Saturday, May 11, 2013

My wife never says, “I told you so.”  She could, but because she is full of grace and sweetness, she doesn’t.  In March, I was eager to start the vegetables and she told me that it was too early.  I maintained that with the greenhouse, we could put the plants in the ground earlier than we had before and I watered the compressed plant starter pads so they would hydrate and once they swelled up, I put a single seed on dozens of them.  I planted cabbage and cauliflower and broccoli and cucumbers and zucchini and green peppers.  Everything but the peppers sprouted immediately, and after a few weeks, we transplanted them into paper cups of potting soil.  We watered and fertilized and they grew.  And grew.  Yesterday, with snow still partially covering the rows in the garden and the nighttime temperature still falling to freezing,  I came to the realization that I will not be able to transplant outside for a few more weeks.  Meanwhile, growing out of paper cups, the cucumbers are fruiting, the zucchini are flowering, the bok choi is big enough to eat, and I am admitting that my wife was right.  As ususal.  A month ago she ordered seeds from a catalog and she planted about 3 weeks ago.  They are growing in their paper cups and will be right on schedule to transplant in late May or early June.  Meanwhile, yesterday, I shoveled melting compost into a plastic bag and lugged it to the house where I repotted my most exuberant growers into big pots.  Today, they look happier with pretty yellow flowers raising their faces to the sunshine in the atrium.  I think we will be harvesting cucumbers before we replant in the greenhouse.  Today it is 75 degrees in the unheated greenhouse, but that 33 degrees at night is still a bit shocking for my spoiled plants.  I have begun to rethink a mobile bed for the atrium that would allow us to grow some vegetables year round.  Short winter days and the Christmas tree that lives there in the December are definite limitations, but I needed another project, so who knows?