The other day, Logan and I had a discussion about our garden. For the past few years, we’ve grown snap peas and tomatoes, plus a few herbs to use in our cooking. With our surgery scheduled for April, that’s about the time to start indoor gardening. That’s usually my job and I like seeing them sprout their little leaves. The first year I tried it, I thought we had a voracious tomato plant growing among the other less successful plants. It was actually a maple tree seed that was transported from our backyard compost. It made a lot more sense. The second year, I had almost 100% success. We had a rare May heat wave, and I brought out those delicate little tomatoes into the fresh air and bright sun, allowing them to grow in real sunlight. Two days later, all the leaves turned yellow and I killed every one of them. I realized that you can’t transition plants directly from basement fluorescent lights to direct sunlight.
This year, we’re going to grow some flowers instead of tomatoes. I’m not very good at remembering to wear gloves when I work outside. The warm and moist garden soil is a cesspool of bacteria, and a place that an immuno-suppressed person should stay away from. I’m not willing to tempt fate and allow my brain to forget. Instead, we’ll have easy to maintain plants that are still pretty, i.e. flowers and other annuals for a little a cutting garden. We’ll be able to get our fill of heirloom vegetables from the local farmer’s market. I think I can be trained to wash farmer’s market purchases before eating.
If you’ve got any favorite annuals, let us know! Otherwise we might just buy a bunch of seeds and throw them in the raised bed willy nilly.
The Derek Janiak Hepatobiliary Forum 