these seedlings are noisy and bossy

If you sit still, you will hear them. The billions and billions of seedlings in my classroom (over 200 tomato alone, plus a good number of a large variety of peppers, and just today we divided up the silver dollars, dahlias, lemon balm, and creeping thyme that had sprouted and brought about true leaves). These seedlings are as loud as a nest full of hungry birds wondering where the next meal is coming from. And was that one of the three types of eggplants I saw sprouting this morning. Clearly the Calendula is up and coming to seek the light.

and of course life at home is bustling as some how we planned 4 craft shows in 7 weeks.

and then there is my shoulder that ached so much I went to a doctor. OT and ice and heat and exercises... it is feeling better. My home garden has declared that the shoulder is good enough and fully expects to see me on Sunday.

And the seedlings cry out for attention and care and then they get bossy. "We need more space! What are all these house plants doing in this classroom? You have no right to be here." So we have been selling them off, but still more space is needed.

I have some ideas to make space. I have no choice as the greenhouse is not the place for them yet. The seedlings rule at Pathway. And all in all this is so much better than those doldrums between making the seed order and the mayhem of spring.

imperfections in my classroom

lets do four...

• dead seedlings--- that's what a lack of water will do to a young (or old plant). The good news is that only a few were done in by this neglect. That's the problem with cooking on Mondays, I didn't take a close enough look at all our seedlings.
• confused peppers--- I took the suggestion of one of my students and we planted a pepper which thrived in pots. I thought, why not do something nice for folk with patio gardens. Then we planted two types of peppers in the same seed pack. That's right, it included the one just mentioned. As the Mighty Assistant said to me as I was chastising myself... "You were having too much fun joking around with the students."
  
• sell them fresh--- to annoy the Human Suggestion Box, we made Lavender Blueberry Muffins, and while they were OK a day or two old (hungry students still ate them) they were nothing like the ones fresh from the oven. Fortunately most sold the day we baked. Yes, that would be the day the seedlings died.
• poor sentence structure--- I am a descendent of a long line of Pennsylvanian Germans. We say things like, "throw the cow over the fence some hay." I am sure I said clearly what I wanted my students to do. I am also sure they did what I told them to do. So instead of three seedlings in every section of a seed pack, we ended up with nine in some cases...

What we do next is divide them one to a section burying part of the stem to keep the plants stocky and full of roots ...

The good news is that even a place as lovely as Longwood Gardens...

But even Longwood has its imperfections...

spicy hot brownies, dazed spring, the hope of spinach salad, and a failure

Rule 1: if we cook, it has to come has to have food from the garden. So this week I diced up some of these Joe's round hot peppers and added them to our brownies. Every year before the dreaded killing frost, we harvest a bunch of hot peppers and throw them in the freezer. I never did find a recipe, but I figured that if chocolate and chiles go so well in my favorite Mexican dish (mole' sauce)... then why can't I add them into the brownies. I took out too many of the seeds next time extra heat.

Well, if I drove over to the school right now, this bit of green I saw just outside my classroom would be covered with the snow that has intensified since I got home. On my classroom wall are these words of absolute truth: "... Lifeless in appearance, sluggish dazed spring approaches..." from the poem, Spring and All (link is to the entire oh so cool poem), by William Carlos Williams. A friend thought I was praying because I was on my knees getting the photo earlier today.

over half of our spinach seeds have sprouted....

Update: The rice project failed...
theory... too cold in my classroom...
Reality... it just began to smell real bad.

will try again in spring.