The title of this post is from either Samuel Johnson or Oscar Wilde, talking about second marriages. But–in my life this quotation applies much more clearly to the pursuit of gardening, in particular vegetable gardening. Today I got my seed order from John Scheepers Kitchen Garden Seeds, and here are all the hopeful little packets spread out on the kitchen table. I had said that I wasn’t going to order any seeds from catalogs this year as I tend to over-order. I was just going to buy seeds at the garden center. In order to keep this resolution I had to immediately throw all seed catalogs in the trash, without allowing myself so much as a peek.
The Triumph of Hope Over Experience
The title of this post is from either Samuel Johnson or Oscar Wilde, talking about second marriages. But–in my life this quotation applies much more clearly to the pursuit of gardening, in particular vegetable gardening. Today I got my seed order from John Scheepers Kitchen Garden Seeds, and here are all the hopeful little packets spread out on the kitchen table. I had said that I wasn’t going to order any seeds from catalogs this year as I tend to over-order. I was just going to buy seeds at the garden center. In order to keep this resolution I had to immediately throw all seed catalogs in the trash, without allowing myself so much as a peek.
I love tulips! And if you’re going to grow them you’d better love them, because they give you maybe two weeks (if you’re very lucky) of bloom and then six weeks of dying foliage. If you want them to come back the next year you have to let the leaves stay in place and die back naturally, as that’s how the bulb stores food. You could just whack off the leaves as soon as the flowers are done and then plant new bulbs every fall, but doing that is 1) expensive and 2) lots of work.