The Green Race
Garden Journal March 24, 2025
The race has been going for a few weeks now, but I wanted to pause, as much as I can, and admire the competitors. Some are sprinters, others are in a marathon of ages.
Spring stutters into warmth, interspersed with sudden frosts. The plants, some lying dormant during winter’s chill, others encapsulated in seeds of all shapes and sizes, surge forth, stretching green leaves greedily for the sun and source of energy. The gardener tries to keep up, providing ideal environments to give the plants a head start, leg up, and help to defeat the weeds and weather alike. I’ve started seeds inside this year, beginning back as far as the tail of December, first the cool crops, then the warmth-loving peppers and tomatoes.
Now it’s time to harden off. Transition from the temperate protection of the scullery where my seed-starting station is located, into the harsh ultraviolent violence of the sunshine and the lashing of the Texas windstorms. Sheltered seedlings are so tender, and only after days of work taking them in and out, letting them grow stronger and used to the new light, can they be planted into the garden and begin to really grow.
In the meantime, the perennials I’ve been watching for are beginning to show themselves. The tiny wind anemones planted from a tuber last fall are nestled into last year’s leaves. I didn’t realize how small they would be, but they are bright and precious signs of spring’s exuberance.
The bright blooms of the golden currant (Ribes aureus) are tossed endlessly in the wind, but the sturdy flower construction of this native plant is adapted well to the spring’s storms.
I was able to go out with the camera and do my first bug safari of the year, but the wind made it quite the challenge to do freehand macrophotography! Still, I managed to capture a few creatures which inhabit my gardens.
I’ve got my drip system set up in the back, but it looks like the timer controller may be non-functional. Still! many steps closer to consistent garden watering which will much improve the odds of a successful harvest.
Parsley, dill, onions and garlic already thriving. I’ve been sowing cucumbers, melons, and peas along the trellis visible in the background. The peas are up several inches, the other seeds likely won’t emerge for another week at least. I’ve done chaos sowing of all of them - planted melons under the elderberries, and cucumbers along the fence by the driveway, among others. It’s always interesting to see what thrives in a place away from the carefully tended garden beds. The race to reproduce takes turns I can’t anticipate, if there will be rain, or most likely this year, not. If the cucumbers will do better with more sun than some shelter from the rays. If the melons will really get to be 20 pounds each!
My mature Redbud, and off there to the right where you really can’t see it, the slender trunk of the new Redbud. It is a lovely tree, and I was so happy to see it when we first bought this house. Some races are measured in decades, not mere weeks or months.
We are already seeing daytime temperatures into the 90s, and I am certain there will be no more frosts. It’s time to get everything in the ground and then watch the sky anxiously for clouds, watering when they do not appear. Water and sunlight power the gardens, and they will falter and fail to complete this run without them. I have an abundance of fierce Texas sunshine. The water, now, that’s the challenge!
It may not look like much, but those drips make a big difference.
