Even though the temperatures have been a bit unsettled of late, I went ahead and planted outside.

My onion babies have been out in their flats for a few weeks and have experienced several freezes. They need a permanent home. Also, beets and carrots can be direct seeded. Carrots take a while to germinate, so do not lose hope.

I’ve been eating my early-seeded lettuce and spinach. They’ve spent their lives under a single layer of plastic since mid-February and are absolutely perfect at this point.

It’s wonderful to completely avoid the produce area at the store with the exception of an occasional bunch of bananas.

Year-round food production at home is alwas a plus but this coming winter may be exceptionally problematic given the war in Ukraine and the possibility of worldwide gas and food shortages.

I know I’ve been harping about this subject for more than a decade in my column but this time I really mean it.

Moving on...last week’s column photo of snowdrops had the caption “Daffodils seem to be everywhere these days.” Oops!

In 2012 I did a funeral arrangement of various spring flowers, mostly forsythia. It was the third week in March and my shrub had almost gone past its peak.

This year, 10 years later, that same plant has just come into full bloom this week. I don’t think it is a vindication for climate change deniers but rather the fact this winter was more harsh than several in the past few years.

I was pruning some shrubs this week. St. John’s Wort already has its leaves. This is not true for most, although there are buds everywhere.

Never, I repeat, never plant comfrey. I only tell things I’ve done wrong. One small plant in a perennial bed a few years ago gave me nothing but trouble. I pulled up an incredible number of the babies, put them upside down along an edge, and covered them with a large, thick rug. Recently I moved the rug and found it happily growing, although white from lack of sun. Nature is grand but also annoying.

Sometimes the rate of the passage of time is alarming. The early species crocuses have come and gone, as well as my snowdrops. Now the tiny blue puschkinia are blooming like crazy. They have jumped around the yard hither and yon. Some have come up in the patio cracks. They are especially nice around the helleborus. They will most likely be gone by next week.

Indulge me in a movie reference. In The Princess Bride, Vizzini — played by Wallace Shawn — keeps saying “inconceivable,” to which Andre the Giant’s character Fezzik responds, “I don’t think that means what you think it means.”

It brings to mind Donald Trump’s portrayal of Vladimir Putin as genius and savvy. I don’t think he knows what those words mean, given the latest news coming out of Ukraine.

Our poor world. Aside from war, some seem to have the misguided opinion that Covid is over and things are normal again. The threat to our democracy is looming. There are terrible people in government who outright lie and are just plain mean. To wit: the Senate Republicans questioning Ketanji Brown Jackson. Oh wait, I forgot: she’s black!