Friday morning, I wrote three master lists:

My sister’s wedding (and shower, and bachelorette party). My cousin’s wedding (and shower). And a gardening to-do list.

Hotels, invitations, clothes, jewelry, times, places. Sprays, tools, pests, seeds, plants.

The lists are printed out and taped to my kitchen wall. I spent Friday knocking off a few things on each of them.

Backtracking a little: Wednesday, my mom and I had a belated Mother’s Day lunch, while my in-laws watched the kids (thanks!). It was nice; it had been a while. We also did a little shopping, and I got some books at Barnes & Noble that had been marked down to $2 each, which I’m saving for Christmas gifts. Some might also serve well for kid birthday party gifts. I also went ahead and bought myself a big pink geranium and some pink dahlias for the front of my house. Happy Mother’s Day to me. Friday, first thing in the morning, the kids and I went back (again) to the hardware store and I caved and got a big purple watering can as well as some yellow marigolds (to keep near the vegetables; the smell is supposed to repel pests) and some purple petunias for the front garden.

Geranium

Dahlias

I have a lot of space to fill

So I am finally getting my color fix. Elsewhere in the garden, carrots, herbs and pumpkins are sprouting, and it FINALLY rained, just now. So, so happy it rained.

Carrots (sign by my son)

I have three petunias left to plant, and the squash and tomato seedlings to transfer, and then everything that I really need will be in the ground. Anything else I get in would just be gravy. Although, I would like to plant more corn…

Tonight, at dinner, I had my first eats from the garden: two romaine lettuces. I wasn’t sure if they were done growing, but they looked close enough to me.

So even if everything else goes to s—, at least I can say I ate one thing from it!

I never seem to get the big two- or three-hour chunk of time that I would like to spend in the yard. But somehow, puttering around, a task here, a task there, dropping everything when I hear someone screaming inside and heading for the back door, it’s getting done. The netting seems to be protecting everything (knock on wood), and I have spent a lot of time fussing with and readjusting it, adding sticks to make it higher, etc. Of course it wasn’t any help when my daughter decided to jump on one of the hills where corn kernels are planted.

“What are you doing?!” I shrieked.

“I think it should be flat,” she said, in her bossy way. So yeah, might need chicken wire after all. Good thing I haven’t gotten a dog yet. I can’t have a puppy tearing around out there right now.

But speaking of dogs, and gardening… I also went to the library on Wednesday:

That’s two gardening books, two dog books, and two novels. A tad ambitious for three weeks’ lending time. Dissident Gardens is not about real gardens, ha ha, but about Sunnyside Gardens in Queens and American Communists and it is great so far. I love Jonathan Lethem.

The Curious Gardener’s Almanac is quite entertaining, filled with random quotes, tips, facts, legends and more, all about gardening. I’ll leave you with a quote from Voltaire that I found in there:

“I have read much and found nothing but uncertainty, lies and fanaticism. I know about as much today of the essential things as I knew as an infant. I prefer to plant, to sow, and to be free.”