You Grow Girlâ„¢

March came in like a lion. A severe windstorm hit on the eve of March. It
was wicked. And now it is gorgeous out. Fruit trees are in bloom,
as are the almonds. I went to a part of campus I never go to and was
surprised by a magnolia tree in splendorous pink. The tree in front
of our place took the opportunity to self-prune, and so now I have a bunch
of dead branches, which I arranged into sort of a fragile structure.
“Harbinger of tumbleweeds” is what I’d call it, if I was the pretentious
sort. Haha. I am the pretentious sort.

It feels like I spent most of February sick with one thing or another. So weeds grew in my garden. Two dandelions have managed to flower
and set seed already. Today I was out with my manual weed whacker. It’s
the most fabulous tool – like a 2-handed scythe. Whack whack whack. And
everything gets cut so cleanly! If I’m careful with my back it’s actually
good exercise. Most of my fava beans germinated and are managing to
grow faster than the slugs can eat them. All of my Festuca
and Nassella have survived so far, too. Lettuces are
growing slowly in my small container. My large container has yielded
nothing, even though I planted the same lettuces in there. I have seen a
lot of birds in there, so I suspect they ate the seeds. I put copper tape
on the edges of the container and the strawberries are doing ok, so I
don’t think it’s the return of the slug problem. I guess, on the bright
side, I won’t have to pull anything out to do spring planting.

It snowed here the last week of January. Kind of a freak occurrence. The
snow was followed by about 5 nights of hard freeze. After the snow, I put
clear fiberglass over the containers (saving my little lettuce
seedlings, I’m sure), but not my big potted aloe. It kind of wilted,
but parts of it are still green so I’m hoping it will make a comeback. The
Shasta daisies I planted in front in September have been almost
entirely eaten by slugs. The lush weeds around them haven’t been
touched. Neither has the achillea, but it has those wonderful
finely-divided leaves as a defense. I think I could wholeheartedly
recommend achillea to anyone who wants nice plants and doesn’t want
to worry about slugs eating them! I'm going to plant more of these. Another
less-than-success so far has been the failure of my gladiolas to
sprout, even though I got them in before the freeze. I haven’t given up
hope on them, though. And, well, then there’s the fact that I planted my asparagus completely the wrong way. Thank goodness for friends who
bother to do research and don’t just go around planting things like I
do.