Close Call

 It is good I make my morning rounds like a doctor checking I on their patients, filling in notes on a make-believe chart, for the other day I grabbed my mug, slipped into my Wellies and started down to the garden. I heard a gentle rushing sound, and then stepped in it. We had left the hose running all night, and on the downward slope of the garden a flood. I panicked, and in a scene from a movie I dropped my cup and tore ass for the spigot. Now, the backstory is the hose was damaged, and we were in the throes of fixing it when we realized we bought the wrong sexed connector, so there was no nozzle attached. Who turned the water on between realizing we had the wrong part and returning from a Home Depot run with the correct replacement is still a mystery. Saturated was the area were tomatoes, peppers and husk tomatoes had only moved in within a week or so prior. The lemon grass, which I tend to water judiciously, got a month’s worth. Downward the flood plain went on to soak the herbs and spices bed – I think I lost two cumin plants to drowning – past the recently established lavender that will surely start to show signs of overwatering, and under the fence.

This is perhaps the only fortunate moment that morning gave me because the sunflowers lapped it up, and the adjacent corn seeds exploded into nascent plants. I am so relieved that I had only two causalities from this blunder, and it seems the tomatoes, peppers and husk tomatoes have actually appreciated the folly of our absent mindedness. Particularly since one of the tomato plants is the only one I am sure about, she is my Aunt Rudy and I am counting the days when her plump, blushing ripeness screams, take me. Yes, it helped that the following days were cloudless and un-seasonally hot so no one had to stand with wet roots diverting a sub-terrain disaster. I will work my hero status for a while particularly when I am being accused of being too neurotic, clearly you can never be too neurotic.

Spring’s Budding: An Awakening

Vegetables                                        Herbs                                                 Fruits            

Artichokes                                                             Chervil                                                Mango

Arugula                                                                 Chives                                                 Rhubarb        

Asparagus                                                              Cilantro                                              Strawberries

Broccoli Rabe                                                       Loveage

Carrots                                                                  Mint

Chicory                                                                 Parsley

Fava Bean                                                            Thyme

Fennel

Fiddlehead Ferns

Green Onions

Garlic Sprouts

Leeks

Lettuce Greens

Mushrooms

Peas Sprouts

Radishes

Ramps (Wild Leeks)

Sorrel

Snow Peas

Spinach

Swiss Chard

Watercress