Read by Michael Flamel

Which shall it be? The frozen lettuce just happened, while the too-many tomatoes is yet to occur (but is as sure a certainty as President Clinton is to … well, why don’t you fill in that blank that way if you’re prudish you’ll have to get mad at yourself).

What? Springtime tomato starting not yet a reality?! It’s true-despite Publisher Pat Stone’s lavish spending on Special Effects, this periodical is not yet equipped with its own Time Machine, and so it isn’t anywhere near Spring as I lovingly and oh-so-gently HAMMER these aberrations of an otherwise magnificent language into my poor defenseless keyboard. Don’t mean to trash your seasonal illusions here, ladeez and gentledudes, but I’ve met Pat Stone and trust me-he’s no Rip Hunter (the Time Master, remember?).

However, “Rip” (oooh-I like that! C’mon-let’s make this Pat’s new name! Hey-if you make your renewal checks out to “Rip Stone,” he’ll have to sign ’em! Then it’ll be legal, and he’ll be quickly whisked to Hollywood to blow things up with Bruce Willis and stop bugging me every three months!) wants me to do a Springtime column-you know, like the joy of the first snow pea sprout (followed, of course, by the hypothermic demise of the first snow pea sprout … )

So do I yield to this tyranny and write about the too-many tomato varieties I will almost certainly start somewhere around two months from now (including whether or not to try and germinate those now 15-year-old BELLSTAR and HEINZ paste tomato seeds [the BELLSTAR puppues I think might be able to find elsewhere; but I’m pretty sure the HEINZ have been ‘out of print’ for a generation or so now] obtained from Johnny’s Selected Seeds way back when I used to Garden in the sun)?

Or do I instead stand up for America, Jimmy Stewart, and an almost total lack of imagination regarding events that have not yet occurred and tell about my recent frozen lettuce adventure? Pat (who’s no Adam Strange [“The Thinking Man’s super hero”] either), really wants a “Spring” column (Hey, I did find oneadose (shortest) in the compost a couple or three times), and lam envisioning an even-more-ridiculous-than-usual number of tomato varieties being started thisp (I know that’s a typo, but I kinda like it-thisp-wasn’t that the name of one of those little hard rubber alien guys you useta get in boxes of Shredded Wheat? You know-the ones with little slots in their feet so they could sit on your cereal spoon?), I mean this year.

But we had this really warm fall and early winter, which lulled me into sowing lots of lettuce seed into the garden {insert voice of Bob Uker here}: just a bit later {end Uke} than the Spaulding Guide/Eliot Coleman recommend(s).

My rationale for this too-late planting (well, one of’ em ) was that the seed was so old (more Johnny’s from back when it was packaged by minimalist) it probably wasn’t going to germinate anyway, so I would be relatively blame-free fro a garden failure for a change.

Then to top things off, it didn’t rain for, oh, about three months, and, of course, even I know better than to go out and water Pennsylvania garden in December (and it got dark too early and the car threw up and the dog ate my Jeffersonian notebook and …).

so I got what the book says you should get under such circumstances, which is bupkis, rien, nada-you know, nuthin’. Understandable bupkis to be sure-a bupkis you could bet the house on, in fact. But combined with the fact that I had lost track of time (Olympicly) and or had a temporary brain tumor (your choice) this fall and wound up picking my garlic just the tiniest bit (ok, seven weeks or so) late (and those princessey stinkers really don’t have any sense of humor about such things, ya know?),

I was beginning to wonder if perhaps I had drifted into the wrong line of non-work.

And then, all of a sudden one short December day, I notice that there is a fair amount of lettuce growing in my garden. Nothing like turning your back on the beds to get the old plant growth genes hoppin, eh?

Four nice-sized RED SAILS plants scattered in three different beds and a whole bunch oflittle green sprouts of what! knew to be some variety of green leaf (I think) lettuce but not which variety because I had gotten mad(s) all the initial response of 19th century seed not germinating instantly in dried-out freezing cold soil and proceeded to seed multiple ancient varieties (actually, some of the varieties could have been fairly modern-it’s the seed itself that was wearing Nehru jackets and leisure suits … ) onto the same spot.

Should I do something? A covering of plastic or shredded leaves to protect it or them? Transplant some into my greenhouse to be moisturized and warmed by the clothes dryer exhaust I wisely (it’s like chimps and Shakespeare-if you just keep busy enough … ) vented out to the structure?

Well, the plastic’s all wet and icky from being jammed into a corner of the greenhouse, and I learned my lesson about unshredded leaves years ago (and still remember it! The ginkgo’s working!), and all the extension cords I could use for the leaf shredder are contributing to the fire hazard of our festive holiday goyim lights, and—well, actually I have no excuse for not transplanting; I just didn’t do it (and I’m sticking to that story, your honor!)

As this proceeds to be the warmest late fall and early winter in history, ‘watchful waiting’ turns out not to be such a bad idea.

And then my cockiness suddenly fades one day at work as I remember that the graphic fortheweather in the local paper that morning had been a child with his tongue frozen to the pump handle. Yes, it was supposed to get really cold really soon. But it’s still early-around 11 a.m.! Plenty of time for me to simply go home at lunch! It’s only ten minutes away. I could transplant lots of the lettuce into my warm and cozy greenhouse, where it will grow and prosper and feed my family ….

I instead decide to go to the mall and play pinball-lured by criminal genes and the Creature from the Black Lagoon machine, which has a cool hologram of The Gillman that appears after you kiss your date, get your ticket stamped, open up the snack bar, ride the slide, and start the movie. When I get home around 6:30 that night, it’s like 5 degrees out. Wolves are howling. The lettuce is calling out to me in weak and sickly voices: “Oh, we knew-cough, cough-you’d come! Where were you?”

Now, I have gardened in the dark before and I have gardened in my ‘school clothes’ before. I have even gardened in freezing cold before. But never before have I (you add it all up; l’ve gotta find a shovel-fast ).

Looking back on the next hour or so, it’s hard to say that this nighttime transplanting of frozen lettuce was an entirely bad idea. You know how compost-rich, organic soil can sometimes be so crumbly it falls away from the plants, exposing their roots?

I cleverly avoided this problem by working with frozen bedrock instead, my first shovel plunge uprooting a kind of floating island on which lived lettuce sprouts. You could have turned it in as some kind of school science project, say, an asteroid that was able to support one really tenacious form of plant life …

And it was remarkably easy to ‘plant’ -just plopped it on top of a giant pot filled with soil in the greenhouse. Transplanted another Lost Plateau, moved two of the RED SAILS plants into smaller, individual pots, and was still done in time to be hideously late for dinner. (My wife just shook her head and asked why I hadn’t changed into my good suit first … and then called me a pet name, but Pat swears it’s actually illegal to print it.)

The next day is bright and sunny, and so I, of course, rush right home at lunch. The remainder of the lettuce sprouts look like the aftermath of a miniature plane crash. (Hey, Martha, let’s see you be delicate when you’re digging into frozen ground in the dark.) So I tend to the wounded, replanting some in the bed, some in the greenhouse, watering a bit, and praying for forgiveness.

The next day, it rains. Every one of the accident victims looks be on the way to recovery. And, ya know, if you turn it to the wall the right way and kind of squint, some of that garlic doesn’t look all that bad either. Ah, heck maybe I will plant a garden next (oops-this; sorry, Pat!) year!

Now where did I put all those tomato seeds.

See ya next solstice! ❖