This thing I've begun...

Why is it that everyone else seems to have this gardening thing down as though it's second nature? I can't tell you how many times I've visited Google, searching phrases like "how to start tomatoes," "zone 5," "how long does it take for [anything] to happen," and "what kind of soil to use."

To summarize my previous attempts at this sort of thing, the first was spoiled by insufficient warmth, the second by insufficient light. For my third attempt, I made sure there was plenty of both, though it did cost me $45 to make it so by purchasing a heating mat and grow light.

So far, so good.

Every day I come home and see how these happy little living (!) seedlings are doing. It's been about 3 weeks now. Tomatoes, peppers, basil and rosemary. There might be some sage in there somewhere.


On a barely related note, a couple nights ago, I found myself watching a Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers movie, "Shall We Dance," by no means for the first time in my life. The strangest thing about Fred and Ginger is that their romance rarely progresses through dialogue, but rather through movement and unexplained mind-changing (mostly on Ginger's part). They begin a dance with Ginger giving Fred the cold shoulder, and by their final dip, Ginger's smiling and they're in love. They go behind a door as friends, and when the door opens again, they're blushing and giddy. This movie was no exception. There is nothing Fred can say in the first 30 minutes to impress Ginger. Then he finds her walking her dog on a ship, decides borrows some dogs to walk alongside her, and boom, Ginger warms up to him due to his persistence in getting in her line of sight - or was it because her little dog knew better than to resist such a debonair man?



To sing a song like "Beginner's Luck" after a whole 30 minutes of failed attempts to get someone to fall in love with you seems a little boastful and, hello, untrue. But when it comes to gardening, maybe I should take a tip from Fred in being persistent, then acting like it was fate all along when it finally works. Then maybe I'll join the ranks of the know-it-all gardeners. But we'll have to wait and see.