"Personally, I follow this simple rule of green thumb: Unless you're living off the land or the land is your living, the best time to do gardening chores is whenever you're in the mood. You'll win some, you'll lose some, and some will get rained out, but at least you'll enjoy your garden."

--Diane Ackerman, Cultivating Delight

The last of my tulips have faded. A dozen of these beauties came up in the back of the house near the vegetable garden. We are hoping to rework the area they are planted in, so I have dug them all up and moved them. Tulips are not known to have particularly long lives but I hope to see them flower again next spring. More waiting. As I dug them up, digging way deep to find the bulbs, I began to realize how my obstetrician must have felt when he checked on my boys in utero -- I learned to feel my way, in the earth, until my hand landed on a large bulb.

My first poppy has also bloomed. I really really hope these spread like crazy. Poppies are one of those plants that are supposedly so easy that they are ideal for a childrens' garden. Yet I have little luck with this group: poppies, carrots, hollyhocks, sunflowers. But I keep trying. Poppies are better off if you plant them in the fall and let them sit in the earth for a few months. But you can't find poppy seeds in the fall. I always think I will buy extra ones in the spring and save them until fall, but never remember to do so. Once I found some seeds that were embedded in clay balls and you could just put the balls in the ground, and these worked very well. I had lots and lots of beautiful orangey red poppies for several springs, their petals like tissue paper. But alas, we moved, and now I'm back to square one.