A New Kind of Superhero: Garden Man and Seedling

Sunday (if I need to point out the irony: April Fool's Day) the weather here in Indiana was just amazing. We were all wearing shorts, drinking iced tea, and talking of picnics. Ignoring both the calendar and the fact that I live in Indiana where New Year's was too warm to keep champagne cold on the porch but July can require wool, I interrupted the boys' saving the world to herd them to my favorite garden shop and get a jump on the season.

I haven't grown anything but a little basil and a lot of weeds since T arrived a couple years ago, but I'd been promising that *this* year we were going to have tomatoes out our ears, carve a Jack-o-lantern from our own bounty, and try a rhubarb-strawberry crisp from garden rhubarb. The woman at the garden shop clucked disapprovingly while I selected our Better Boys and Early Girls, but we ignored her and confidently gathered up our purchases, headed home, and got to work resurrecting the neglected Earth Boxes.

(As a note, for those of you who haven't gardened with Earth Boxes, you need to try them. A very experienced gardener at my office got me onto them, and I've never looked back. And while you're at it, check out the mind-boggling number of heirloom tomato options at Totally Tomatoes.)

Once the plants were in, I chopped down an old rosebush I've always hated, weeded in the front beds, and started dreaming of the Caprese salad I'd shortly be enjoying.

Yesterday we had spitting snow showers and freezing temperatures. I had neglected to cover the weak little plants the night before, as I was more interested in socializing with the friends who came to visit, so the Caprese dreams have died along with the shriveled tomato twigs. Even Garden Man and Seedling could do nothing to turn back the clock and get the unseasonably warm weather back.

Oh, Mother Nature, you fickle wench.