Hungry Times Two

I spent two days in the rain at a music festival this weekend. My new sandals received a special spring initiation with a solid dunking in gooey mud. My "waterproof" parka proved to be not so much. My husband tried to convince me that our camp chairs made excellent umbrellas. But I didn't care. While the downpours kept coming, I thought numerous times, "HELL YES. We just put in our summer garden." Something in me has changed. I no longer scowl when I see those first drops of rain on the car windshield, when the first rumble of thunder clatters off in the distance, or I see "Chance of Rain" in the newspaper. I think I'm really a gardener now, y'all. Part of it stems from sheer laziness. Last summer in early June, Scott and I played "Rock Paper Scissors" nearly every morning to see which loser had to haul over to our community garden plots for watering. (He actually prefers the alternate version "Cat Microwave Tinfoil...

I know it's nearly spring because 1) I'm popping antihistamines and guzzling hot tea to soothe my allergies, and 2) we just planted broccoli, beets, carrots and broccoli rabe in the community garden plots this past weekend. At home I planted three containers of bibb lettuce and four containers of Red Russian Kale. The herb seeds we scored at a recent Grow Share Charlotte seed swap are now planted in some old pots I found in our shed and soaking up the daylight in my office windows on folding TV trays. (We are some cheap frugal resourceful types, I tell you.) Hopefully in a week or so we'll have Lemon, Thai and Genovese basils, tarragon, lavender, marjoram and thyme friends sprouting. Here are the herb pots below, transported in the Little Red Wagon Scott found abandoned and slightly paint-splattered on a property in Concord. Again, we're so cheap frugal resourceful. We had a productive workday at the community garden on Saturday. Over 15 garden members mulched...