Mid-April Convergence

National Gardening Day, followed by Tax Day.

Yesterday was apparently National Gardening Day. Today is Tax Day. What does it say that these two dates connected to how I spend so many of my hours follow each other so closely on the calendar? It's like my own little life slice of the month/year.

I did spend Gardening Day in the garden, assessing, daydreaming, easing into the gardening season. The tulips survived and are finally coming into their own - very yellow - matching the warmth of the day (don't mind the shiso seed heads and skeletons that I haven't yet managed to remove). The balmy weather prompted me to bring the jasmine and the Thai lime outside - after I defoliated them of their dry, crispy leaves; the jasmine leaves I crushed by hand so the plant could mulch itself, ...

...while the Thai lime leaves got collected for future use (the dried are not as fragrant as the fresh leaves, but I have seasoned rice with it, seen recipes calling for the fresh in soups and stews - which should rehydrate the dried, maybe?). Let's see how much the lime tree bounces back; it seems the new growth happens where the wood is still green, which isn't very much of the little tree.

I never did start the tomato seedlings over Winter (even as everyone else out in Instagram gardening world were starting from back in January or February, I sat with the guilt and the cloud of non-accomplishment and inertia), so we're going to try some direct sowing this year. I have more seeds that I collected and may attempt some very late eggshell seedlings, too, as insurance - a hedge against the direct sows not germinating. In the meantime, there are rainy days ahead, so I wanted to capitalize and get some lazy growing going by sprinkling seeds from these shriveled fruit (insect eaten, or split, or starting to mold post-last harvest, so they weren't consumed), then burying the dried fruit. We'll see if anything emerges.

On that note, the two survivors of the one-time Maple Triplets are leafing at very different rates; oddly, the bigger one is more stunted in leaf than the medium one, while the smallest just seems dead.

Also emergent, in one of the large nursery pots where a seed tomato was sown, a sugar snap pea - finally! I was afraid none would germinate. It's surrounded by chickweed, though, so I'll need to give it some breathing and growing room.

All that gardening (mostly garden contemplation) was really just procrastination on filing my tax returns (and tending to other dreaded household tasks). Even those of us in tax-centered fields can dread the actual exercise of preparing an income tax return.... All I did was buy myself some time, hopefully to be picked up and done once and for all sooner rather than later.

So my metaphysical small sliver of the calendar: Gardening Day (passion, fun, love), then Tax Day (work, drudgery, responsibility) represents the struggle between distraction versus duty that has always been present in my life, from my earliest childhood schooldays. It's like my chronological analog to the Greek drama masks depicting comedy and tragedy.