By LYNNE IRONS

What I wouldn’t give for a crystal ball. The weather has been just beautiful and unseasonably warm this past week. My peppers and eggplants are more than big enough to go into the ground but I am somewhat hesitant. It still seems early for crops that love warm nights. Since most of my life has operated under the Murphy’s Law principle, I see a freeze possible still in my low-lying new vegetable garden. I may take a chance and have a supply of Reemay at the ready. It will give an extra five degrees.

My friend Sharlee speaks highly of her piano teacher, Sandra Turner. I have never met her but thanks to Sharlee I know some of her gardening techniques. She lays rugs in the raspberry patch to keep the plants within their bounds. Since I ordered new starts this year, five different varieties, I would like to do something differently. Dare I say more orderly?

As luck would have it, I cleaned out a customer’s attic and found dozens of old rugs. My friend Marie Larsen and I spent an afternoon on our knees with razor knives cutting rugs and placing them all snug around the new transplants. We are referring to it as the raspberry parlor.

I rounded the corner from State Road onto North Road recently and saw a stand of purple money plant around the large electric box. I had completely forgotten about that biennial. I haven’t grown it in years. In the fall I must remember to glean some of the “money,” the round silver dollar sized seed pods, and sprinkle them about!

That you to Tara Bolash Larsen for the phone message assuring me that, in fact, a gathering of crows is referred to as a murder. She confessed to feeding such a murder often enough that they recognize her car. I love that.

While I’m thinking, folks, I owe one to Barbara Babcock for the extra dahlia tubers left at my door. Oddly I had just mentioned in the column that I neglected to dig mine last season but she gifted me while it was still being printed.

The cabbage work already has begin destroying my kohlrabi, early Jerset Wakefield cabbages and turnips. I swear I saw the white moth flying around looking while it ws still in the forties.

My friend Marie is sick of me whining on Sundays that I have no material for this column. She came across this bit of philosophy:

You don’t need a green thumb for this garden (Anonymous)

Plant three rows of peas:

Peace of mind

Peace of heart

Peace of soul

Plant four rows of squash:

Squash gossip

Squash indifference

Squash grumbling

Squash selfishness

Plant four rows of lettuce

Lettuce be faithful

Lettuce be kind

Lettuce be obedient

Lettuce really love one another

No garden without turnips:

Turnip for meetings

Turnip for service

Turnip to help one another

Water freely with patience and

Cultivate with love.

There is much fruit in your garden

Because you reap what you sow.

To conclude our garden,

We must have thyme:

Thyme for God

Thyme for study

Thyme for prayer.

Unusual for me, I have not been able to form an opinion concerning the proposed wind farm. I can actually see both sides of the debate. Again, completely out of character. When Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar announced federal approval last week, I felt relieved that some decision had been made. Then the disastrous oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico has, in a twist of bitter irony, cemented the decision in my mind.