Ode to a garden...

It's that time of year when the seed magazines start showing up at my door. I like to have a cup of coffee and find out what's new, make my list of what to order, and pretend like spring is just around the corner. My husband takes photographs, so my seed purchases tend to be toward plants that butterflies and hummingbirds enjoy. He bought me a small portable greenhouse a few years ago in which I start my seeds, usually in early April. The portable heater goes inside for those cold nights. Since I retired, it's so much easier to take care of the plants and I spend many hours in the greenhouse; the smell of damp soil is like perfume to me. I don't think I got my gardening genes from my father although I do remember him planting tomatoes one year at the back of the yard by the fence. The most exercise I can ever remember him getting was his daily walk to the fence to check his tomatoes. He talked to everyone about them. He boasted about their flavor and wondered why he had never planted tomatoes before. He was so sorry to see the season end but promised that next year's harvest would be bigger and better than this years. When the next spring came, he walked to the back of the yard dozens of times before he realized the tomatoes were not going to come up. They were not perennials, they were annuals - he would have to plant them every year. No more home grown tomatoes appeared on our table and my dad never walked to the back of the yard again.