The Cells and a Surplus of Sprouts

It does give me pause....

If I can't find time to blog, where am I going to find the time to garden?!  Hear that sound?  It's me, rolling my eyes.  Typical.  My grandmother used to tell me I was like the famous pelican, whose beak can hold more than her belly can.  With food, so I am with life.  I pile my plate with great ideas and plans to do this, that, and the-other-thing, but then, a few bites into it, I'm full, stuffed, and totally overwhelmed with the prospect of completion.  Never having had a childhood dog to whom I could sneak tiny, unwanted morsels, I know almost nothing of passing the burden to other people.  For me, it's usually: do it all yourself, or do it not at all.  How many projects have been scraped into leftover bins with the hope of some short-order resurrection, only to be shoved to the back and eventually tossed out once they've become unrecognizable?  Too many to list, I'm sure.  But, here I am, at least, doing my best to catch up on my overdue blog.  So, while I attempt to live in the moment, I'll head backwards into the past....

Last I blogged, Laura and I had a surplus of sprouts.  Frankly, this was pretty exciting.  Where once we had nothing, now we had life.  Pretty darn cool, if you ask me.

Next we had lots of life.  Lots and lots of life.  In fact, some of that life seemed to take on a life of its own.  The squash, for example, hit puberty long before the other plants, growing long, lanky limbs that seemed to tangle and trip all over itself and everything near it.  Laura and I soon learned our lesson in "what to seed & where".

So, we had 108 "cells" with 108 "grow tablets" (basically, this is a special growing substance, much better than regular ol' dirt, infused with radioactive nutrients designed to make your seeds grow like Jack's beans), each "cell" connected in groups of 36.   And in each cell, we put a seed, carefully plotted on our map, to insure we knew exactly what was planted where.  We thought we were so totally on top of everything; we had our cells, our seeds and our map; the condo complex of cells was placed in an ideal spot to capture the morning and early afternoon sun; a strict watering schedule was created; we even did a little pagan grow-dance when we were through.  Just so you know, a lot of love went into this endeavor.  But, unfortunately, not a lot of plant knowledge.  Which is why, in a few weeks, the squash seedlings had virtually taken over and the poor tomatoes, cucumbers, brussels sprouts, lettuce, leeks, and herbs were just barely beginning to hold their heads up on tenuous necks.  Next year, we decided, the squash would go into a separate container, to spread out like that crazy magic pumpkin in Disney's Cinderella.

Little did we know how many times we'd be starting sentences with "next year, we'll...."  Little did we know, indeed.