Get on your mark! Get ready! Get set! Go!
It’s time to buy and plant!
The Greenhouse goodies are appearing under tents, outside grocery stores, farm stores, hardware stores, and every other place that sells things. Flowers of every sort, and their friends, the vegetables, are calling, “Yoo Hoo, here I am. Take me, I’m yours!“
One of my BFFs, Greta, was a flower lover years before I knew anything about flowers, nor did I care to.
We would go shopping for clothes, and she would be asking every several blocks to stop at this or that outside plant market.
So we would stop.
I honestly couldn’t figure out why she wanted to look at all these tables of vegetation. She didn’t want to merely look, either. She wanted to buy, and she was always on the lookout for bargains or something new and different..
Greta grew up on a farm.
When spring arrived, her mother’s thoughts turned to flowers and vegetables.
“I just like to get my fingers in the soil”, was her feeling. Greta told me there was not a lot of yard to plant a garden because they had chickens roaming the property. They fenced in an area for flowers and vegetables.
Husband Fred and friend Greta are like two peas in a pod. (no pun intended) He, too, is a lover of the soil, and loves to plant things.
Fred also was adept at smelling out the flower and vegetable sites. After being disinterested for so long, I — well, you know how it goes. If you can’t beat them, join them.
This was the sum total of my “knowledge.”
I recognized only three or four flowers by name. I knew a geranium when I saw it. I recognized tulips. I loved lilacs. And soon, I came to appreciate “flags” or Iris. But, I did not know a Nasturtium from a Dahlia.
Greta knew the fancy names; not just the nicknames. She knew a Coreopsis and a Lungwort, a Cowslip Primrose, and a Begonia. Fred did not necessarily know what each was called, but he didn’t care. He simply liked flowers.
I soon began to catch the fever.
I became a “garden center” cardboard box filler.
I would peruse the many plant displays with Fred or Greta and gather different little starts.
Next, I bought pretty pots in which to plant them. Oh my! They were not only beautiful additions to a yard, but also came in a multitude of sizes. And they weren’t cheap!
I now admit that I have caught the bug.
Now Fred and I buy a variety of flowers in the Spring; we plant, arrange, water, fertilize, and talk to them.
And, of course, garden centers also display veggies. Anything that will produce healthy, tasty food is appealing to me. I like to cook and I like to eat. Therefore…..
This week I have not only seen onion bulbs, but now all varieties of lettuce, cabbages, peppers,herbs, tomatoes (it’s too early to plant this vegetable), and beans.
I get the shivers when I see them. Oh boy. I want 6 of this and 6 of that, and 4 of this and 12 of that!
But, what have I done? Oh what possessed me?!
Now, these little boxes of what-nots have to be watered, and then planted in a more comfortable bed. Out come the pots, the spades, the fertilizer, the soil. .Thank goodness Fred prepares the garden plot.
I guess I mainly like to buy the stuff!
Have you caught garden fever? It’s a yearly cycle and even if you cultivate just a small plot; even if you only plant in a few pots; you will be so very pleased and proud of yourselves. If you don’t have the urge, then by all means, DON’T stop at any garden center.
A plant just might call to you, and soon you will have your cardboard box full!

“A Woman’s View” is Judi Tabler’s reflection of her experiences and events. She is a wife, mother, writer, teacher, grandmother, and even a great grandmother.