Keeping Garden Secrets

"Mom!" screamed the boy when exited the school bus, "Why can't a garden keep a secret?"

Note elongated pause while I dutifully played along ...."Well, I don't rightly know, honey. Why can't it?"

"Because the potatoes have eyes and the corn has ears!"

It's such a timeless joke told most likely from generation to generation. I remember getting a kick out of the same joke as a child, but I'm not sure my reaction was anything like his. He was hysterical. He had just told the best joke on the planet and his laughter at his own joke couldn't be contained. He staggered to the car, consumed with his laughter, and lay prostrate on the floorboard of the car, literally unable to pick himself up because he was overcome with the belly laugh and the snorts and repetitive utterance of the punch line over and over. "Potatoes and eyes!" he eked out between the giggles. "Potatoes, eyes and corn-ears!" The boy laughed so uncontrollably, tears streamed down his face. I couldn't help but join in.

He came to himself again. Picked himself up from the floor of the car panting and wheezing to calm himself down. We drove in silence for about 30 seconds when he said, "Mom. Potatoes can't see me and my corn didn't listen last year when I told it to grow. That joke makes no sense."

That's precisely when I pulled the car over and gave in to my own hysterics.

On to the gardening! The cabbage, cauliflower and broccoli seedlings are coming along. All of the new broccoli seeds germinated, but you can still see they're behind the others. Thank goodness the broccoli is in its own container so I can separate them from the other flat.
The lettuce seedlings are still under the Saran Wrap waiting to germinate. I can't remember off hand how long it takes lettuce to germinate, but hopefully we'll see some growth soon.

Oddly, last fall I dumped out a packet of lettuce seeds by mistake when the dog brushed my arm. They germinated earlier this fall, but had almost negligent growth. Not even the size of a quarter. The 8 degree temps of a few weeks ago did them in. So I thought. Now I've got quarter sized lettuce growing and I'm wondering if I should just thin them and let them be or remove them entirely so I can amend the bed if I ever get a dry weekend. We can't seem to go three or four days without rain. We're expecting freezing rain this weekend. I can never remember a winter with 2 winter events. Odd, that.

The morning comes early. Sweet gardening dreams.