a mile away) this morning, after their very first night in the greenhouse, when I checked the ambient temperature out of doors?  It sat in the high forties.

The temperature where my tomato babies now resided inside the greenhouse?  The same.

Your Honor, let the transcript state, if these tomato plants do not produce a bumper crop, all blame that should reasonably be divided into two portions, and thereafter laid in equal halves squarely at the feet of Mr. "You Should Move the Plants into the Greenhouse" Hub and Ms. "But the Nighttime Lows Aren't Reliable" Gardenista, will rather be apportioned in one large lump sum as ALL HIS FAULT.

Because, that's why.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I rest my case.

Seasonal

Tis' the season....

For Spring bulbs and wild flowers...

For observant faithful to celebrate Passover and Easter....

For me to hide indoors most of the time, ducking further exposure to tree pollen.

My wish for you is to be able to fully enjoy the flowers, the warmer temperatures, the garden coming back alive after winter's cold, and, if you are celebrating religious holy days, the gathering of friends, family and fellow faithful as you enter into the centuries old rites and rituals.