Talking About the Garden

Turns out daffodils and blue muscari are top of the list for the Gardening Nephews.  I try to explain how they are bulbs and will have to be planted in the late fall.  " In winter?' they are incredulous. "No, fall," I repeat.  "Aunt 'Chelle, what is this fall?  We have summer and winter!"  Hmmm... a bit of wisdom there, I think.

There are days when I am finally feeling more like the normal me.  Up the stairs and walking around the rambling historic home my nephews are calling home, I can keep up going down the stairs; going up, my nephews are waiting for me at the top, even the next to youngest.

The boys know spring (AKA warm weather) is coming,  The topic turned to gardening initiated by the twin I think of as the "lead" gardener among them.

"Aunt 'Chelle, we need to talk about our garden this year," he states in a very serious tone.  "It needs to be smaller."

"Yes, smaller, " the other twin chimes in, "so we can weed it! Our sweet corn did not turn out so good."

"It needs to be gooder," lead twin adds.

"Better..." I correct.

"I don't know where you learned 'better'.  Here 'gooder' is a word," lead twin, 5, admonishes me.

(Sounds like something his Papa decreed.)


I have saved pictures to my laptop of some of the seeds packets I have been thinking of for this year.

We review. "...yes, no, no, no I don't like peppers...," and so on are their comments.

"What DO you want to plant?" I ask.

""Flowers! Lots and lots of flowers, so we can pick bouquets for Mama!"

"Ah!"

Even my son, now a young man would relate.  If you want to impress a girl, flowers work better than a basket full of produce.  How many times has he clipped a bloom or two from my garden for just that purpose?

That this runner bean has pink flowers and is edible caught the attention of one Gardening Twin.

So we will be planting more flowers and sweet corn (and I will sneak in those peppers because thye like to plant seedlings).

This one got more than a glance.

Anything they can pull out
of the ground like a carrot
is also top of their list.

 

So, although parsnips are not
on the top of their eating list,
growing in the ground
makes it a curiosity for them.