So, you spent part of the weekend planting. Maybe you got your annuals potted up or your veggies in the ground. Then….the storm hit.

Did you or your plants sustain any damage?

We got torrential rain and hail here in Scandia, which is not too far from Hugo, where the tornado touched down. Fortunately, the hail stones weren’t big enough to do a lot of damage. The rain gauge says we got over two inches in about 30 minutes, and that was enough to wash most of my grass seed down the hill. Looks like I’ll be reseeding today.

I’m grateful to be doing that rather than picking up pieces of the roof or starting over with my garden.

Ack! I can’t believe it! My pansies got zapped by the frost last night. I even covered the pot with one of my husband’s old shirts. Now I’ve got a big old pot of what looks like frozen spinach. What am I going to do? Cook it up for dinner?

Did anyone else get it? Or am I the only one?

Also, in another sign of belated spring, the Daffodil Society of Minnesota has canceled it’s spring show, orginally set for May 3-4. The reason? The daffodils haven’t bloomed yet.

Four solid days of rain and snow.

How far I have, before things grow!

I’m a lot behind and a little frustrated.

This stinky weather has left me inundated.

Okay, so I’m not a poet. I’d like to be a gardener, but you-know-what has so not been cooperating. I’ve got fruit trees that want to be planted, strawberries that would shrink from this weekend’s snow, seed potatoes sitting around in bags and boxes of onion starts in the living room, just waiting to…start.

I know I’m not alone in my pain. Are garden chores piling up at your house too? How will you get everything done? What’s your plan of attack? Or are you cool as a cucumber now and not worried?

Write your own gardening couplet here. The Greengirls will send you a prize (probably a cool gardening book) if it’s better than mine (and what wouldn’t be!).

I was going to whip out my handy garden-chore checklist for the weekend. . . but the forecast changed my mind. Rain. Sleet. Snow? Oh my!

Instead of raking, getting rid of the last of the winter mulch or improving the (now soggy) soil, here’s the weekend homework assignment for us hardy northern gardeners: Planning.

Instead of doing, we can think about what we’re going to do — as soon as the weather turns. So I’m going to pull out all my dog-earred plant catalogs and a few of my favorite reference books and actually plan out what to put in my containers.

Usually, I just get a vague idea, go shopping — without a list, of course — and end up with something else. But not this year. This year, I’m going to have a plan. I’m going to make a list. And I’m going to stick to that list. 

Hey, I can dream, can’t I?

Hey, we can all plan for the perfect garden, can’t we?

Don’t you hate sunscreen? We gardeners know we should wear it. But I hate it. It’s gooey and sticky and irritates my eyes. And when I put it on my lips, I swear I can taste it in my mouth. And who wants to deal with all that just to go out and pull a weed or two?

Starting today, I do.

I just learned I have skin cancer. It’s right along my lower lip, a common place (along with the nose and ears) for us outdoor-loving types to get skin cancer. If it were on my shoulder, it might not be that big a deal. But my face is…well, it’s usually the first thing people see when they meet me. My lips are kind of useful for eating and talking and kissing, if I’m lucky. Big gaping holes or scars aren’t really how I want to be recognized or remembered.

I figured someday I would probably get skin cancer. I’m fair-skinned, I grew up playing in the sun before they started talking ozone and sunscreen, and I got many sunburns, some of which blistered. And as I’ve just confessed, I haven’t been exactly religious about sunscreen in my gardening habits.

I am embarrassed about this, but I can admit it to you. I thought I’d be old when I got it and, frankly, it wouldn’t matter all that much then. I feel pretty silly about that now. I’m not that old. And to me, it does matter.

If you’re a dedicated sunscreen user or hat wearer, rock on! I admire you. But in case you’re like me and managed to ignore warnings until now, take 20 seconds for yourself or your daughter or your sibling and keep reading.

There are more than a million cases of new skin cancer diagnosed every year, according to the American Cancer Institute. Of these, about 90 percent are caused by sun exposure. Bla, bla. Just numbers, right?

How about this one: If you’re Caucasian, your chances of getting skin cancer in your lifetime is 1 in 3.

Or this: A person’s risk for skin cancer doubles if he or she has had five or more sunburns. Not in a summer. In a lifetime.

Oh, and if you’re female, you might want to know this, too: The percentage of women under age 40 with basal cell carcinoma has tripled in the last 30 years, while our rate of squamous cell cancer has increased four-fold.

Want to test your sun safety knowledge? Or learn more?

Squamous cell carcinoma is what I have, by the way. I was going to have surgery to remove it and show you my post-op photo, thinking that might encourage any of you with stubborn streaks like me to finally don a hat. But I can’t show you that photo just yet. It might scare small children.

Actually, the area the doc wanted to remove was so big, he said plastic surgeons would have to reconstruct my lip with skin grafts and flaps and it wouldn’t ever be quite right. So I’m trying an immune system booster to see if we can shrink the cancer enough so surgery won’t leave me looking like Zipper Scar Girl. That would be a really different kind of blog from Green Girls.

So as you head out to the garden and enjoy the sun, please do so responsibly. In fact, tell me your secrets. How do you protect yourself from sun damage? Are you devoted to hats? Long sleeves? Sunscreen? Please, tell me about it so I know I’m not alone.

And one final favor: If you see me outside in the middle of a sunny day, kindly escort me to the shade.