Spring 2020

This year has been wildly different than I ever could have imagined. Generally when we hear about epidemics or pandemics, they are "out there" in the world. They come and go with our thoughts and prayers, but they don't reach home. Thanks to covid-19, that has all changed. We join the rest of the planet finding ourselves in a muted life spent mostly at home. I think I will be better able to handle the claustrophobia of social distancing once spring has decided to truly stick around. With that in mind, here is my first garden update of the year. :)

Lettuce abounds! Ha! This picture practically needs no introduction! ;) I started my gardening earlier than usual. Given my struggles with depression and anxiety, sometimes starting seeds and growing things means the difference between being sad and getting truly dark. Having living things in the house is my lifeline.

As usual, I do not stick with too many of the exact same plants. I have my favorites, of course. Pink brandywine tomatoes and Hillbilly Potato Leaf tomatoes will always grace my garden. I grow lettuce every year, but the variety changes. Cucumbers will probably make a show at some point. I have zucchini, of course, for my neighbor who loves it. But we all know that I like to continually try to grow new varieties of fruits and veggies.

The plants new to us this year are: watermelon radish, purple dragon carrot, cucamelon, pineapple tomato, chives, catnip, and tigger melon. If you look these up, you will see that we have gone with some brightly colorful and interesting produce! <3

Tigger melon, for instance, has the pattern of a watermelon but in oranges and yellows instead of green. It is said to be sweet. :) Cucamelon is a type of gherkin. It, too, looks like a watermelon. The difference is not in the color but in the size. They are very, very small! Eeep! Watermelon radish inverts the traditional radish coloring, with a pale greenish-white on the outside and a vibrant fuchsia on the inside. Dragon carrots are the loveliest shade of dark purple on the outside, hiding the traditional orange core.

I think I will be better able to handle the claustrophobia of social distancing once spring has decided to *really* stick around. With my bales arriving tomorrow sometime, I am positively itching to get my back yard all garden-messy again. :) :) :)

Going outside fixes just about everything, doesn't it? The tomatoes I started too early are kind of limping along. I am looking forward to setting in a new batch of seeds hopefully late this week. My lettuce is trying to take over the place. My zucchini plants are perfection. The catnip is taller every day. I am charmed by the wee chives and MyLinda's suflower (planted from bird seed mix). I am enchanted by my tigger melon and cucamelon vines. I check MyLinda's watermelon radishes eagerly for signs of fattening up in the root. :) :) :) Even the dragon carrot experiment has captured our fascination. Birds are singing their love songs. They dance the mating dances of spring in the yard and the trees. **This blog was written but not completed or posted sometime in April 2020. ;) Right now we are in mid-May. I am due to create a proper blog post soon. <3