Obsessive-Compulsive Nursery Trip

Posted by Robert Dailey Mar 27, 2008

It’s warm outside (close to 70 degrees F) and I’m itching to get out there and plant something.

My seedlings are doing fine, and ready to put into the ground and I’m not going to resist the temptation to wait until all danger of frost has passed. It’s about a month before the USDA’s last frost date for my zone, but the USDA has been wrong before.

I’ve got tomatoes, cukes, string beans, cantaloupe (which I’ve been trying to raise for years without success), lavender, basil, oregano, garlic chives, some broom grass, gourds, coneflowers, hollyhocks, snapdragons, and something else that I forgot to label, coming out of the ground. The veggies and the herbs are past the cotyledon stage and ready to put into a bigger pot, or for cabin fever victims, right into the ground.

Okay, maybe there’s going to be another frost…maybe not. I could have sworn I saw some buds on a pecan tree I drove by yesterday. Of course, I was driving pretty fast (at least the constable thought I was).

Everybody knows that pecan trees absolutely will not bud until the after the last frost. Well, at least that’s what I was told by this old gardener. I did, however read recently that some pecan trees in another part of the state were damaged by frost last year, so I guess the pecan tree frost meter may be a bit of an old wives’ (or in this case, old gardener’s) tale.

The pecan tree story really doesn’t make any difference. As my wife and friends say about me (somewhat unfairly, I believe), “he’s gonna do what he’s gonna do, and damn the consequences.”

So now, my green little organic veggies are nestled in my raised beds, mulched well, and ready to begin their joyous ascent toward adulthood and reproduction.