This will only hurt for a minute...

There comes a time in the life of every parent gardener when you have to make some hard decisions. Today was one of those days. As baby seedlings grow they must be thinned out. It's for the greater good and I'm certain it hurts me more than it hurts them. When I first planted the seeds, I placed a pinch of seeds into each little peat pellet. Now that the seeds have grown into plants, each pellet can only support one plant.

This is what my tray looked like when I started.

But a few snips with these suckers will take care of things.

You can see that there are multiple plants per pellet.

I picked the strongest looking plant in each pellet and snipped the rest.

I also removed from the tray any pellets with plants that are
clearly not going to make it.

I rearranged the remaining plants to allow for better airflow
around the plants. Now my tray looks nice and tidy :)

As for the plants that aren't going to make it, I'll just try planting the seeds directly into the garden. All of my chard failed last time I tried to start it indoors, but flourished in the garden. I think it's almost always worthwhile to give things a try. The last time I grew kale I planted it at the end of May, much too late to start kale here in Zone 6. But it sprouted and grew anyway. Then it kept growing right through the heat of the summer. Then it kept growing right through the cold of the winter. It finally went to seed toward the end of the spring. So you just never know unless you try!

Since I've totally dropped the ball on my scheduled spring cleaning plans for the last several days, I feel like I should offer some sort of explanation. It's not an excuse, just an explanation. Over the last couple of weeks, I've been presented with some situations that made me realize that I've got some internal/emotional spring cleaning to do. Whenever I realize that I need to do a little work on myself, it kind of takes over my brain. Remember, I've already acknowledged that I have issues with all-or-nothing thinking, so I know this isn't the healthiest or most effective way to handle things. But I have to watch out or I'll start obsessing over why I always tend to obsess over everything :)

So I've been spending any available time doing some soul-searching. Well, that and badgering The Hubs for his thoughts and ideas on why I do the things I do and how I might go about doing them differently. There are a couple of relationships in my life that I find extremely challenging - mostly because I continue to expect (out of hope, I think) the other person to behave differently when the fact is that they have given me no reason whatsoever to expect that change. On an intellectual level I know that I just have to change my expectations to be more aligned with reality. On an emotional level I find that very difficult to do.

I have also been spending quite a bit of time examining my faith lately. My faith itself has not changed. I am a Christian. What has been changing a lot over the last few years is my idea about what I think that "looks" like. Sometimes I feel uncomfortable talking about this with people because I worry about alienating both my Christian and non-Christian friends. But I am feeling compelled lately to face the world with more integrity in this area, to be more honest and forthcoming about my beliefs and about my questions.

I don't expect to come to any actual solutions in these areas. At least not anytime soon. What usually happens is that I wrestle with things like this until I resolve enough of the problem to feel that I am making some progress. It's all about baby steps, for sure. That frees up a little space in my brain and I start being able to function normally (for me) again. For a while. Until the next thing comes along.

So I apologize for jumping the track a bit. Thanks for your patience while I sort a few things out. Ooh - I almost forgot to tell you! There's a giveaway announcement coming up in a couple of days! It's something cute and springy and you'll just have to wait to see it!