Covid's gardening lessons

This year's crop of greens waiting for placement. After last year's disasters, I chose carefully.

Planted greens in the boxes John built last year when we thought (mistakenly) that opening up one side of the garden with lattice work would provide lots of sunshine for veggies. 

It was all so much more fun last year. Covid was new, the spring blossoms were out, and we were all being good sports about entertaining ourselves while we followed the rules and stayed home.

John enthusiastically cleaned out the compost area and built two new boxed beds for seedlings. I went to the garden centre and, panicking about scarcity, snatched whatever I could find. That turned out to be bok choy, kale, arugula, Swiss chard, and, unfortunately, tomatoes, beans, peas and celery. The greens did well, but the rest failed all in their different ways. The beans and peas collapsed without proper sun or supports and mouldered sadly on the ground. The celery was tough, with a white wood centre. The tomato vines soared into the trees, but the little fruit they gave was split and bland.

This year, John glumly surveyed the garden beds and suggested any new compost I wanted added would have to be done by an expert – me. At the garden centre, I confined myself to tried-and-true greens, bypassing a whole greenhouse of tomato seedlings. But I admit to some frivolity -- sweet peas, heliotrope and a few delphiniums to round out my flower garden. And when asked, John put up a screen for the sweet peas to climb on.

We aren’t nearly as jolly as we were at this time last year, and the sense of adventure is missing. But in the end, we might be happier watching bok choy thrive than beans expire in the dirt. Covid is teaching us all something.

Last fall, I knew I'd need something bright and cheerful for the spring, so I invested in a batch of flower bulbs. These tulips have been a splash of colour in the back garden for a couple of weeks. 

Narcissi, tulips and pansies in the front garden, also courtesy of last fall's bulb-buying spree.

These might look sad now, but the green splotches in the middle are the new white and lavender delphiniums I just planted. They'll join the other delphiniums in towering over my head later this summer.

This year's experiment is with sweet peas. Usually, I put them in the middle of the delphinium bed, but last year, they got crowded out and produced virtually no blooms. This year I'll give them a chance by planting them around the central tower and along the screen John just added to this bed. Imagine this bed in July with bright sweet peas climbing the tower and the screen...

Last year, I had to snip all the blooms off the newly planted strawberries in this bed, to give them a chance to root properly. This is the second year, so I'm hoping for blooms, and berries.

Something that did work: I always wanted an urn with ivy growing up it, and here it is! The flowers are winter pansies that have decided to give a good show now.  

More winter pansies, planted last fall and finally blooming up a storm. 

I didn't plant them, but these lilacs have bloomed every year since we bought the house in the mid-1970s.  There's a lot to be said for a faithful old tree.