The days are long, the evenings pretty with some clouds floating around, what more could we want?  But wait?  I only have four kinds of tomatoes in, and while the seeds are coming in well in the raised beds, are we going to have all of the herbs we need for the season?  What about the holes in my pots?  Should I plant that pumpkin start that a friend gave me in it just to see what happens?  If I don’t plant it, where else will I put it?  Maybe I can find a pot where a perennial dies..Does it matter if I mix the pumpkin with a sunflower start?

Such is the curse of the garden lover.  When do we stop?  Forgive me if I repeat myself, but why do we do it? We do it because we love it, but something drives us for more.  What if we don’t have lemon basil this summer?  We know it won’t matter, but won’t there be just a little bit more joy if we grow it, if we work it into our already full veggie beds, our flower pots, anywhere?  And this is hard in Santa Fe, because if we don’t want to add more irrigation, we have to cram it in and watch it coexist with what we already have.  How do we fight the urge not to over crowd?  Survival of the fittest happens in my garden every year and every year it is different.  Some years most of my flowers are wine colored, others, the orange triumph.  Some years the greens are the best and others we have to give away tomatoes.  So  do we keep going to cover our bases?  If the tomatoes are a total flop, at least will we have the french tarragon? Or maybe we just keep going for the serendipity of it, the joy of surprise, our expectation of the unexpected.

finding the last spaces in the vegetable garden

That said, we had a great time tonight, adding the last tray of herbs and veggies to the mix in the front and back gardens. Lemon basil joined several pots, got a spot int the cherished raised beds, and one more in the open veggie gardens.  Tomatoes got added to a few pots, a few raised beds, and several other spots.  French and Mexican tarragon found some room, so did oregano.  Orange mint went into a pot that had some rabbit damage from petunias.  Chamomile, meant to later add to the mint harvest for teas, went into some pots, and also in the garden.  At this point in the season, anything that’s mot a weed is my friend.  Let’s see how it all goes.  Updates to come.