{"id":2590,"date":"2015-04-28T18:49:06","date_gmt":"2015-04-28T23:49:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shirlsu.com\/?p=2590"},"modified":"2015-04-28T18:49:06","modified_gmt":"2015-04-28T23:49:06","slug":"the-joy-and-temporary-sorrow-of-gardening","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shirlsu.com\/?p=2590","title":{"rendered":"The joy and (temporary) sorrow of gardening"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Lately, I&#8217;ve been thrilled watching our garden thrive.\u00a0 <a href=\"http:\/\/www.shirlsu.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/First-tomatoes-042615.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright  wp-image-2591\" src=\"http:\/\/www.shirlsu.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/First-tomatoes-042615.jpg\" alt=\"SAMSUNG CAMERA PICTURES\" width=\"350\" height=\"262\" \/><\/a>It&#8217;s large enough we&#8217;ve been able to space the plantings so DH can get our tiller amongst the tomatoes and between the rows so weeds have been well controlled.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 It&#8217;s downright beautiful and I was elated to find our first tomatoes late last week.<\/p>\n<p>Rain has been timely so watering has been at a minimum.\u00a0 All was well until Sunday&#8217;s storms arrived&#8230;.DUM DAH DUM DUM.<\/p>\n<p>I shouldn&#8217;t complain as I know others suffered much worse weather-related fates.\u00a0 Before we lost power, I watched storm chasers on live streams spot tornadoes and experience peltings from softball-sized hail.\u00a0 We suffered neither of these horrors, thank the gods.<\/p>\n<p>Our garden suffered from straight line winds and torrential rain.\u00a0 The winds blew the young plants over and the rain beat them into the dirt.\u00a0 When I inspected the garden the next morning, I was dumbfounded.\u00a0 All but the snow peas (growing on fencing) and tomatoes (surrounded by cages) were laying flat and coated with sand\/dirt.\u00a0 My brave green soldiers had all fallen in defeat against the stronger weather army.<\/p>\n<p>After spending some time gently misting the sand\/dirt from hundreds of little plants and allowing the sun to work its magic, the plants have slowly begun straightening.\u00a0 With only a few exceptions, I think all will survive.<a href=\"http:\/\/www.shirlsu.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/first-snowpea-harvest-042815.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright  wp-image-2592\" src=\"http:\/\/www.shirlsu.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/first-snowpea-harvest-042815.jpg\" alt=\"SAMSUNG CAMERA PICTURES\" width=\"350\" height=\"280\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>After a brief rain today, I was able to more closely inspect and harvest the first of the snow peas.\u00a0 Sadly, the storms have damaged some of the vines\u00a0 but I&#8217;m hoping they will survive.\u00a0 There were only a few to harvest but I&#8217;ll add to this batch over the next few days to have enough to make shrimp fried rice w\/snow peas, mushrooms, spinach and carrots.\u00a0 It will be wonderful!\u00a0 If the weather cooperates, the plants will grow and produce enough to freeze and enjoy throughout the year.<\/p>\n<p>As always, I spend my evenings hand quilting.\u00a0 Wonky Stars is nearing half done.<\/p>\n<p>Shirl<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Lately, I&#8217;ve been thrilled watching our garden thrive.\u00a0 It&#8217;s large enough we&#8217;ve been able to space the plantings so DH can get our tiller amongst the tomatoes and between the rows so weeds have been well controlled.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 It&#8217;s downright beautiful and I was elated to find our first tomatoes late last week. Rain has been<span class=\"more-excerpt\"><a class=\"more-excerpt-link\" href=\"http:\/\/www.shirlsu.com\/?p=2590\"> (continue reading&#8230;)  <\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27,13],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shirlsu.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2590"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shirlsu.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shirlsu.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shirlsu.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shirlsu.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2590"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"http:\/\/www.shirlsu.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2590\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2600,"href":"http:\/\/www.shirlsu.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2590\/revisions\/2600"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shirlsu.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2590"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shirlsu.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2590"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shirlsu.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2590"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}