Lunatic Gardening

There is something about February that makes me think about gardening, even when I'm not planning on doing much about gardening besides watch the babies from self seeders pop up in unexpected places and as I have the energy clear the competitors out of the way. It's frigid here which I'm enjoying after our mixed up weather with warm to mild to cold and cycling through the temperature range within weeks. I don't mind at all that we are having at least a few weeks of actual winter. I think the reasons I'm thinking about gardening are as mixed up as the temperatures. In part it's all those seed catalogues that keep arriving in spite of my not ordering from them for several years. It's also the amount of growth I spotted this weekend, along with the helleborus with it's blooms beginning to burst out creating a lovely little area near my secret seat. After our little snow followed by a moderate few days, I decided to do my rounds before the temps dipped into the teens and twenties. So much going on and I don't mind that some things will get zapped with the cold week because we need that to avoid the bugs being out of control this summer. It made me laugh that my garden boxes which have not been tended this winter are bursting with life anyway although I'm sure much of that will be brown and bent over the next few days with solid cold and my lack of attention. If I covered the boxes at night and went to the effort I could have a winter garden as I used to but I'm moving into lunatic gardening as an intentional style rather than something that happens anyway when I'm busy or don't feel great. What made me laugh was the way a broccoli floret, kale, parsley, cilantro, yarrow, and carrots which weren't planted had self seeded from other places and were growing in the boxes. Although I had those plants in boxes, they had been shifted around so they weren't even in the same spots as the original plants. I'm not going to order from seed catalogues but this spring, in keeping with my lunatic gardening theme, I'm going to get all the seeds out of my refrigerator that I didn't use the last time I had a planned planting and shift them into the soil wherever there is an empty spot. I am not going to take notes likes I usually do when I plant because if I do that I'll be watching for seedlings and will feel like I need to help them along with water and such. I don't want to count on having the time or strength for much tending so instead my lunatic gardening will be me out with seeds pretending I'm a squirrel blending seeds hither thither into the soil and anything that survives will be a pleasant surprise rather than a obligation that needs to be tended. I think that lunatic gardening will suit me. I always enjoy the surprises that result from squirrels, wind, birds and whatever else is responsible for flowers and plants showing up in the oddest places. Why not be an active part of those surprises. For one thing if I don't take notes, within a week, I'll forget what I scattered where so it will be very much like the gifts the animals are responsible for. One of my nuttier ideas is to make stencils and paint my storage building with wild designs and symbols I like. Not sure if I have that in me but the idea makes me laugh. Sort of like the old VW vans that were painted with pop art in the 60s and 70s. That would be pretty hilarious, to me, if I did something like that on my storage building which is beside my greenhouse. Very unlikely though that I'd get very far. Painting under the best of circumstances used to be tiring for me, probably because I didn't enjoy it. I took forever painting my storage building after it was built and Bill ended up offering to help me because it was in danger of deteriorating if I didn't paint it. Painting designs would be different. That would be fun. However, doing that kind of painting on a building would take forever.