I wasn’t entirely productive yesterday, but I didn’t entirely slack either. I think I managed as close to a day off as I could while not making myself crazy with inactivity.
It’s all because there is just no such thing as spectacular as San Diego in Spring. I’ve mentioned once or twice that I am an indoor person – I’ve got the skin of a redhead, no discernible athletic talent, and I hate being hot – so this is really my first experience with the season, even after two years of living here. Shameful, I know. Especially for an environmentalist and budding granola mom.
But this year I can’t keep myself inside. And I can’t keep my head out of my little garden. Even calling it a garden is generous seeing as it’s just a few square feet of dirt on my tiny SoCal house lot, but I’ve become so entranced with the magic of growing things that even this meager little plot is my own Secret Garden in my head.
I’m learning as I go, and I’ve made several mistakes already, but they don’t seem to bother me like my crafty failures do. I don’t know why exactly, maybe the whole thing seems so like a mysterious trick that I’m just amazed when anything happens at all.
I spent yesterday thinning out my poppies around the magnolia tree. They had grown so big and so fast that I think they’ve managed to kill the anemones by being little moisture hogs.
I put off the thinning for way WAY longer than I was supposed to. The seed packet said to scatter the seeds around and thin when they reached three inches. These are probably over a foot. I apparently spread way too many seeds, but I was sure that some would get eaten, some wouldn’t sprout, and I wanted to ensure that I got poppies everywhere I wanted. But they all sprouted. Every last one of them, and I just couldn’t bring myself to thin them and throw them away. I’ve given some to everyone who came by the house, I offered some to neighbors and friends, and I still ended up throwing away more seedlings than I kept.
It just breaks my heart, but what else could I do? I tried and tried to replant them, but they just couldn’t make it. I had intended this spot to be full of poppies, but instead of thinning them out, I tried to replant the hardiest ones. It was not a big success.
I don’t know what I’m going to put in that spot now, but every time I go to a nursery I fall in love with some new flower so I’m sure I’ll come up with something.
My ranunculus are going gangbusters, and I’m eagerly awaiting some big fabulous flowers.
The lemon tree has three or four big green balls swelling up by the day, the lime tree is dropping blossoms all over the place, and my sweet peas are already in need of some scaffolding. It’s just beyond description how much fun this is. Maybe by the time we’re ready to upgrade to my dream house with enough land for an orchard, a big veggie garden, some chickens and a goat, I’ll actually have some idea of what I’m doing.
The Square Foot Gardening book recommends snipping the tops of seedlings at the soil when you are thinning. I think it would be a less painful way for me to thin plants, but then again, this is my first year starting things from seeds, so we'll see how the theory stands up in real life. 🙂
Trust this country girl, it qualifies as a garden. 🙂 Especially if you are enjoying that so very much.