Canals

 
 
4/9/98 
The paths in the garden are canals around island  
beds. It is a settling rain that continues to fall tonight,  
closing the pores that my fork opened and packing  
the soil against those few rows of seed I managed to  
get in yesterday morning. 
 
Mother Nature gave me a break I didn't realise I  
needed until last night. Neysa's magic salve helped  
ease tired muscles but this day spent in the office in  
teeshirt and sweatpants helped even more. I'm ready  
to finish the forking now. My brain is the tired  
muscle tonight. 
 
The seedlings beside my desk change almost daily.  
Not just in height, but in overall appearence. The  
tiny hoard of celery all gaping wide-mouthed at the  
grow light look like little Pacmen, the cotyledons  
(seed leaves) still all that show. Overshawdowing the  
celery mob are goliath cabbage on one side and  
thinner but as tall, ice-berg lettuce plants, both ready  
to go out to the greenhouse. At the other end of the  
four foot imitation sun are the tallest seedlings, the  
tomatoes. I gage their growth by one branch on the  
closest plant  to me, a beefsteak from saved seed. It  
has stretched almost an inch and a half in two days  
and now touches the bulb. Time to raise the sun, I'll  
rearrange the line-up and only lift one end. The sweet  
peas have sprouted like the proverbial bean-stalk, the  
only flower to grace the shelf so far. With a long,  
skinny body and a big head, some people might say  
they resemble their caretaker, me. They go next to  
the tomatoes, then the lettuce and cabbage, broccoli  
and cauliflower, peppers and celery, and finally,  
Gin's flowers, poppy,marigold, forget-me-not,  
bachelor's button, larkspur and sweet williams, I'm  
beginning to think the flower seed was too old, most  
of them are labled 1994. 
 
The weatherman just said we might get a frost  
tonight so I won't start the replacement battalion yet,  
if I only had a larger office! Once the brassica's go to  
the greenhouse, I'll start some bell peppers and herbs,  
more brussle sprouts and probably more flowers.