I Could Cry: A Garden Journal Entry

Last weekend I got one of my raised beds set up, mixed rich organic mushroom compost and vermiculite in with the soil my husband tilled, and planted seeds: carrots, two kinds of lettuce, kale, marjoram, dill, cilantro, chives, and turnips. On Thursday morning I saw the tiniest little turnip sprouts, and little buds forming on the chives (which were transplanted from the plastic pots they'd been in on the patio since purchasing them last year!).

Thursday night, the cold weather hit. We even got a little snow. I covered that raised bed and the strawberry patch with sheets but it wasn't enough. It'll take time to tell if the seeds & seedlings were affected but I already saw brown wilt on some of the strawberry blossoms. My strawberry patch was doing so very well, it just breaks my heart. The plants were huge and covered with buds and blossoms and green fruit. I am very much a beginner gardener so I don't know what this will mean for the rest of the season (I'm avoiding research for the moment because I want to believe we'll still get lots of berries throughout the summer) but I know it pretty much spells doom for the blossoms & fruit already formed.

Update: I woke up this morning (at five-thirty, and not by choice, I feel grumpily compelled to mention) to a world darkly glittering with frost, a thermometer that read nineteen degrees, and the realization that I'd forgotten cover the garden with sheets. Am feeling too stupid to be a gardener. Trying to tell myself that it'll only set the newly sowed portion back by a week... Not thinking about the strawberries. Maybe they're okay. Also, I'm going to have to plant more morning glory seeds along the fence... I checked on those sprouts yesterday and they are all quite shriveled and wilted.