Gardening is a risk. The dead Japanese Holly in the corner of the garden is testament to the fact that nothing is forever, especially when you do something wrong, in which case, it’s much shorter than forever. The name of the game is to take risk, but calculated risk. As in TI-82 type risk.

In a mildly daring move to harden off my seedlings before planting them in the upcoming week, I put out the trays and pots containing my entire veggie crop yesterday. I felt like I was leaving 60 infants at the bus station in Newark.

All day they were exposed to the unpredictable and windy conditions that helped earn Panthy’s Garden its original name Hatchachewwit or The Panther’s Windy Place.

I tried not to be a big baby and just do it. I put them in and around anything that could give them a bit of cover. Turns out, they were fine.

My lettuce got a little sad around the edges but honestly, it’s going to be a lot more sad when I cram it in my mouth in a week.

In order to minimize the risk of losing my first round of tomatoes to the stinky blight that rolled through here last year I opted to start another bunch of seedlings two weeks after the first. And to not be stuck with a lot of greens at once, I’m staggering the planting of salad greens by 2 weeks. Three trays of greens, two weeks between em, ya dig?

Since I’m basically the Don King of the Hudson Valley Seed Library, hyping them to death,  I finally put in a late order for some of their world-famous Art Packs, if for no other reason than to continue to rave about them. They got here today, don’t hate:

They also came with a handwritten thank you on the receipt from Ken Greene himself! High-five Ken.

In they go, the very last of the seedlings. And in a few short weeks this blog will be less about my kitchen counter and more about the risks I’m taking to grow some fancy ass vegetables out in The Panther’s Windy Place.