Country Chatter

One of the joys of spring is tilling the garden and planting seeds in the soft, musty, soil.  This evening Gene tilled the garden while I was fixed supper and after we ate I hastened to the garden with my bag of seeds.

In March you plant onions, lettuce, radishes, peas, cabbage, broccoli, spinach, potatoes, and other “cold” weather crops. The second wave of planting is in mid to late April as the last frost date for this area is early May. But this year it is in the upper 70’s and 80 degrees in March and has been for days. This causes a conflict with a person’s ability to balance knowledge and common sense.

The conversation in my mind went like this; everybody is doing it and what will it hurt? All I would lose is a few seeds if frost gets my beans and sweet corn. I voiced my thoughts at supper and Gene just looked at me and said nothing. That didn’t help. If he would have said don’t plant that would have made it easy…I’d have planted.

First I planted onions, spinach, lettuce and radishes. Then I dug deeper in my bag where I had “hidden” corn, beans and squash “just in case” I decided to plant them.  Looking around to make sure no one was looking, I pulled them out, pushed the rows, and carefully dropped the seeds into the soft dirt.  Sticking my hand into the soil it felt warm to the touch.  Smiling I thought of fresh corn, snaps and squash in June!  I reminded myself the weather does not seem normal this year.  The trees are pushing leaves and blossoms 3-4 weeks ahead of schedule. I have already picked a mess of asparagus, mowed the lawn twice and we are running the air-conditioner and it is just mid-March.

So, there you have it. This gal that tells the world how and when to plant on her website http://www.hffinc.com/GardeningTips.htm is breaking the golden rule of planting and it is going down into cyber history!!!  Maybe I can justify my actions through scripture. The Psalmist said we should be like trees…..(Psalms 1) so I will be a tree and plant on their schedule. If frost kills my plants,  I’ll just will blame it on the Psalmist!!!