IT'S RAINING...IT'S POURING...I'M GARDENING ANYWAY!

JUNE 10, 2013

IT'S RAINING...IT'S POURING...I'M GARDENING ANYWAY!

I woke up excited.  Today I get to spend in my garden.  It’s June and I have 8 boxes of plants to put in the ground or into pots.  Yesterday the sun was shining and the temperatures managed to climb above 60 degrees!  Everywhere plants and shrubs and trees are blooming—behind schedule, but blooming.  Although it is a third of the way into June already, my garden is full of tulips and the neighbors lilacs won’t open until probably the end of the week or next.  The trees are only now leafing out.  While most years we are referring to the season as Summer even if it is officially still Spring, this year it is indeed Spring in every sense.  At this rate Summer’s visit will be a very short stay.  She might not even linger long enough to take her hat off!

I am getting dressed.  It is chilly.  The sky is heavy with cloud cover.  I check my weather app and read, 39 degrees—with an expected high of 45 and increasing chance of rain with every hour.  Undaunted, I put on my fleece pants, my favorite grey turtleneck sweater and my purple fleece, warm socks, tennis shoes.  I find my heavy blue rain jacket and I’m out the door to meet the first raindrops.  First job, water the plants along the foundation where no rain can get to because of the eaves.  How ridiculous this must look to the neighbors—watering my garden in the rain.

I survey the boxes of plants in the garage.  I decide that at least I can plant all the pots from the relative shelter of the edge of my garage.  It rains harder.  I go in search of pots, of buckets and fertilizer, of an old bag of soil from last year.  I drag one of the hoses over.  I begin to wash the dead leaves and dirt and spiders out of the pots.

The air is cold.  The water is cold.  The rain is cold.  I dampen and stir my dirt.  I dunk plants in a bucket of icy cold fertilized water.  I fill my pots. 

I untangle the morning glories from the tomatoes and petunias and decide they need to go right into the ground before they cause any more trouble trespassing where they aren’t wanted.  The rain runs off the roof onto my back as I plant each Heavenly Blue—one, two, three, four of them along the porch trellis.

David helps me drag away the broken pot in the front yard and we sit on the porch watching the rain and discussing whether to replace the pot.  We decide we will.  I trudge back to my station half under the eave of the garage and plant geraniums and vinca vines and asparagus ferns and a bowl of pansies.  David takes a picture and posts it on Facebook:  Some people just don’t know when to stay in and curl up with a good book! 

Finally, the last pot is filled, the last plant has been dipped in the bucket of water so it will not dry out waiting for us to plant them in the ground.  I hose the mud down the driveway into the alley.  It has not stopped raining the entire 4 hours I have been outside working.  It is 44 degrees.

I go inside and there is a mushroom/veggie/bacon omlette waiting for me.