Monday, March 12, 2012

can it be spring?

We are back from four days in Southern California, visiting my son and his family. We had a day at the beach, a day at a seaside, windswept golf course, and a few days playing with our grand-daughter. And it was the trip in which we learned we will never take the red-eye flight again.

Now home, we are having a week of very early spring weather. Too much, too soon,  too fast. Nevertheless, the glint of spring peeks out at me and I rejoice.
Funny how one, impossibly tiny golden flower can make your heart leap.

After some discussion, we also peeled back the straw from a very sodden, pathetic strawberry bed. I was afraid they would get too wet and rot underneath their protective blanket. We'll have to watch the weather. If it's going to freeze again (and certainly it will -- won't it?) we'll need to carefully rake some of the straw back over them. Same thing for the garlic.
And then there's bleached-out, soaking wet , headless Dolly. She's had a good run this past year, but I'm thinking like all young girls, she will want new clothes come spring.
Last October when we put the garden to bed, I was exhausted, happy to see the twisted, black tomato vines get pulled up, overjoyed to cut down 6' okra plants (really more like small trees) and oh so glad to stop picking bush beans. Labor intensive, they are too close to the ground, so this year we are going to grow pole beans. See how that goes.

But now that we've had a long spell with no garden, I find myself missing it. I'm excited to get packages of seeds in the mail. Fairytale pumpkins, Christmas lima beans, peas, spinach, sweet corn. And there are packages of flower seeds as well. A new, pink morning glory, forget-me-nots for under the large maple tree, pale jonquil yellow nasturtiums, and something called Bridal Party California poppies. The last are an experiment. I have already planted the somniferum poppies. They're getting harder to find, so I save them from year to year. They are one of the few seeds I can just scatter and they grow. Huge, floating, dancing melon-colored blossoms that the Mason bees fly in and out of until they're drunk and dizzy with opium pollen. I've told my husband this may be the year I get arrested for growing opium poppies. Ah me, the headlines:  61-year-old Grandmother arrested for growing opium in garden.

The sun is out at the moment but it is too warm and we have been told to expect 70 mph winds, large hail, strong storms, possibly even a tornado. I'm not afraid of tornados. I'm afraid of going in the basement if one comes.