OH, THE PAIN, THE PAIN

I’m on day three of the most impairing migraine I have ever had. It’s not the most painful, but it is the most persistent, and it came with a wealth of symptoms I had not previously experienced. I did not recognize them as symptoms, and so I did nothing about preventing the migraine. It started Thursday, and it’s still holding on. It is not as bad as it was when it started (obviously, or I would not be writing this), but I am really ready for it to stop. New to me symptoms: vertigo, nausea, chills, fatigue, and moderate (rather than blinding) head pain. The only visual effect I am having is light sensitivity; you had better believe I am only glancing at the screen occasionally. The keyboard is a lovely, light-absorbing black.

The vertigo and the nausea are what is really impeding my ability to do much of anything.

2016 GARDEN BLOVIATING COMMENCES

• Maybe I mentioned this next bit? The garden has grown in such a way, and there are so many things I want to grow, that I can’t quite keep the beds as defined as I might like to. The 16th C Bed does not have enough sun to grow all the things I want, and even if it had enough, it’s not enough room in one bed to Grow All The Things. Crop rotation as a plan has been failing as I keep inter-planting things for square foot gardening. So I am thinking about just having the whole thing be up for planting grabs and pretend that anything not known to 16th C. Europeans is just an awesome and exotic ornamental I am playing with.
  
  But of course, that thought pattern only matters if I want it to. It’s not like there are English Renaissance Garden Police who are going to look down their noses and sniff if the 16th C. bed spills over in a million ways. At some point, it was going to have to. And that point is now.
• I’d like to put some Rosa Rugosa in this year, because I want more roses and because they have super big hips. The hips are edible and full of vitamin C. Making room for them along the rose area will require moving some plants. I may just take the Russian sage out all together, as it is merely ornamental. I can move herbs over into the 16th C. Bed, as that bed is slowing turning into a permanent planting bed, at least on the side that is part sun. Tarragon, sage, reseeding salad mixes, a Martha Washington asparagus plant that I grew from seed, some leeks that I treat like chives: it’s pretty well established on that end of the bed and so I may as well work with what I got. No matter what historical gardening ideas enchant me, my ultimate goal is an urban food forest.
• The thing I have had the hardest time trying to decide about moving is the rhubarb. I’m thinking of moving it into the 16th C bed. Of course, it’s the 16th C. Bed. And they knew of rhubarb, so that is not the issue, as I am willing to grow any plant known in the English Renaissance. But it gets very big, and will take up a lot of space. I have it in a part-sun corner right now, but I am planning on installing central air, and that spot is where it will have to go. So I certainly need to move the rhubarb and the strawberries, and I should probably move the established perma-bed about three feet away from the wall of the house.
• The thing I am most excited about is the carlin peas. This is a legume that was grown in the Elizabethan era, and I am overjoyed to have gotten hold of some (Go on! Search the internet! Not a single seed company in the States sells ‘em commercially, and they are not easy to locate even in the UK). They came without growing instructions, sorry to say, but thankfully, a nice little site called Old Varieties has brief instructions. There are some discussions online that indicate it’s slower to ripen than either sweet peas or snap beans, so I won’t be worried by that. I am actually going to have to pay real attention to succession planting my legumes this year, as I would like to grow the carlin peas, fava beans, scarlet runners, hyacinth, lentil, and the Cherokee Trail of Tears and Turkey Craw.

That’s it for now. This has taken all day in pausing and returning because of the migraine, and I should stop now.

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*I pulled this picture from a photo found on twitter. I cropped it a bit to make it less nice than the original, and would love to credit the photographer if I knew who it was. I will use it until I can take my own picture.