In the Nursery

I thought we were done with the nursery.

No, not that kind of nursery. Until and unless there are grandchildren, Warren and I are both done on the baby front.

No, I mean the plant nursery. Ever since March 21, a large folding table has dominated the space in front on the patio door. To get to the back deck, you had to go through the percussion room, into the garage, then out to the patio and up to the deck.

All that was coming to an end this weekend. We spent part of Mother's Day tilling the two gardens. They and I were ready to go this weekend.

The table would finally, blessedly, be empty.

Yesterday I put in peppers, eggplants, and broccoli. We took some tomato plants out to dad. Today, I heeled in our tomatoes, planted onions, and seeded cilantro, basil, greasy beans, pumpkins, and zucchini.

In addition to being the weekend I planted the garden, this weekend is the Delaware Arts Festival, a two-day downtown street fair. The Symphony always has a booth there, which Warren and I helped set up early Saturday. I wanted to buy Ben and Alise's wedding present at the fair, so later on (before the first round of gardening), we spent a good hour or more wandering up and down the blocks looking at the wares.

One of the booths was a gourd artist, the kind who paint and carve gourds into decorative art - penguins, jolly Santas, dogs (no, Ben and Alise, I did not buy you gourd art). Warren is always interested in gourds - not to decorate our house with, but to turn into percussion instruments such as shakeres or güiros.

While he eyed the gourds, judging size and dimensions, I realized there were trays of brown paper packets underneath the lowest shelf.

Seed packets.

Gourd seed packets.

Warren and I engaged the proprietor in some gourd talk. What's this gourd here? How about this one?

Gourds have descriptive names: kettle, pear, apple, basketball. That's a big pear. That one? A penguin (painted like, you guessed it, a penguin).

I treated my husband: one pack of kettle seeds, one pack of large pear seeds. The seed owner and I talked planting and germination. He suggested starting them inside, under heat. They have a tough coating, so they'll take awhile to germinate. Just stay at it.

If I started now, I asked, would I still have enough growing season to get gourds this year?

Oh heavens, yes.

I spent all morning today gardening. The kitchen garden is fluffy and easy to work. The sod garden, even after last week's compost and roto-tilling, is still rough and still has a long ways to go. Pa Ingalls flashed across my mind.

The broccoli is down in the sod garden this year, where it can grow to the size of fifth graders if so desires. I have two rows of pie pumpkins and two rows of zucchini seeded. A fifth row will hold the gourds when their time comes. The kitchen garden will have eggplant, peppers, tomatoes, basil, cilantro, and pole beans this year. It is not as crowded as last year and this year I know where every single tomato is planted. I also planted six containers: two with artichokes (trying yet once again) and four with sugar lump cherry tomatoes.

By the time I finished, I was tired. But not too tired to make ten newspaper seed pots, fill them with wet potting soil, and poke a gourd seed down into each one. The big table came down as planned, but one of the small deck tables holds a tray of seeds and a lamp just fine. The babes-in-waiting spent a hour or two in the sun before I carried them inside and tucked them in for a nap.

The nursery is humming one last time this garden season.