Tuesday, March 31, 2009

Garden Sights: Mud, Snow, Sprouts and Puddles




Wow. The first post on my first blog. How to begin? Garden bloggers seem to often lead with a spectular picture of a bloom from their garden. Hmmm.

I could go with the picture of my cold frame collapsing under six inches of snow, from two days ago. Rather dull though.


Maybe a picture that sums up the 1.5 inches of rain from today?

A picture taken of the neighbor bailing his window wells might have been entertaining, but I'm not nearly as cruel and twisted as that. Instead you get muddy shoes. They are not mine. I'm not so silly as to garden in 40 degree rain. Today my little seedlings got a total of ten minutes of my time. Five minutes to take the tomatoes outside and put them in the frame, and five minutes to bring them back inside in the evening.

Persimmon, one of the heirlom tomatoes I'm growing got a minute or two more. Persimmon is clearly the tenderfoot of my bunch. It has the pouty purples. The pouty purples is what happens to mothers when they lock themselves out in a snow storm and the children are too engrossed in Mario Kart to hear the shouting. The pouty purples also occur when some plants get cold and stop taking up phosphorous. Their stems and the underside of their leaves get quite purple. It's attractive, though mildly disturbing.

Persimmon's pouting is manifested by the refusal to grow even half as fast as its neighbors. Persimmon has taken that to the extreme by refusing to grow at all. It was moved to a warmer part of the house today. Until it greens up, it's going to have to live with the peppers. How embarrassing.