Dear Customers,
As I wrote this, almost a month before it appears in our ad, there are piles of snow, particularly in the woods behind the high school which faces North. By the time you read this, I fully expect to be mowing the lawn. Its just one of those things, as you get older, that you take notice of every year. For instance, when I used to sign up for 8 weeks of ski lessons at Wing Hollow back in the early 1980’s. they would begin the first week of January. It became an annual thing that we would get a major thaw sometime in February which wiped out 2 or 3 of the 8 weeks.
About that same time, I began to notice that I would be running the lawn mower as soon as the ground dried up enough to get the tractor on it! Since all these things are completely weather dependent, you can’t pinpoint the exact day or date that outdoor activities begin with a flurry. A month ago, I was in Southeastern Pennsylvania for the weekend. People there are mowing, trimming shrubs and watching leaves and blossoms pop out on their shrubbery. At the exact same time that we’re still operating our snow shovels!
My tomato plants have been getting progressively larger and more robust in the greenhouse since the first week of April. With any luck, I’ll be able (weather permitting) to transplant them into the garden in another month or so. Since the onset of Covid 19, the number of people who have begun gardening has increased steadily. Whether its due to any money saving intent or just to shrug off the doldrums of being cooped up in the house for several months, it’s said that home gardens have doubled in number over the past two or three years.
My own reasons are simpler. My Dad, Sam Costa, Sr., was an avid gardener and as he aged, he found it more and more difficult to do it himself. Fortunately, at least for him, he had a son that lived close by and he would enlist my aid frequently. Roto-tilling, planting, hoeing, weeding and cultivating were just some of my many tasks and I must say, I didn’t particularly relish it – at the time! My Dad has been gone for some 26 years now, and gardening, while once an onerous task, has become a way for me to stay connected to him, his memory and his legacy.