Tuesday, February 15, 2011

Five days until spring


Red sails still sailing along . . . a little
Mobile, AL, gardening guru Bill Finch maintains that our southern clime boasts six seasons. Spring arrives by Feb. 20.

In his recent column in the Mobile Register here, he laments “Why can’t we have our own spring? Why are we always celebrating someone elses?

“When some joker jumps on TV and says March 20 is the start of spring, he’s selling you someone else’s spring — New England spring, Punxsutawney Phil’s Pennsylvania spring, a poetically posed Parisian spring, some suspiciously socialist spring in the former Soviet Republic.

“But it ain’t our spring.”

Finch’s columns have supplied me with info that works and advice about what vegetables grow and don’t grow well here, about how to combat some of the invasive flora of the coastal south, and why I can’t seem to get squash or cucumbers to survive.

We are still eating a little lettuce from a quickie October planting, and I have managed more recently to get outside and plant some mesclun and English peas that are just pushing up. But it seems that lately, anything in the garden is accomplished in 15-minute episodes once or twice a week.

Vegetable garden and our yard (I was grown before I realized that the word garden refers to more than just a vegetable garden) shows severe neglect. What the mighty Finch has not been able to instill in me is the get up and go to get up and get it done!

I see signs of spring in the blogs of other elders posting about their energetic gardening efforts. Envy strikes . . . and hope, however bad the cliché is, springs eternal!

5 comments:

  1. I'm so ready for spring! I need to be able to get outside in the fresh air and DO something. My yard looks like a disaster. I'm ready to see something green growing again!

    We are about to have a few pecan trees planted. I hope they survive. At roughly 28 dollars (counting having the holes bored) each, I'll cry over any that die!


    I appreciate all of your sweet comments, and continuing prayers more than you will ever know. Thank you so much.

    Kathy

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  2. Sunny here today, so later this week when it hits 60 degrees, we are sweeping and trimming like crazy. Dianne

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  3. Oh goodness, I guess I need to move there!! For just a second you fooled me and I thoght the weather powers that be had changed the date for spring due to global warming!

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  4. amen sister, our spring has sprung, the oak trees are green green green and throwing all that pollen stuff at us. and in Africa it is hot summer time per a blog i follow

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  5. I love a garden but just can't seem to get my act together to get one planted. Everything was already established in the yard when we bought this house almost 4 years ago. Low maintenance and mostly bushes. Someday......

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