My Covid Escape: The Garden
Pansy & Pampas Grass Seedlings from 2019
As I sit and write this at 23:25 on April 3, 2020, it’s -12ºC and snowing, again.
My fingers are itching to get into the dirt, and I’ve got plants and gardening on the brain (ok, but when do I not… point taken). Whats the garden progress like this year?
Well, there’s still a solid foot of snow on all of it.
The world is in a weird place in the middle of this pandemic, and I’m mentally weary of more bad news every day. I’m washing my hands. I’m staying at home. I’m still trying to work as much as I can, and hoping that all my work doesn’t dry up as this drags on.
What I want in all of this is an escape. I know everyone wants that. Many people have their escape thing, like reading or gaming or watching movies. For me, that’s gardening and yard work. Physical graft, visible measurable progress, and work that is consuming enough to shut my anxiety-ridden brain off for a while.
I’m lucky, and so very grateful, that I have a huge yard to work in. Sometimes I’m a bit embarrassed to live with my parents in my 30’s. But right now, and probably forever, I’ll be so grateful for this time. If I were on my own right now, I would not have access to this kind of green space to sink my anxious energy into.
So right now, I’m running out of patience for winter to trample off. So is Radar, she is SO done with having to wear boots and coats for bedtime bathroom breaks.
I was just looking at my garden journal from last year, 2019. I started it in January, and I didn’t make it past the 12th of May. But it’s got info about what was going on in the garden around this time last year. Here are a few notable things that struck me when I was reading:
Tomato Seedlings from 2019
21 March: First mint and violet leaves appeared
31 March: Seeded 3 kinds of lettuce in the greenhouse
3 April: Started gladiolas in pie plates
6 April: first Johnny-Jump-Up bloomed (violets)
12 April: Noticed aphids bad in the greenhouse (which means the plants had already been out there for a week)
This year, the mint still has 8 inches of snow on it. And the violets that always come up first in the northeast corner of the garden are also under 8-10 inches. The greenhouse is getting up to delightful temperatures when the sun is out, but it's still freezing hard in there overnight.
I don’t know how to feel about it. We’re very behind in starting seeds this year. In 2019 we started tomato seeds on the 3rd of March, this year we started them on the 29th of March. So I don’t know whether to be grateful that spring is late because it makes me feel less behind? Or just depressed that it likely means we’ll have a short growing season, and may not get much for a tomato crop this year.
I think gardening has been seeing a resurgence in popularity in recent years. I think in 2020 while dealing with the pandemic, that interest is going to explode. With social distancing measures in place, and people avoiding public places like grocery stores, the idea of growing your own food becomes a lot more appealing. I’ve also heard murmurs in the gardening community about the return of Victory Gardens. I’m very pleased with this. I hope that more people try to grow a few things. Even if it's just lettuce. I think that we are really disconnected from where our food comes from, as a society in general. I think learning to grow your own food, however you go about it, is a start to reconnecting with the earth.
Calibrachoa Seedlings from 2019
2020 has been a helluva roller coaster so far, and I’m fairly certain there’s plenty more to come. I hope that, like it is for me, gardening can give people some moments of peace and hope in the midst of our collective trauma.
Fingers crossed that next time I write I’ll be able to tell you that the snow is finally melting and the temperatures have risen.
Cheers,
Briana