Spring summer winter spring again

I have been alternating the past few weeks between winter coat and tank tops, sometimes within 24 hours. Despite erratic temperatures, the spring flowers have been delightfully withstanding even the brief snow yesterday. Not enough to paint the ground white, just some annoying flakes melting upon contact, but enough for our department spring ballgame/pizza party to be moved indoors.

I am having some photographic challenges. For my 40th birthday, which really was not that long ago but in computer years it is several generations, my x2b organized a collection to buy me a really great camera. It was pretty state of the art at the time, but I have discovered it was planned obsolescence. The software to download it was compatible with Windows XP. When we upgraded computers, I bought a cheap, second hand one off my neighbour whose company was upgrading, which is no longer useful for anything but downloading photos off my now archaic camera. I had a few scares over the winter when the computer went into a coma, but with some rest and CPR seemed to revive. Then, just after taking gorgeous photos of my hyacinths, my single blooming daffodil (yay! finally one flowered!), the pink and purple lungwort, periwinkle and super big garlic sprouts, I came in to download and my screen stayed black. The computer is still clunking and whirring away (I am now afraid to turn it off or it will probably join the screen in blackness and eternal quiet), I just need to get another screen attached to download pics.

I do have a cell phone, but when I got it, I was looking for minimal functions. It has a camera, but no flash and the photos are not the quality I am accustomed to. However, in the interest of keeping some kind of record of what the garden has been up to pending a resolution of my electronics issues, I took some less than professional shots. These are from a couple of weeks back, just around Passover. I have been meaning to blog for a while, and finally got to it tonight, in celebration of finishing correcting a huge pile of exams.

You may have noticed I have not been nearly as diligent with writing posts these past few months. First of all, I have in the past six months gone through some big life transitions. I became a single parent, which takes up a lot of time and energy when kids are adjusting with difficulty to the changes, and there is no "time off." In addition, I made a big career change almost two years ago, to leave my job as a manager in the health care system to teach in college. Although I am much happier in my new job, it is not a nine-to-five job, and my blog time has been bumped out by course prep and correcting.  Not much time to stop and smell the roses.  

And I have not really felt like writing. I am really tired by the end of the day, and haven't trusted myself to sound hopeful and fun-loving. In fact, I have been looking at the patch of creeping bellflowers which I never got to last summer after harvesting the garlic in that area, and dreading the inevitable job of getting it out by the roots so I can get my tomatoes into that patch. The raspberries are shooting up new canes that I need to uproot so I can contain it. With Josh no longer here, and Isaac just moved to Toronto, (more on that later) I don't have enough resident raspberry eaters to have my patch take over the back yard.

 I still have not decided where I will plant the potatoes that are growing happily in the bag in the kitchen, nor have I planted carrots, lettuce and peas which I had planned to do early but got busy with finals. Last Sunday was supposed to be my big garden day, but it was pouring rain and barely above zero. I did manage to clean up the ash branches that came down all over the yard, as well as a lot of the garbage that blows onto my yard over the winter, so the neighbours can't complain. Yesterday, snow notwithstanding, the dandelions all bloomed. Very pretty but my appreciation for their sunny yellow cheeriness has dampened since I started gardening.

I did manage to buy a bunch of bags of earth. I still need manure, but was worried the suspension on my car would go if I tried to get it all in there at once.

I planted tomatoes and broccoli, peppers and lettuce really early, and everything was coming along really well, Big, strong tomato plants especially. On Friday we had a gorgeous sunny almost summery day, and I decided to bring all the plants out for some real light. I also had some chrysanthemums, a primrose, begonia, and a whole tray of violets ready to plant soon, which got a day out too.

As my son had announced last Monday that he got a job in Toronto and was moving in a week, we had my parents over for Friday night dinner. The weather forecast was mild overnight, and I was busy, so I left everything out overnight. I am not sure if it was the strong sun for too long, or the overnight, but by the next day, half of the plants looked like they were dying. I brought them all back in. I remember last year my neighbour Iulia had the same problem with her tomato plants, we thought they were sunburned, and she ended up buying from a nursery and scrapped her whole homegrown bunch. I am hoping for a recovery.

I planted too many, thinking I would give some to Allan and to Julie, but found out (after planting) that Allan is moving back to Montreal, and Julie is not planning to do much gardening this year. Maybe it will balance out in the end. At least the garlic is doing well, and I have 4 of the red lettuces that stayed alive under the snow and are looking good and taste a lot less bitter now. I plan to harvest some tomorrow.

I will take more photos with my phone and find a bit more time to blog again this week. I just finished reading Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle (excellent read!) which has me rethinking my garden and my shopping habits. Again.