Flower of Remembrance

Taking a slightly different turn here...

 
Aside from planting vegetables, I am also a big fan of  flowers and foliage.  So, on this special day of remembrance, I planted a special kind of wildflower.

The "Forget-me-not" is the official flower of the centennial of the Armenian Genocide.  One hundred years ago, today, an orchestrated event took place which began with massacres and ended with deportation of some 1.5 million Armenians, in the Turkish occupied lands of Western Armenia.  Among them were my own grandparents on both sides of my family.  My father's father himself marched along the death march in the deserts of Der el Zor, Syria, before finding his way to safety in Beirut, Lebanon.   A lot has happened since then, and I am glad to be alive, to have traversed land and sea to be living in freedom, and to never forget that I'm a grandchild of survivors.  However, the genocide itself, though recognized by 20-some countries around the world, is still to be officially recognized by the U.S. and Turkey.  An overwhelming 44 U.S. states have already recognized it as an official historical event called the Armenian Genocide.   On this, the centennial of the start of the massacres,  the "Forget-me-not" flower has been declared the official flower symbolizing life and the forever memory of all the lost lives. It is usually a purple hue but this one I found is more of a blue periwinkle.  Nonetheless, I found this delicate wildflower to be lovely enough to add to my garden collection.  

A Head Start

I feel like I'm ahead of the game this season. These tomato plants that I actually never even planted are showing promise!   You see, earlier, around December, a good soul named Vincenzo offered me a bunch of organic material in the form of compost that I can incorporate into my soil.  This compost had partially decomposed scraps consisting of seeds, leaves, shells, and other purely organic material.  I could tell this was good stuff since red earth worms were busy doing their thing to help aerate the soil.  Unbeknownst to me, there were tiny tomato seeds invisible to the naked eye, and just about a month later I saw the sprouting of small tomato seedlings.  One by one, side by side.  A few months later, here I have the first of these babies actually giving fruit.   Usually, at this time I'm preoccupied picking out different tomato seeds, or seedlings to plant for harvesting by early summer.   In this case, I am ahead of the game, and I never even planned it.   Pretty cool.

~Bunny Love~

Happy Easter! It's bunny season! And what better time to harvest these bunny treats than on Easter Sunday. It's like having a little egg hunt of my own.  These lovely little guys are actually "Parisian carrots", they grow rather round than long and tubular. Beautiful, fragrant, super, totally organic, and comes with a little extra zing, sort of like a radish.  My dog, Zola, (pictured below), very much approves.  Next to bunny rabbits, she is the biggest fan of carrots!

Happy Easter to everyone- May the peace and beauty of this season translate into gorgeous growing things in your garden. 

Premature babies are simply homed back into the ground for later harvesting.