Bitter Pre-Spring

The wind is bitter today. I just went and got a sweatshirt out and am downing cups of tea end to end  to keep warm. Lockbox and I are spending lots of time huddled together, building mood boards for home decor to the tinkling accompaniment of Pandora. The boys keep holing up in their bedroom listening to endless stories on cd under fuzzy blanket tents strung from the bunk bed to the radiator. Indoor weather.

I didn't plant any peas for St. Patty's Day. It wasn't the year. And by the time I thought of it it was dark and I was in my pajamas standing at the kitchen sink, staring out past the porch light at the bitter, brown garden with a snug decaf latte in my hand. Somehow there wasn't a lot of appeal. The snowdrops and the witch hazel are going to have to suffice for now. We're thumbing through the garden books, holding on for warmer temps and planting more things in little mini-greenhouses made from old produce boxes and plotting what we'll do later when spring pops by again. (Because it will!)

Instead of Spring I am thinking to spend some time thinking about painting again. Maybe it is time to attack marketing again? Am  finding it hard to be motivated about these things. I believe lots of lies: "I am not able to handle numbers and promotion and other such technicalities. This will all be very boring. It is all too much work. I will die!!!!" Lies can't win though. Time to grease up my elbow and order some business cards and scope out some local art shows to join for the spring.

Also on the agenda: Curing Pom's eczema, which gets worse by the hour. I harvested some leaves from my houseplants this morning and made some diy aloe vera gel for ointment. Am also eliminating dairy in his diet and going to feeding him some evening primrose oil, fish oil and a little powdered probiotic. Zam! Eczema doesn't know who its messin' with. Mama means business! I'm sick of this scabby, rashy, painful, itchy mess. Poor little babe has enough goin' on with six teeth in his head already at the age of 10 months.

Poetry Friday: Spring Fever In Action

Image by Bill Gracey via Flickr

Happy Poetry Friday to each and every one of you!

Been out this morning a bit and going to be out a bit more the rest of the day. I love it when poetry happens to me, especially on a busy Friday like this one. I always wonder if this week will be one of the weeks when I sit there waiting for a poem, or if the perfect inspiration will hit via idea or experience. Today, Poetry came by and stepped into my life without so much as a "by your leave" and it was lovely. Transporting even.

To My Husband, Just So He Knows

There was something in the air this morning
After I took you to work I pulled in the drive
And bolted rashly from the car, bent with purpose.
The grass was squishy gold and rain was sifting down.
Around a hidden corner of the foundation was a nest
Of forgotten iris rhizomes and they were calling
My fingers feverishly, right there into the mud,
Packing my nails with dark-lines and smudging my left cuff.
I was fumbling earnestly, over the grass, in the rain
Pulling the knobby ginger roots from the turf and
Snaggling them out from under the metal highway
Of the rain gutter sloping over their lumpy toes and
The small silver blue sword points beginning to emerge.
I bent there over the irises and manically pulled
And tossed until I had grown a small heap of liberated
Roots and nubbins, muddy smears and blue-silver tips.
I took the accumulation over to a blank chocolate bed,
And like some desperate primeaval horticulturalist
Used a handy, triangular rock to gouge out muddy earth
Scratching each shallow pit, then tucking in the roots,
Patting soil over them with my sticky brown finger tips.
And there was our son beside me, curious and big-eyed
Watching Mommy crouching over a damp patch of earth
In a pale blue trench coat in the drizzling rain
All mud up to the wrists, gleaming white ear-buds
Dangling over one shoulder and the car keys still in her teeth.

I love that suddenly, after one manic fifteen minutes I have an organized little iris patch. I wonder if all the roots will thrive and take and above all, I wonder and can hardly wait to see what colors that little batch of nubby roots will produce. I am praying that among them there will be one or two of the tall, old-fashioned purples with the long falls and the heavy tangy scent like grape soda.

If you enjoyed this taste of  verse and want a little more to satiate your poetic appetite, click your way over to Liz In Ink and enjoy perusing the list of all the Poetry Friday contributors right along with me!

Winter Sowing My Little Heart Out!

Image by nociveglia via Flickr

Winter Sowing is a genius way to plant things. I mentioned earlier that I had made a silly gaffe and left my giant box of seeds out in the un-heated, un-attached garage for the winter. Heh. For most of my seeds this means a certain doom but, there are some that can handle the cold, usually flower seeds and of those, usually the ones that are native to cold or and/or mountainous regions. These seeds can not only handle being left out in cold winter weather, they actually tend to sprout well and grow in these conditions...with a little help.

I first learned about Winter Sowing on Garden Web...one of my favorite places online. (If you're interested, even sort of, in growing things...any kind of things, Garden Web is a wealth of comradarie and information.) So, that I don't have to belabor you with an explanation, suffice it to say that Winter Sowing is a way to start seeds, fuss-free, in little mini-greenhouses made of recyclables, right in the dead of winter when there's snow and ice and little else outdoors.You can find out what to Winter Sow and when, here. And here's another blogger or two who are walking through the steps and a great article on the method to boot! I love Winter Sowing because I'm the type of gardener who stresses seedlings out by forgetting to water and God does a much, much better job at keeping them consistently moist. Starting seedlings in homemade terrariums is painless.

I just hauled my box out of the garage and spread everything out in a massive swirl of seed packets and scribbled-upon envelopes and started working through it all. Eventually I arrived at a decent amount of things that qualify for Winter Sowing. I raided my recycling bin for what had around to use (anything with a lid will work, even bottles and jugs).

Then, on to the dumping in of potting soil, the splashing and sprinkling with water, the inevitable leaking onto the floor, and small fingers covered with mud and then it was planting time.

And that is how it was that I came to have a small, misty looking pile of various plastic containers, in my back yard. The greenhouse effect makes them condense and bead droplets of steamy water all over the insides of their lids once they are out sitting in a snowbank. I didn't plant all of what could be salvaged, not nearly, but there will be more plastic containers and slowly the flock will grow...and someday soon we will have little sprouts of green to greet us and slowly grow tantalizingly taller by our back door.

Man! I have got to get that apple tree in the yard pruned or else! Heavens how the winter has flown!

Green Thoughts

Was outside again today, rushing to get things in the ground before the rain we're supposed to have for several days began. Ended up getting all the stuff planted that I wanted which felt really good but, I do have to admit that by the end of it all the boys and I were mud from head to toe and being thoroughly misted on which meant that we were also pretty soaked. No real harm done, just the first warm spring rain in our hair. What's good for the crocus is good for the boy.

We peeled off the muddy socks and shucked our shoes and padded in for story-time snuggling under a couch throw before lunch and nap. Now we're all frizzy hair and coziness and I can't get the garden wheels to stop turning. Of course, it doesn't help when such tantalizing packages are arriving on my doorstep.

So, yes, I placed an order for a few more perennials, and started making lists of things to change in my garden this year:

"Do not allow nicotiana to flop all over the sweet william. Support rings or else!" and "This fall be sure to order regale lilies and magic lilies." and also "Make sure to work sunflowers in somewhere." along with such helpful bits as "Underplant the black-eyed susans with heliotrope!" I am making lists of all the things I need to do, ("Move strawberry babies, pull garlic from last year, divide lemon verbena, trim sweetheart rose, add mulch to box bed, and tie fence more securely to stakes")

I am honestly a terribly disorganized gardener. I keep no notes about what I bought from whom which year or what its Latin name is and I never label anything. I buy things willy nilly without mapping out the colors, heights or flow of my garden patch and just plan on moving what doesn't work when it starts to bother me. I don't see myself getting a whole lot more organized, there are too many other things I want to do in life and frankly, I get along alright in spite of my jumbly ways. But, this year for the first time I thought, "You know, I could actually see keeping some sort of a garden journal." Not a terribly particular one mind you but, maybe the sort of place where I could put these lists and then later in June jot down what is putting on a splendid show and what plants I still am hoping to grow before I die (moonflowers, parma violets, sweet alyssum) and what new successes I've had this year (scented sweet peas, angel's trumpet, heliotrope, carrots and pineapple sage). That I could see being quite useful. A very free-form, sort of dirt-smudged place to keep my garden mucking notes, somewhere where the bits would all be bound together with a solid spine and recognizably backed and fronted with a nice botanical cover design of some sort. Wonder where I should start looking? Do any of you keep garden writing year to year?