A lesson I learned from my garden

I love to grow heirloom tomatoes from seed because it’s a thrill to see the little plants burst out of the soil while it’s still grey and freezing outside. Plus, growing from seed gives you the largest selection of tomato varieties. I usually spend many happy hours in January perusing my favorite seed websites and forum to select the varieties I want to grow.

But this winter was harsh and instead I whiled away the hours shoveling snow. I felt depressed and hopeless about planting any seeds because I didn’t see how I would cover the expense of getting the soil ready. However, I had promised my neighbor I would grow some seeds for her so I had to do it. Then I felt depressed and hopeless because I didn’t get around to ordering my seeds until March and didn’t plant them until March 27. I figured that meant I wouldn’t have seedlings mature enough to plant and hardened off until the end of May: just in time for our area, with some luck. But I still didn’t see how I could afford new potting mix for the half of my garden that grows in containers.

It’s best to plant tomatoes when the ground has warmed up and night temperatures are above 50 degrees F. That makes from May 22 to June 1 prime tomato planting time in my part of Maryland. I also wanted my transplants to be about six weeks old when they were ready to plant — that’s an age when they will grow very fast.

My father turned 98 in April. Since last summer Dad has required a bit more care and vigilance, which makes it very difficult to get to my desktop computer to write for this blog and do other projects with the goal of ensuring I can support myself after he’s gone. I could recapture two or more hours per day if I had a laptop