I was in rural Georgia this past weekend visiting family and they had seeds starting under grow lights, cool weather sprouts coming up in the tilled land outside and seed catalogs galore to thumb through.
I haven’t grown vegetables in my garden in about six years. I burned out one summer through a combination of bad mushroom compost, multiple hail storms and extreme heat. Thumbing through the thick catalog with gorgeous photos of produce filled me with that weird magical thinking that hits me every spring. I could do this. I could grow my own vegetables. I could have stunning planters everywhere you look. This could be me.
The optimism that hits me in the spring is so profound that you have to wonder if it’s just hardwired into humans. We are Springtime Magical Thinkers. My future August self that has lived through 10 days near or at 100 with no rain rain in sight seems absurd to my Springtime self. In March, I’m confident that version of me won’t happen this year. Things will be lush, things will be green and I will feast like a queen on homegrown vegetables and herbs for the rest of the year.
Here are a few inspiration images to get the other Magical Springtime Thinkers going this season. Collectively we can do this.









Let’s do this! I’m going for more flowers and herbs this year. Like years past, I think I’ll forgo the vegetables but I could be persuaded otherwise if I could be convinced that it would live into our brutal Augusts without me out there babying it every day.
“Spring is the time of plans and projects.”
― Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina