Inching Toward Spring

Just when I think spring is finally here, just when the tulips are blooming, just when the hostas begin to unfurl their leaves, winter comes rushing back.  The icy Arctic cold dropped from the north last night, but I was prepared.  Old sheets, overturned buckets, flowerpots and boxes protected the tender plants from the frost.  However, the icy blasts are keeping me from planting my garden.  The summer vegetables all like to be planted after the last frost.  Usually, that has passed, but this year is not usual!  One more night of frost is predicted.  

This weekend I will live daringly and plant my summer vegetables.  Those packets of cucumber and bean seeds are begging to be opened and planted.  I count ahead to the days when then should be mature hoping that the soil is warm enough to allow them to sprout and grow.  There is a delicate time between  the last frost and the heat of summer that allows the seeds to sprout and grow strong.  The temperature must be right, the moon needs to be in the right phase, the zodiac needs to be in the right sign.  Oh well, I will just plant and hope that at least some of the requirements will be enough to ensure healthy plants and crops.

Vegetable Coats

Here it is the end of April and we are still bouncing back and forth between summer and winter.  The temperature at night, which has been balmy, is now flirting with freezing.  I've scraped frost off of the car windshield and had to dig out my heavier coat again.  The coats for the vegetables are less than flattering.  I keep a box of rags, and so on these near freezing nights you can find the tomato towers wrapped in old, frayed towels.  The squash plants are covered in bits of old sheets while the peppers sport an assortment of wash cloths and hand towels.  The garden looks like someone dumped the rag box on it, which I guess I did!  Although it is not beautiful, the old rags have kept the plants safe from the frost. The tomato blossoms seem to have survived, and those bundled up vegetables look beautiful to me on a frosty morning.

"When the Frost is on the Punkin"

The chill of autumn is only evident in the mornings so far.  The afternoons still hold the heat of a long and blistering summer, although these days of mid 80s are tolerable.  Along the roadside I see the nurseries and farm stand with their piles of pumpkins and carpets of mums in golds and russets and purple.  The trees are just beginning to turn to gold.  It puts me in the mind of James Whitcomb Riley's poem.  It's a folksy piece written in rural 19th century vernacular, but I love his images of country life.  I too feel the comfort of a well stocked larder and a successful harvest.  I can't help but let the lines run through my mind as we put the garden to bed and greet the quiet time of autumn.

"When the Frost is on the Punkin"                                  

James Whitcomb Riley. 1853–1916

 

 

WHEN the frost is on the punkin and the fodder's in the shock,  

And you hear the kyouck and gobble of the struttin' turkey-cock,  

And the clackin' of the guineys, and the cluckin' of the hens,  

And the rooster's hallylooyer as he tiptoes on the fence;  

O, it's then the time a feller is a-feelin' at his best,          5

With the risin' sun to greet him from a night of peaceful rest,  

As he leaves the house, bareheaded, and goes out to feed the stock,  

When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder's in the shock.  

  

They's something kindo' harty-like about the atmusfere  

When the heat of summer's over and the coolin' fall is here—   10

Of course we miss the flowers, and the blossoms on the trees,  

And the mumble of the hummin'-birds and buzzin' of the bees;  

But the air's so appetizin'; and the landscape through the haze  

Of a crisp and sunny morning of the airly autumn days  

Is a pictur' that no painter has the colorin' to mock—   15

When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder's in the shock.  

  

The husky, rusty russel of the tossels of the corn,  

And the raspin' of the tangled leaves as golden as the morn;  

The stubble in the furries—kindo' lonesome-like, but still  

A-preachin' sermuns to us of the barns they growed to fill;   20

The strawstack in the medder, and the reaper in the shed;  

The hosses in theyr stalls below—the clover overhead!—  

O, it sets my hart a-clickin' like the tickin' of a clock,  

When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder's in the shock.  

  

Then your apples all is gethered, and the ones a feller keeps   25

Is poured around the cellar-floor in red and yaller heaps;  

And your cider-makin's over, and your wimmern-folks is through  

With theyr mince and apple-butter, and theyr souse and sausage too!...  

I don't know how to tell it—but ef such a thing could be  

As the angels wantin' boardin', and they'd call around on me—   30

I'd want to 'commodate 'em—all the whole-indurin' flock—  

When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder's in the shock