"Gardening is not permanent"

March 22, 2019

It’s been a terrible winter.  January and February dragged on seemingly without end. Edmonton experienced its coldest winter in 40 years.  March came in like a lion, and quickly has turned into a lamb.  The last week has been GORGEOUS.  Every day it sounds like rivers running outside with the snow melting almost before your very eyes.  

I received a giant shipment of Peonies, Ranunculus, Anemones, Eryngium, Astrantia, Dahlias and Astilbe.  Since this is the first year flower farming, I wanted to try a variety of planting methods and to encourage succession planting on the ranunculus and anemones I set to work on my first “test batch”.  I seeded a tray of Pampas Grass to see if it could possibly grow in our climate.  I started a few trays of ranunculus and anemones for pre-sprouting and I also soaked and planted some in 6” pots.  

Because the greenhouse still dips below freezing overnight, with the help of my mom I started my peonies in 5L pots in the garage.  And divided the dahlia tubers into 6” sections of dirt to get them started.  Then I got my astilbe, eryngium and astrantia divided and started into their own individual plots of soil.  It was official – we were starting a cut flower farm!

And then I got depressed.

While the rest of the world was rejoicing over spring, I just couldn’t get out of my fog.  At the dinner table one evening I told Jeremy I was having a “down day”.  When he asked why my answer surprised even me.  “I haven’t grown anything yet”.  It had been only days since I had planted seeds, corms, roots and tubers and here I was feeling down about the fact that I hadn’t harvested a single blossom.  I was pacing, stalking and staring at the dirt and waiting for something to happen. 

Am I too impatient to be a farmer?

I like my lists. They’re therapeutic for me so I decided to make my list of worries in point form:

-       Where do put our peony garden?  

-       How do I set up my perennials to give them the best shot at a bountiful life?

-       The netting I put over the pots in the garage to keep the cats from digging everything up – is it enough?

-       I can heat the greenhouse but worry I would constantly be monitoring the temperature. Or burning the greenhouse down.

-       How do I keep Daisy out of the gardens?

-       How high of a sweetpea trellis will keep Daisy out?

-       Is the soil good enough?

-       Is the water good enough?

-       Am I good enough?

-       And what the frick is for supper?

Today, ten days later, there is the tiniest sprout of green in the ranunculus pots.  My peonies, astilbe, eryngium and astrantia are sprouting and reaching for the sun. When I woke up this morning the greenhouse temperature was at 0 degrees and the buckets of water were liquid. I sat on my front step and talked myself through the fact that gardening is not permanent.  And if I put the peonies 2 feet this way instead of 2 feet that way the world will somehow keep on turning.  And if something isn’t working somewhere, we can move it.  I gave myself permission to have a temporary garden this year and then reassess locations next year.  And I gave myself permission to kill a few plants along the way.  

And I feel hope the size of the ranunculus sprouts today. And that feels like enough to grow again tomorrow.