If a Southerner is going to give you their opinion on something, it’s going to be the weather. If it’s too cold, we’ll cry, “I wasn’t made for this!” But, on certain days when the weather feels just right, we’ll sigh and say, “If only the weather was like this all the time.”
Many of those “perfect days” of Southern weather happen in late spring.
While the weather at this time of year is perfect, my garden leaves me a little impatient. It is a period of waiting for the next big show.
The seeds in both the vegetable and flower gardens have all been sown. Plants are growing their vines, stems, and leaves until the early weeks of summer give us pops of color from zinnias and tomatoes alike.
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The Vegetable Garden Requires Patience
You may have heard the expression, “a watched pot never boils.” I think a better saying would be, “a watched tomato never ripens.” During late spring, the tomatoes in my vegetable garden are lingering in their own space-time continuum. The vines are loaded with handfuls of green tomatoes that can’t be rushed to reach their full ruby-colored potential.
As I look from the kitchen window, I can see yellow flowers on my zucchini and cucumber plants. Big flowers on the zucchini invite a whole host of pollinators to join the party at once, while the small flowers on cucumbers only have room for one bee at a time.
The pollinators are working and having their feast in my garden, but my vegetable feast won’t begin for a few more weeks.
While I wait, I’m closely watching the colors of the leaves on my young vegetable plants. I’ll take clues from them to see if the soil needs fertilizing or amending. On many mornings I trudge to the garden carrying my largest watering can. It’s full of diluted fish fertilizer or calcium, food for my young tomatoes.
I’m bribing them with, “Tomatoes, if I do this for you, what will you do for me?” And I hope the reply will be more tomatoes than I can eat or give away.
In addition to feeding the growing plants, I also watch for signs of unwanted bugs, and I take preventative measures to keep them at bay for the rest of the season. When the sun goes down, an eerie purple glow from my black light flashlight scans the plants up and down for the dreaded tomato hornworm.
Pampering these vegetable plants now means that in a few weeks my patience will pay off as I take a bite of my first tomato sandwich of the summer.
The vegetable garden requires surprisingly little equipment, but there are a handful of tools, fertilizers, and amendments I reach for throughout the growing season.
A Season Between Blooms
While I wait for my vegetables to grow, the flowers have a time of transition, too. Early spring gives the South flowers with soft and delicate blooms. In summer, flower varieties have transitioned to hardier and sturdier stems that can withstand the heat that settles in at the hottest part of the day.
The peonies, which bloom in early spring in the South, have come and gone weeks ago. The tiny pink blooms on my Peggy Martin roses and the fuzzy, purple alliums have finished their shows as well.
In late spring, my flower gardens will not only be a source of blooms to bring indoors, but they will also attract important pollinators.
Spires of salvia and lavender dance and sway as the bees crawl from flower to flower for their next treat. Hummingbirds flit in and out of gladiolus flowers.
During this time, the zinnias and dahlias are still growing their stems. Flower buds are beginning to form, and anticipation builds for when they decide it is time for a chorus of color.
As the flower garden begins its summer display, these are a few of the tools and containers I use for harvesting, arranging, and enjoying blooms indoors.
Learning to Wait
After the long and dark months of winter, spring brings new growth and excitement. But it also requires a great deal of waiting and patience.
It’s a good thing the weather is so ideal in the South during late spring, because I spend a lot of time checking on the gardens.
I drink my morning coffee hovering over my pepper plants like a helicopter parent. I’ll take another stroll through the rows in the evening after dinner. Have the seeds germinated since I last stared at the dirt six hours ago?
Gardening is both about myself and something bigger than myself. I am nurturing these plants with water, food, and protection. But I’m also connecting to the earth as a whole.
These days of perfect late spring weather in the South are fleeting with every rotation of the Earth. And while we often wish these perfect days could last forever, would we really want them to?
Soon the mild temperatures of late spring will give way to the humid heat that is necessary for a watermelon to ripen and a dinner-plate dahlia to unfurl in summertime.
Afterwards, shorter days will trigger the reds, oranges, and yellows of autumn leaves.
Each season requires patience for what is still to come and an appreciation for what is here now, because neither lasts forever.
The sun, the dirt, and the pollinators are all reminders that it’s never just about the little seeds we sow in spring.
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