To Seed or Not to Seed, That is the Question

Eight days into the new year. Time seems to fly by these days, and   so many things on my to-do list remain undone. I thought that once I was off the chemo and radiation, I would feel energized and get a lot more accomplished, but so far that hasn’t happened, and if anything, I have even less energy sometimes. I guess those non-cancerous cells that got zapped in treatment are taking longer to recover than I thought they would.  On a positive note, though, my radiation “sunburn” seems to be getting better and I can lie down without feeling I’m lying on a bed of nails.  And the large blue paint pen "X" marks that the radiation therapists marked me with have finally been scrubbed off. I rubbed and rubbed every time I got in the shower, but they stubbornly remained.  Now, after a week, they have finally faded to the point where they're barley visible.

I ordered a new cook book today: The Free Range Cook: Simple Pleasures , by

Annabel Langbein .  I  have  been watching cooking shows on  Public Television’s “Create” channel, and have gotten hooked on  Annabel Langbein and her recipes. I’m really looking forward to cooking vegetable samosas when the book comes- along with  some of the other scrumptious recipes I’ve seen on the show.

Ordinarily, I’d be sending off seed orders now, in anticipation of starting seeds in the greenhouse next month. But we still don’t know exactly what’s ahead in the way of treatment/surgery  or disease progression or regression  and whether or not I’ll be up to doing any heavy-duty gardening come spring so I’m thinking of just waiting to see how things go at my next appointment and buying bedding plants instead of starting my own seeds if it turns out that gardening is a go. I may give in and order seeds anyway, since we prefer heirloom plants and buying seed gives you  a much wider variety to choose from. Decisions, decisions. . . The saying goes that to plant a seed is to believe in tomorrow, so maybe I should just take an optimistic view,  sweep away any negative thoughts, plan my garden, and dream about all the delicious meals we can have  with freshly harvested  veggies from our very own back yard!  Meanwhile, I’ll look at  pics from last year's garden for inspiration. 

The garden looked so nice and neat until the hot weather set in and my energy and enthusiasm for weeding waned.  From then on, it became an unruly jungle!

The Bright Lights Chard is always so pretty.

 Annabell Langbein  cooked squash blossoms on tonight's program.   That would be fun and easy  if they were growing right outside the kitchen door!

 We enjoyed the lovely tender fresh lettuce last spring- and had enough to share with neighbors since I  tend to overplant .