Don't be SOO eager for Spring. (I know, I know...)

Ah, March in New Jersey.  It's a tenuous time - we are so eager for this winter to be over, yet Mother Nature doesn't always want to cooperate.  Case in point:  Last Friday, the mercury hit 77 degrees here in Maplewood.  Children were flinging off jackets and donning shorts faster than you could hang up your snow shovel.  It gave us a glorious taste of things to come.  Hope you all soaked it in.

And then there was Tuesday.  The temperature plummeted down to freezing again.  Rain mixed with snow.  Which went into Wednesday.  We all woke up to a solid 2 inches of snow, less than a week after that taste of summertime.  Roads were treacherous.  Mittens were dug out.  The first lacrosse game, so eagerly awaited, was canceled due to field conditions.  Oy.

Which brings me to my point.  I know many of you were eager to pop into the garden.  Eager to rush out to the nursery and start plucking seedlings off the shelves.  But fight the urge.  The unpredictability of spring is a big tease - you need to laugh at it.  There's no sense in complaining about the weather.  It will be what it will be, regardless of your opinion.   But if you rush out and start planting, just because the ground has momentarily thawed and the weather turned nice, you will wind up heartbroken and frustrated.

Please be patient and wait until the last frost has passed.  That means weather that stays consistently above 40 degrees, even at night.  You will ultimately wind up with frozen foliage and will have wasted all your hard work.  Clean up the garden, by all means.  Make the beds ready to receive your luscious tomatoes or peonies.  But wait.  Few things are certain in life. But spring is one of them.  I promise, it will get here.