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Strike up the band, folks–my pasque flower appears to have surived Quark’s depredations, duly recorded in an earlier post. Here are the before and after photos:

In reviewing the suggestions so kindly offered by visitors, I considered three criteria:

Will it cost any money?
Will it take any time?
Will I have to show my face in a public place from which word might reach my boss that I’d been doing something other than editing the article I  owe him?

Taking into consideration the above criteria, the committee (of one) that convened to review the relevant data zeroed in a single idea. Brenda, of A Journey of Grace and Whimsey (what a great title!) suggested laying "something picky" on the beds, so instead of putting all my raspberry cuttings out on the alley for the spring (read mid-summer) pickup (I shouldn’t complain, it’s a great service), I laid a few across my patio planters, thusly:

So far, only one hole’s been dug in that lovely dirt since the committee submitted its report.

They look so messy, though, I find myself reluctant to use them on other beds, and I worry what would happen to the lettuce as I lift them away.

I’ve also picked up an idea from somewhere–I don’t remember where–which was to sprinkle hot pepper on the ground. So I’ve done that too, with mixed results. As Brenda said, Dumb kitty.

Yes, he’s doing just what it looks like he’s doing. I never see his sister, Muon, digging (or peeing) in the garden. Of course, that might be because he really is just dumber than her, and she doesn’t get caught. Certainly she doesn’t cause any trouble.

I hope that no-one who visited my blog today has epilepsy, because the screen rarely stayed still for more than five minutes. It was my introduction to playing with the site’s format, courtesy of husband Steve, computing wizard extraordinaire. Since he uses Word Press (not Typepad), and someone else set up the site, and I’ve never done anything involving html beyond learning to put my responses to comments into italics–a great victory–there was a lot of trial and error, and a fair amount of  "Well, let’s see what this looks like," and two minutes later, "Definitely not." Also a couple of "Don’t hit that key!–Uh oh" moments, and at least one "Well, it looks like you killed it" situation.

So I just wanted to let my loyal readers out there know that if things seemed a little weird, well, they were. Maybe tomorrow I’ll actually manage the post on lawns I’d planned for today. Or maybe not.

You know that stage of budding friendships when people stop discussing their successes and start revealing their insecurities, their BO, their failings, their lapsed credit? (In my youth (a word which in my mind is now always pronounced as Danny DeVito does it in My Cousin Vinny, viz, ‘yoot’) I knew we’d reached that stage when the other person said something like, "So—just how tall are you?") Well, folks, I feel we’ve reached that stage. I hope we have, because otherwise your system may undergo a shock.

Yes, I am about to reveal information which will permanently dislodge me from that gardening pedestal upon which I have hitherto resided. The aura of perfection will be shredded; the mantle of infallibility will fall, and I will stand before you as a (very short) human being.

The question itself is simple: how good are leeks and onions which didn’t get picked in the fall and resprout the following spring? The ones I have in mind—or at least in my garden—never reached maturity, and seem perfectly healthy. Some are budding. Is it important to pull them before they flower or go to seed? Are onions that winter over of lower quality?

I’ve found that overlooked carrots, for instance, are woody and often pocked. What about onions?

So now you know. I don’t even harvest everything in my garden, I don’t clean out the beds in the fall, and I plant so late that some things don’t have a chance to fulfill their potential. I know it comes as a shock, but there it is. If you can’t live with that, maybe we should rethink this whole relationship..

It’s a rare thing, and a fine one, to find a site that celebrates "the great, the good and the slightly unhinged."

Call it a cop-out, but all I’m going to do today is tell everyone who by whatever chance or mischance of wind or weather ends up here to go elsewhere forthwith, namely to The Garden Monkey to read up on the internationally acclaimed (not) Fork’n Monkey Awards, because merely the descriptions of said awards–categories include "Green Fingers, Inky Fingers" (for best written blogs), "The Proud Parent" (for best seeding photos), the" "Jeeves Award for Worst-Dressed Celebrity Gardener," and, as they say, many many more–the descriptions alone, as I said, will gladden the heart, lift the spirit, bring a smile to the old face, and generally give you the impression that life might in fact be worth living after all, what?

Do it. Do it now. You can even vote.

More than one poet has bemoaned the quick passage of time, and more than one gardener has observed that it is not only lovers who have reason to join in that plaint. Just this weekend, another blogger at Hoe and Shovel titled a post,  "The Garden Waits for No Man," to which I can only say, Right on, dude.

So, having been away two weeks of the past four (as anyone who’s been reading here already knows), I am BEHIND. This weekend, I vowed to catch at least part of the way up. (Now, if that’s not an awkward phrase, I don’t know what is. Oh yes, I do. Ask, and I might tell. Anyone else out there have a favorite awkward phrase?)

I’d prepped some of the beds last fall, but not all. On Saturday, between having my mother-in-law to brunch, going to a party for a friend who just earned her MA in plant pathology (more on that later), and an evening movie with another friend (whose parents, horror of horrors, have never seen Star Wars, so she and her husband are rectifying that wrong), I somehow managed to dig amendments into one four-by-four plot and even get potatoes planted.  When they sprout, I’ll push the soil around those little hollows over them.

Sunday was not so easy. Sunday I tackled the worst of the worst, the heaviest, most densely packed, least yielding, ugliest, meanest plot of them all. It took me four hours. As I left the house in my rain jacket to get started, I glanced at the grey clouds and said to my son, "When do you think it’s going to start raining?"

"It’s not going to rain."

"Ah, you’re wrong there, J., because it surely will someday."

About fifteen minutes after I went out, I felt the first drops. An hour later, I was wheeling a barrow full of horrible clayey earth towards a dumping spot and passed J., lifting weights in the yard.

"Not gonna rain, huh?"

"It’s not raining!" he cried, face dripping. "Call this rain? This isn’t rain."

"Huh." I struggled on, not having breath for more.

I suspect even he would have conceded that it was raining, had he stayed out as long as I did. When I finally raked the top-soil smooth, put my tools away and staggered inside, my shoes were so muddy I didn’t want to defile even our porch with them, but left them outside, and my toes were so cold they stayed purple and white until nearly the end of my bath.

But the alley plots were ready plant.