It’s spring time. And with spring comes my desire to grow things. I had the day off today, so I went shopping for things to plant.

I bought a tomato plant to put in a pot to grow on my side porch. I had good success with this two years ago. We had great tomatoes all summer long. Last year, not so good. My husband, who is quick with the trigger on Roundup and who has been forbidden to ever buy Roundup again, bought another brand of herbicide. He thought he was helping. He thought he was spraying fungicide on the tomato plant. But, alas, he sprayed the herbicide. The tomato plant didn’t like it very much although it didn’t totally die; it just looked as if it wanted to. This year he is forbidden to touch the tomato plant!

I also bought some impatiens. My yard has lots of shady areas where I have azaleas that do well, but I can’t grow many flowers. Impatiens, however, love shade, and they do very well in pots around my shady areas. The really neat thing about my impatiens from the past is that they are supposed to only be annuals, only good for one growing season, but my impatiens always come back, year after year on the ground around the pots. They won’t come back in the pots, though, so they have to be replanted. But I think it’s just the coolest thing in the world that I have perrenial impatiens in the soil! I actually think they are magic impatiens anyway. My son helped me plant them, and I’m convinced the whole universe was smiling on us that particular day. So, they keep coming back to remind me.

I bought a rose bush, too. It’s called Don Juan, and it smells really good. Now, I can’t grow roses in my yard; they like full sun, and the only area that gets full sun is the side of my house where the driveway and the side porch are. So, that’s why I plant the tomato in a pot on my porch. And I have several pots of roses that I keep along the edge of the drive right up against the porch. Only one bush survived this winter after the horrible drought of summer. I’ve had more roses to die than I care to remember, but I don’t give up easily. I just plant more. So, let’s hope Don Juan grows lustily. With a name like that, why not?

Diana