You might have noticed that the world continues to be incredibly stressful even as the pandemic settles down (please please please). Personally, I’m done. I mean, I keep half an eye on the news and take action as needed, but I’m trying to be ruthless about cutting out or reframing my approach to things that don’t need me to stress about them.
Take vegetable gardening. My spouse and I just celebrated our tenth anniversary of being homeowners, and we’ve been growing vegetables for most of that time (thanks to my having grown up with a dad who grew up on a farm). I’ve coddled them, I’ve researched weed control, I’ve carefully staked and pruned my tomatoes, I’ve mourned when something got hit by a pest or a blight.
This year I didn’t have the energy for any of that.
I asked my spouse to pick out and order whatever vegetable seedlings (baby plants) he wanted, and I would help plant them. Normally we put in some vegetable seeds as well, carrots or radishes, but that’s more my thing, not his; this year, a seed mix of local flowers got scattered willy-nilly in a bare patch. (Some went into pots, too, but for whatever reason, none of those sprouted. Not stressing.)
He chose most of our usual things: tomatoes (lots), green beans, various peppers, basil. Then he added watermelon, parsley, mini sunflower, and something called a cucamelon. (Despite the name that makes it sounds like a new and trendy cross, it’s a very old North American species. Looks like a tiny watermelon but tastes like a citrusy cucumber.)
And then there’s this:
That…is a tomato plant growing from a seed that dropped from one of last year’s plants. (We were hit with a blight — blossom end rot — that was so demoralizing, we didn’t do the greatest job of cleaning up all the tomatoes that rotted and fell off the plants). It somehow germinated and made its way out between the boards of the raised bed. It’s, um, a lot bigger now. I’ll have to cut it back a bit in order to maintain access to the rest of the plants, but I do hate to discourage it. It’s not the only tomato that popped up in a random spot this year, but it is the biggest one and the strangest of locations.
Go, intrepid explorer, go!
We planted all the seedlings at the beginning of June, a little later than the late May long weekend (Victoria Day, the week before Memorial Day) that traditionally heralds the start of planting season here. So far we’ve lost one sunflower, and I thought we were going to lose the watermelon and one of the green beans, but they’ve rallied. If something else dies, oh well, we tried.
This week we’ll have basil and parsley and (perennial) oregano in a salad. By next week or the week after, the cucamelon and green beans should be starting. Then the peppers, and with luck, by late July or early August there’ll be cherry tomatoes.
And I’ll do my best to sit back and enjoy.