On Vegetables and Lockdown by MaryBeth Yancey | July 15, 2020

“I’ll be honest: when lockdown started, I was panic-buying vegetable seeds. I always have a small summer garden wherever I can (right now I’m lucky to live in an apartment with a lovely porch), but this year there was an intensity of planning that I’ve never had before. Previously, I’d miss a couple days of watering here and there and lose some seedlings, but this year it was extremely hard to do the necessary thinning. It’s only recently that I’ve come back around to my usual laissez-faire garden management, and I must admit my herbs are better off for my extra dedication. I’ve done potatoes for the first time this year (see photo) and they’ve been absolutely thrilling. There’s an inherent mystery and magic (and frustration) in growing something entirely out of sight.

“Another quarantine project, which I’m happy to report I utterly failed at, was sourdough. After a week of careful measuring and babying, my homebrew of starter was unable to make dough rise, so I added one of my last store-bought packets of yeast and called it close enough. For the time being, I think I’ll stick with soil and fertilizer, and hope for a friend who has come out of lockdown with enough starter to share a jar. “