fleurette

I have previously waxed about the sweet pink bud of the rose named Mme. Alfred Carrière rose before, how she opens palest pink and blooms into this creamy white fullest flower, all summer long.

I love how slutty she is when she comes on all the way.  Not a hint of blush and all those blowsy petals everywhere like the inside-outiest sweater with the smeariest kohl and maybe with a tiny bit too much too drink on high heels.  I love this rose.  L-o-v-e.   True love, not The One I'm With love.

My Cramoisi Supérieur came yesterday, which is good, for I was not here today at UPS o'clock and the regular driver for my route (Sam!) is on vacation this week, and I do not think the substitute would have left it.  Why would he?  He and I have never worked together on package projects, of course.  It is much larger than I expected, in a 2-gallon pot.  Salty old great-gammed barfly Mme Carriére came in the teensiest takeaway coffee cup, with canes not as thick as a stir-stick.

Last week we came home with 7 dullsville hybrid eggplant, 6 dullsville hybrid zucchini, one "Black Krim," one "Prudent's Purple," a spearmint, a peppermint, one echinacea, two zinnias, a flat of nasturtiums, and a jalapeño pepper plant.  It was about 90 degrees and we arrived at the farm's nursery right at noon, which is how we wound up with 7 eggplants called "Black Beauty," I mean.  Garçon  kept putting them into the wagon and I kept being too woozy to say no.  (Last week was the final week of my infirmity-related wooziness, however.  I am back to something like fully-operational since the long weekend.) 

I was also distracted, on the phone with Chickie, while in the heirloom greenhouse.  He panned Mr Stripey, based on past experience, and also Green Zebra.  (I gave Aunt Ruby's German Green a pass.  I mean, whatever, green-when-ripe tomatoes.  Pah.)  The Pruden's Purple came home because I was told it was a cultivar like Brandywine but so dissimilar as to have provoked growers taking sides.  Neither of us can see what is so special about the Brandywine, so I will grow the Pruden's Purple to see if it is more appealing or if the whole genre is not for growers like us.  I can take this hit for the team. 

I have long been nominally interested in doing the Black Krim, so done.  In years past, Chickie and I have both been taken by the Czech tomato, "Stupice."  A small plant, easy to grow, not fussy about a lot of heat or blazing-hot sun all day, sets early fruits that are smallish, but abundant, easy for slicing or salads, and really tasty. I honestly do not even like to eat tomatoes.  I looked halfheartedly last week for a Stupice, but have not found it anywhere as a seedling. I cannot remember I started them from seeds the last two years.  I had not really planned to grow any vegetables this year, so I am the greenhouse's bitch. 

Fillette has been my helper in the garden this year.  I assigned her the starting of several zinnia seedlings for me, and she started 16.  I told her I would pay her ten cents for each seedling when they were ready, but that I only wanted about 10.  She asked if she might keep the rest herself and I wondered if maybe she wouldn't rather sell them to a neighbor.  She said, shrewdly, Will they pay me more than ten cents?  I offered they probably would, since they had not purchased the seeds, soil, and trays.

I was astonished and not astonished -- at once -- by the question.  It is perfectly in character for her to be so calculating, so careful, but on the other hand ... my baby!  It is not like the rosebuds, where I get a chance every year again to watch them bloom.  Of course I know this, but then to know it.  I always think I know, and then I don't.  I know how to think of it, but am always shocked at how it feels.  It feels lonely, to know how much I love them, to know they will leave.