Ink & Penstemon
Observations on plants and gardening from the Great Basin steppe in the American West.
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Garden Blogger’s SNAFU Day
Welcome to SNAFU Day, Summer Edition! Thanks for celebrating the solstice by stopping by to indulge in my SNAFUs of Spring and early summer. I can’t think of a better way to mark the summer solstice, the longest day, than to reflect on what went wrong in the garden and to acknowledge it’s all downhill from here, a slow descent into fall and winter. Maybe my flubs will be atoned for by some happy accident by then. There’s no accompanying photoset for this post, so you’ll have to scroll down to see the visuals in all their gory details.
— If you have some plants you’re nursing in pots, it’s not a good idea to put them next to the air conditioning unit. I discovered this lesson the hard way.
— I had a lot of weeds sprouting up all over this spring that I didn’t recognize, so I was pretty vigilant about pulling them out. As I was about to pull out the last one I thought, “Isn’t this where I sowed all of those Phacelia campanularia seeds in March?” Yes. Yes it was.
Now the sole spared seedling is making me suffer with its beauty.
— If you are trying to pry a rock out of the ground, shovels do not make good levers.
— Oh, ‘Ava,’ my darling Agastache from High Country Gardens, I thought I put you in a prime spot, but look at you languishing half-eaten and spotted with bird poop among the Irises and a fog of Love-in-a-Mist. I will relocate you, only if you promise to survive the winter and try harder next year.
— And who can forget the May snowstorm of ‘10? Latest snowstorm on state record; biggest garden downer to date.
— That same snowstorm decimated the large tomato plants I bought back in early May that were several months along. Remember, I posted about how awesome it was going to be to have tomatoes in June? Now I’ll be using the tomatoes I harvest in August to make humble pie.
I hope that your snafus were as instructive and that you avoided any loss of limb. I’m not sure when I’ll do this again; maybe the autumnal equinox? Who knows. The more I think about this meme, the more I realize I’m not really a meme person. We’ll see how well it’s received this time, I guess. In the meantime, I’ll keep post up for a few days more than usual to allow those who discover it to participate.
