You know what I've noticed about gardeners? We are resilient. I suppose we have to be. 2019 proved to be the winter that didn't end. Up until the VERY LAST weekend of sales, it rained, it was cold and it was miserable. I thank all of you for coming out and picking up plants with a smile on your faces and hope in your hearts.
I posted this picture (May 4th) a couple weeks before I opened and was gut-wrenched that the plants wouldn't be up to par for Opening Day. Ha! (Why do I worry so much?)
To date, 2019 was the best season I've had. Lesson learned. THIS IS WHY I DO WHAT I DO... Midway through the selling season, a gentleman came into the greenhouse with an air about him like he knew the place. His energy was palpable and yet, I didn't recognize him. He said, " I've been getting my plants from you for years. But, I've never picked them up." "Really?", I said.
"Yeah. My friend Paul Card always picked up the plants." "I wondered about him and why he hadn't gotten a hold of me.", I responded. [Paul was one of a less than a handful of folks that I allowed to place "text orders". He would text me several 'updated' orders over a span of two to four weeks and when the time came he would drive the hour and a half and pick them up.]
This full grown man whom I had never met, looked at me with with tears welled up in his eyes and told me that Paul had passed the previous September. "But, I'm here now and will come every spring because your plants are the best." And that's when my eyes welled up and I had to walk away because in a flash I saw Paul's texts from years past and I knew what plants I needed to pull for this man's friend who's name I never did learn. I put the seven requested tomatoes on the counter and I started calling them off to him and he choked up again - "Yes, those are them." And I cried, too.
Godspeed, Paul. I shall see you again.