Lingering post (depression, garden, work, mom and caa)

Tuesday's therapy appointment fell through for no clear reason. I worked hard and late, and felt OK flaking out Wednesday. Instead of thinking about replying to emails and comments, i did a little garden planning. I am mostly pondering the corn and okra that have not come up.

Too cold? The soil too erratic for good contact with the seeds? Too buried where i am trying to co-plant with potatoes? Since a very few corn *have* sprouted, is the seed just too old?

The okra did start fine just fine in starting pots and so i think i'll get some plants started. Unlike okra, corn needs a bunch of plants to all tassel out at essentially the same time. I don't really have enough seeding cells available to start enough corn -- but the gardening place does list the 128 cell flats i found recommended in a report about starting corn in a greenhouse.  

....

Thursday was full of meetings. I've an undercurrent of disappointment in myself, the forcefulness of my communication and how some of my worries that process will not be followed play out. Unrelated, my colleague K--T-- is feeling blamed for a situation that i am assured she is not to blame for.

After work, a social distanced celebration of my parents' anniversary was postponed to today [Friday -- and it didn't happen again]. I changed and indulged in weeding the berm i have been most focused on turning into a decorative flower bed. I pulled out tons of the Indian strawberry (Potentilla indica) out, thinking about how on Wednesday evening i had tried eating some of the fruits from the east yard.

I do taste the "watermelon" flavor, and i found one that seemed particularly tasty (well, relatively, i suppose). My conclusion is that i may eat the fruits of the plants i pull out in the garden as yard nibbles, but i will continue to not intentionally grow the things. Spending time bent over just to harvest them is not attractive. They will continue as a ground cover inside the "orchard," the fenced in area the pets roam, and, as such, not a good place for ground growing edibles.

I distracted myself for a time pondering whether i should replace some ground cover around the house with REAL strawberries: i'm not sure that real strawberries will win in a competition with Potentilla indica.

Back to Thursday evening - i managed to clear a large sweep of Potentilla indica that was thickly growing on the berm, probably keeping back other weeds. After Saturday night's low temperatures, i'll start setting out plants. I've grown Jewels of Opar (Talinum paniculatum) in the garden, and have a small plant that's come back this year. From last year's seed i've started a bunch of plants, some of which will go back in the garden as a food plant, others will be good on the berm. I also started Moss rose (Portulaca grandiflora). I'll see how this open pollinated variety does at the base of the berm, i'd love it to be a ground cover i could naturalize. If it survives, i'll order some specific colors from Swallowtail Garden Seeds. I've also got sesame started: i imagined one year i would use it in the fight against stilt grass. Instead, the few plants that i have will go to the berm. I'll see how it does. I wish to grow culinary seed plants like sesame and breadseed poppy, but so far i don't manage any interesting quantity of seed.

With the sesame, the red garnet amaranth from Sow True seeds should make a lovely combination, albeit a tall stand of plants.

[posting on Saturday morning]