Miracles are in season Oklahoma Redbuds explode into sherbet-pink bloom this time of year and thickets of wild plum clothe themselves like angels. I’m talking about vegetables too! Last year I planted potatoes for the first time. I watered them, weeded them and finally gave up. No show. This year I bought a different variety and planted in a different place. I watered and waited a couple of weeks and then went out to visit my dirt patch. It’s a miracle! Not only are the potato chunks I planted this year up and growing, but last year’s are also! I hardly know what to make of it! You’ve heard the saying, “A watched pot never boils.” I have a new one for you. “A watched potato plant never grows.” I suspect I watched last years’ taters into complete dormancy. Question 1:Does my visiting my plants over and over in a day qualify me as insane using Einstein’s definition of “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result,”? Will anyone join me in the (garden of) the asylum?
I KNOW I’m not insane for visiting and revisting my asparagus. Perhaps I ought not to confess sins on the internet, but I do so love asparagus. And I planted it four years ago. (You have to let a bed develop for a few years before you can harvest). (And last year I supplemented the bed with an additional variety.) So when the little purpley heads popped from the ground, I gave them a couple of days. And then I ate them. In the garden. Without washing. Or sharing. I waited a few days and went back. . .and did it again. Yesterday I harvested 10 spears. I only ate one. I offered them to my family and my youngest son claimed he “LOVED” them. Alas. Question 2: Does my folly of eating the asparagus without sharing or washing become a sin, now that I know that my son enjoys it? Or, was it already a sin not to share something that is nutritious with my family over whom I have most control of diet?
Here’s another thing that I think supplies “fever” to the term “Spring fever”. Government upsets the balance between freedom and rule of law when they make me set my clocks forward and pretend that the day is longer for 2/3’s of the year? Just when we’re starting to see a little glimmer of daylight when we leave the house, some overfed bureaucrat plunges me backward into the night. Benjamin Franklin came up with the idea and also said “Early to bed and early to rise, makes a young man healthy, wealthy and wise.” Mr. Franklin, SOME of us were already getting up early before you fiddled with the national clocks! HIPOCRACY! Let’s have a national pajama day to protest “daylight savings.” If you already spend your day in flannel, do you do it to protest?
This might be the fever talking but we could also wear flannel to protest the show, “What Not to Wear.” Who are they to throw away perfectly good pink sweat pants, with a green hippy flower covering the stain on the front, or an oversized tee shirt that says, “Mama knows best?”
Lastly, when I was a child, my mom would cook up a pot of rice and serve it with sugar, butter and milk for breakfast. Yum! When the rice got tiresome, she’d crack some wheat in the wheat grinder and make a porridge. (My brothers called it “Filboid Studge” (Assonance and alliteration supply the meaning.)) But sometimes when she was REALLY feeling creative, she’d boil the whole wheat berry. It’s tasty. Kinda nutty. The consistency is similar to how I imagine little spider eggs, Chewy in a rubbery sort of way. The question I would like response to is : “Does the fact that I had a sudden craving for boiled wheat this morning, and that I’m looking forward to eating it when I finish this, suggest that I’m insane or merely stricken with the seasonal fever?
But I’m out of time. I need to go out and palpitate my irises to see which ones are going to bloom. Care to join me?
4 Comments
Beth, I sent the link to your blog to two of my daughters.
Beth, I don't know about watched potatoes not growing, but I had a similar experience with Peonies. I Planted two Peony bulbs two years ago. Nothing ever grew. I planted two more the next year. Nothing grew. I gave up. This year I was looking at my flower bed with my walking/gardening friend to see what was coming up. She said: "Look, your Peony is finally growing". I don't know which planting year this is from, or if I will suddenly get three more. But I'm not complaining.
Also, going multiple times to look see what if anything is growing is not insanity. I had my spinach seedlings magically appear later in the day when they weren't there when I looked in the morning.
So, if you are insane, I also am in that club and enjoy being there with you.
Thank you Marilyn, both for the shout out and for joining me in the nutty club! If you're going to go crazy, it's a grand way to go.
I had a second peony misteriously appear (6 in tall) where none had been the day before.