![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.thelifeliterary.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/03\/IMG_8273.jpg\" "\\"Tossed")
<\/a>Ready to leave home<\/p><\/div>\n
I’m talking about my plants, the lettuce and broccoli and bok choi I started from seed.\u00a0 I planted them outside today, broccoli here at home and most of the rest at Jones.\u00a0 They all looked beautiful, red leaf lettuce, bright green Buttercrunch, red and green mottled Speckled Trout Romaine lettuce, with the bluish green broccoli and dull green bok choi.\u00a0 I was so proud.\u00a0 I didn’t plant in rows, casting them into the world in predictable lines.\u00a0 Oh no.\u00a0 Any plant I nurture will march to the beat of its own drummer, of my drummer, actually.\u00a0 I planted them in patterns, painting them on the soil which is my palette.\u00a0 I want my gardens to look artistic and be beautiful expressions of what I feel and see and hear, not conformist straight lines which aren’t needed anyway in such a small garden.\u00a0 When I was done I admired my handiwork, hesitant to leave.\u00a0 Go ahead and laugh but I had a real sense of feeling nervous for them, similar to how I felt leaving a son or daughter at college.\u00a0 You put a lot of work and time and most of all emotion and passion into whatever you send into the world.\u00a0 Children and plants are fraught with significance.\u00a0 They carry quite a burden.<\/p>\n
I’m pretty sure the temperatures will be o.k. now.\u00a0 It shouldn’t get too freezing for my dear ones.\u00a0 At least I don’t think it will.\u00a0 But that’s just the thing, doggone it.\u00a0 You just don’t know what, exactly, is gonna happen out there.\u00a0 But the time comes when you have to hold your breath and kick ’em out.\u00a0 Then pray.<\/p>\n
<\/a>My children in the cold, cruel world<\/p><\/div>\n
<\/p>\n
And besides, I really needed to plant them.\u00a0 It was time for them to go.\u00a0 Not only were they getting too big, I needed to make room for tomato and pepper and eggplant and other warm weather seeds which I’ll plant over the next few days so I can transplant to the garden in a month and a half or so.<\/p>\n
<\/a>Sophomore seedlings next to the freshman transplants<\/p><\/div>\n
<\/a>A Speckled Trout Romaine lettuce transplant<\/p><\/div>\n
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I left my children in the big, unpredictable, cold world today on their own to face the elements alone, far from my protective care.\u00a0 Let me tell you it wasn’t easy.\u00a0 We’ve been together for a while now.\u00a0 I felt … Continue reading