False Spring

Spring is not here yet. But it’s been unseasonably warm where I live, so I am well advanced in yard and garden cleanup. I have never been this far ahead of the season in preparing for spring. I’m doing things in early March that I usually can only get to at the end of the month.
Yesterday, I even put the metal hoops covered with greenhouse plastic on the raised beds. These miniature greenhouses allow the soil and air to warm inside the tent-like structure. I can get kale, broccoli, snow peas, and other plants in the garden weeks earlier than my local frost-free dates using these season extenders.

Early planting with season extenders has a drawback. The gardener’s dreams of a lush green paradise expand into a superb fantasy. These require expensive trips to garden centers to hunt for the perfect additions to the garden landscape. Fantasy images of what the garden will look like with a dozen unique flowering baskets hung around the garden bench overcome dismay at the prices. I am mainly a sucker for the native plant offerings. Keep me from that section of the garden center! I’ll spend every penny I have.
An employee of one of the garden centers I frequent once told me that gardeners are like spring’s first black flies and mosquitos. When they first emerge, they act confused for a day before realizing their purpose in life. In early spring, the first gardeners start showing up at the garden center looking dazed, disoriented, and confused. They wander the aisles, picking up random plants, looking at pots, and asking silly questions. Eventually, they realize that their purpose is to spend money.

I’m old enough and experienced enough to understand that this early March spring madness is a deception. Many from away maintain that spring in New England is nothing but a deception. But after winter, I’ll take the tease, embrace it, and drift off to the garden center to aimlessly wander the aisles, spend money I shouldn’t, and begin to dream of warm days in my garden.