Garden Fever

Now that I have lots of time on my hands I've got gardening on the brain. It's too early to plant anything outside, but it's time to start planting some seeds inside in 6-packs. At least some of the early, cool weather crops like broccoli & cabbage, spinach & lettuce. Stuff like that. Plus it's time to start peppers because even though they don't go outside until it's good & warm they are very slow-pokey to sprout.

Plus I already have some stuff growing in the garden. I have asparagus plants in there. Not very many, & they're not up yet, but I also have asparagus seeds I'm going to plant. I'm not even sure I want to plant them. You see, I have some plants that are a mixture of two heirloom plants, Mary Washington & some fancy French variety, but these seeds are some I got from the neighbour's garden. They're seeds from a hybrid, I can't remember which one, so the plants might be kind of crappy. I'd probably be better off buying more seeds, or maybe some plants already started.

The other veggies already in the garden are some garlic I planted last fall. I always heard you were supposed to plant garlic in the fall when you plant tulips & daffodils, but never tried it. Last year I had some garlic in the kitchen that was sprouting so I decided to go ahead & give it a try. The worse that could happen is it all dies & I lose what, 75c worth of garlic. When I was out with the dogs the other day I walked around the garden to see how it looked (a muddy, muddy mess) & noticed the garlic had sprouted. Only about an inch or two & the tops looked a little gnarly from frostbite, but they're growing.

I also saw a little clump of daffodils coming up in the front flower bed, which makes me sad because I have a bunch I dug up & never got around to planting. I kept thinking I'd put them in the refrigerator & try to force them in flowerpots but never got around to it. I don't know if it's too late to do that now. Can't hurt to try, maybe I'll toss them in the veggie drawer & see how it goes.

I'm just bummed out because last year the garden was soooo muddy all spring it took forever to get anything planted & the garden looks pretty much the same so far this year. I've been thinking about tying something called Hugelkultur, which is basically piling up a bunch of rotting wood & covering it with soil. This would raise the garden beds so it wouldn't be such a swamp, but as the wood decays it acts like a sponge, so it doesn't dry out too much. I think you would have a hard time planting carrots or potatoes or some other root veggies there, but I could try it in a corner of the garden & see how it goes.

Another reason I'm worried about the gardening possibilities this year is because last year when the water came up it busted through the levee & kept creeping up closer & closer to the back yard. For some reason nobody thought maybe they should, oh, I don't know, fix the levee. I don't know if whoever was supposed to be in charge just forgot, or didn't have the money, or couldn't get a permit, or what. All I know is as of a week or so ago there was still a big gaping hole in the levee. I heard somebody was finally out there working on it, even though it's so late if the water comes up it'll probably just wash it right out.

You see, if there's a big gaping hole in the levee the farmers can't insure their crops, but if they can say 'Look, we fixed the hole' then they can get insurance, even if they know deep down the levee won't hold. Crop insurance is a kind of weird, illogical thing. I can't remember how many times I saw farmers out in their fields, hurrying to get seeds planted, even though they knew the water was coming over the levee, or the levee was broken & water was on it's way. If they got the seeds in the ground the flood insurance would pay out, even if the farmer knew the crop was doomed before they planted it. If they just said fuck it since spending a couple of days planting their fields just to watch the fish move in before the seeds could even sprout was a waste of time they didn't get shit out of their flood insurance company. So they hurry up & plant something they know won't survive, it gets flooded, they get their insurance money, then when everything dries up they replant their fields & hope the water doesn't come up again.

Or maybe hope it does. I never thought about whether they could get 2 flood payments in one year. Or if they could get flood insurance money in the spring & then drought insurance money later in the same year.