An Early Start

Good morning! I’m writing at 7:00 a.m. today after checking in with my online writing group and taking Kismet out for the first of our walks of the day. Shafts of yellow light creep through my Venetian blinds, urging me to wake up and experience the new day.

In my email feed this morning was this warning:

Flood Watch Issued As Back-To-Back Storms Barrel Down On SoCal

For those of you who don’t live in California, this may seem like the onset of an unseasonable weather pattern, but I have learned since moving to southern California that it does actually rain here. In spite of all the movies and novels depicting SoCal as the Land of Perpetual Sun, this winter we have had freezing temperatures causing me to cover some of my plants to protect their tender leaves, and rain that came barreling down hard enough to wash soil out of my giant pots.

My new condo has two patios, one an extension of the dining room, and another that welcomes guests to my front door. I have filled them both with plants and I have enjoyed the last two days of sunshine, whose warmth drew me out of doors and inspired me to plant bulbs and seeds in pots in anticipation of snowdrops and daffodils.  

Settling In

As Kismet and I explore the various neighborhoods of my new community, I have picked up some ideas for making my patios welcoming and pleasant with comfortable chairs and cushions. I also stumbled over a British gardening show, Gardener’s World on BritBox. Monty Don, the moderator, reassured me that I could plant bulbs in January if I had somehow missed doing so in November. Which I did. In October and November I was inundated with boxes after my sudden move.

And then there was the 500 piece jigsaw puzzle that my daughter sent me for Christmas – a romanticized depiction of an English potting shed filled with containers bursting with colorful flowers. The puzzle had sat, unopened, for the last month, but suddenly it called to me and I found myself spending hours placing just one or two pieces in place and enjoying the pink, blue, and white flowers tumbling out of the hanging baskets depicted by the artist.

Spring is Just Around the Corner

Apparently all of these elements went into my sudden desire to dig in the dirt that comes to me every spring. Even when the southern California summers have destroyed my attempts at an outdoor herb garden and the Santa Ana winds have broken branches off my Elephant Ear and Meyer Lemon plants, optimism prevails and I begin the gardening year hopeful that this year will be different.

So bring it on, SoCal. I know it’s not spring yet, but the glimpse I received in the last few days have reassured me that it will soon be here.

Do you have a garden? How is it surviving winter? What plans do you have for the spring?

Marlene Anne Bumgarner writes primarily about food, family, and traditions. Her 2020 memoir, Back to the Land in Silicon Valley, is about raising children, animals, and vegetables on a rural plot of land in the 1970s.  

Organic Cooking for (not-so-organic) Families will be out soon. Marlene is currently writing a cozy mystery.