It just keeps on raining. I know better than to think that summer’s going to be all balmy and pleasant. It was 82 on Thursday and will be that warm later next week. At some point, soon, it’ll be so hot that I’ll break into a sweat just by stepping out the front door to get the mail. But, for now, it’s very nice.

There was that large lake-like puddle at the back of the yard. It abated, but you can  see the where the water line is. I can walk around back there, but it’s still pretty muddy. And seriously, look how much leaf growth has come out on those hedges that lost all their leaves back in March (after the awful February freeze).

Last year, I bought five plants that I’d hoped would grow and fill these plant supports, because, as you can see, the grass doesn’t grow up to the fence. They weren’t lush, but they were growing.  Until February. Then, they were little bare sticks. For weeks, I looked them over. Nothing. For weeks. Then, one started to put out a few leaves. Hmm, not exactly a Ta-Dah moment. But then, another one leafed out. Two out of five. Not spectacular. Then, I’m not kidding, another one put out some leaves. If you were to label them: 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5, plants 1, 3, and 5 were leafing out. Two and 4? Nothing. But now, I’m thinking I should wait a while longer before pulling up those bare sticks. Maybe?

Because I’ve needed to do some thyme pruning, I looked up how and when, etc., to take care of my thyme plants. One of the first things I read was that I should harvest my thyme plants before they flowered. Hmmm. Oh Dear. I’d been really charmed by the pretty little white flowers that some of the thyme plants were putting out. Bees came to the flowers, and I enjoyed watching them flit around when I was moving some liriope plants to a different place and putting some bricks across the lower border. So now, it is way to late for those plants to be at their peak. But, seriously, it’s not like I don’t have some other choices here. And, it doesn’t seem like all the varieties do bloom.

Two or three years ago, I went to the work place of a friend who works with a helping agency. Part of what he does is to help people learn how to grow a garden to provide fresh, wholesome vegetables for their family. I saw an interesting plant and he said it was Malabar spinach. Oh, I said, I don’t really like spinach. Well, he said, then grow it because it’s an attractive plant. He said it would grow and twine around a trellis. So I got some, and for the previous two or three years, I grew a whole trellis full of the plant. It would die back in the winter and come back in the spring. This year, I waited and waited and it didn’t show up. Alas. The trellis is in the bed where I also have some Hosta plants, so I was alert to weeds, etc., coming up. Three weeks, or so, ago, I was pulling weeds and all those little plants that come up, not particularly wanted, and there were a bunch more of those little seedling things, and as I pulled out the last one, I thought, Hmmm, were those some of the Malabar Spinach seeds that have just needed some time (after February) to germinate. Well, too bad for me, then. I’d pulled them all up. But, I’d been checking, just to be sure, and more of those little seedlings are coming. I can’t tell, yet, if it’s the spinach, after all. I’ll just have to wait a little longer. Hope so. The trellis is all ready!

The White-Edged Hosta has some flowers, and to the right of the blooms (hard to see) is a bud for more.

Yes, I know Paul is talking about people, but I’m paying attention to the analogy. If no one plants seeds and no one waters them, then there aren’t going to be any vegetables. Or fruits. Or bread.