In an average growing season, we make dozens of trips to garden centers, frequently going to more than one in a day. A bedding plant here, a flower or two there... we add to our garden in drips and drabs all spring and summer long.
This is no average season. My usual shopping habits are dramatically curbed. It takes a whole lot of emotional preparation and careful behavior to shop anywhere now. It's much easier to stay home and just make do with what I already have. But bedding plants have been a struggle. I had horrible luck getting seeds to start (so... exactly like every other year for the last 15+ of them). If I wanted vegetables to grow, I had to give in and buy seedlings. And there was only so long I could stand having last year's dead marigold and calibrachoa stalks in pots on the porch. I broke down. The Mr needed to go in search of hardware for the attic fan installation, and I jumped at the chance to get out of the house.
Once we got to Lowe's, I didn't even pretend to go to the hardware section to stand around and wait for him. I just grabbed a cart and headed to the Danger Zone alone. I covered nearly the entire place--inside, outside, and across the way in the two parking lot sections. I filled a cart with a combination of fancy and cheap stuff, from a big alstromeria the same color as the decorations on my wedding cake all those years ago, to the most pitiful half-dead marigolds (the only ones I've found all season). I got most of the vegetables I was missing, but I still can't put my hands on kale or herbs. Why is that this hard? I keep saying I'll go to the locally owned Flower Bin to get the hard to find stuff, and I never do. I'll find a time of day when it will be slightly less crowded, and maybe then my shopping will be complete.
It's a gut punch. When you get just a few plants at a time, it's easy to hide from yourself how much you're spending. When you save it up, and then load up on fewer trips, you have to admit to a problem.
(Rare explanation of tonight's song: when I was carrying zucchini and tomato plants from the front porch to the back garden, Harvey shot outside, and refused to be caught. After dark, when we were watching more of Man in the High Castle, I heard howling outside. I came out to find that little shit four houses down, facing off against another cat... IN THE STREET. I tried chasing him home, and he vanished into a neighbor's yard, and I didn't feel like setting off their Ring doorbell trying to catch him. He didn't come home for more than an hour after that. He has given up his outside privileges. I just have to impress that upon him in a way he will believe.)
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