The more you look, the more you'll see.

I tend to get excited about projects and rush into them without planning. In this vein, I began planting seeds in my garden without any thought of row markers or crop labels. So, my later labelings were all approximations and guesswork. (By the way, I found old mini-blinds in the alley and cut them into row markers).  Then, all of a sudden I had TONS of things sprouting, and absolutely no idea what was a weed and what was desirable! (Except thistles--those knarley fellows are hard to miss). So I just let everything grow for a little while, and spent a lot of time staring. I stared until I could kind of see faint lines of similar-looking sprouts forming. And I stared at places where I hadn't planted anything to memorize what common weed sprouts look like. It became easier to distinguish what was good and what was bad. It's an enjoyable little puzzle. There is a small thrill when I can suddenly recognize what I've been looking at for so long is exactly who I was expecting to see (spinach and carrot sprouts, in this case). I'm learning a language with my eyes.

I finally remembered to bring my camera to the garden today. Here you see my sprouting lettuce:

And this, which I've determined is definitely spinach.

And here is one of the peonies!