You Grow Girl™

I was in the neighboring town last week when word came to me. The word we're not supposed to hear in these parts until mid-October, and hopefully later, was being uttered, and uttered in what seemed to be a serious way, in September. F-r-o-s-t, and not with the precursor "chance of," but coupled with "Hard" and "Tonight," the dreaded words came through the radio speakers in my car. Now, running several local gardens each filled with an incountable number of tender tomato and basil plants(honestly the two crops I care most about), not to mention countless others, this news was not good. In fact, I considered cancelling my much-looked-forward-to dinner & dancing plans with my honey to drive home for emergency harvest and rescue operations. I sat through a nicely-heated Indian restaurant at dinner shivering vicariously for all my plants not quite ready for the end of their life. I opted against cancelling the rest of the night and began to put into affect what is essentially my frost-protection phone tree, leaving messages for friends begging them to (at 9 pm with under 40 degree F weather) run out and pick everything they could. I didn't actually reach anyone in person, so the plan was a failure...

Fortunately, though, my honey was exhausted, and I sent him home on the bus while I twirled away the next several hours on the dance floor. His instructions-- the houseplants. Since he moved in they'd been outside for the warm season, sprinkled through the front yard, on the porches, here and there and everywhere. He didn't quite realize what he'd agreed to. I came home about midnight to find the jungle in our kitchen and living room. Last count there were 60-odd plants, and, well, here they were. I did some additional midnight work of bringing the basil in containers to the front hallway and grabbing a few other tender perennials.

A week later and, well, we're still in the jungle. Of course, the houseplants will stay in for the winter, but it takes some serious re-arranging to not have to step over and brush aside several on any given trip through the house. Today it's in the 70's-- that bitter cruelty of last week leaves me shivering still. I'm tempted to put them back outside, for one more breath of fresh air... but as I STILL have much harvesting to do of frost-bitten tomatoes, I think it's not going to happen.

Ah, well, such is life in the northlands!