That time of year again!

It's that time again! It is the dead of winter, yet the hopeful among us are sending our seed orders in so that when this arctic tundra thaws, we will be ready! We will have our tender little seedlings ready to set out. We will plant seeds out in freshly plowed dirt and eagerly await the arrival of the first green shoots! Now the dreams are firm in our minds of how wonderful our garden will be! I invite you to dream and plan with me. The garden is my second home during the months of May-October. And this year will be the best ever! (See, there is that ever-present winter optimism.) I'm planning on sharing my past garden experiences while keeping a current journal of how things are going this year.

I like to think of myself as an organic gardener. I do my best to control of the little nasties that make my garden a not-so-nice-place with natural means. This means a lot of good old getting down and dirty! I do have the assistance of a great tiller that I thoroughly enjoy using, which makes some of the gardening tasks SO much easier. There is nothing quite like watching an aisle of weeds succumbing to the turning tines of my blue BCS wonder! This year I also have the added joy of gardening again with my best friend. We will be sharing the wealth and work of both of our home gardens, and if I can talk her into it, the "putting up of the harvest." (Kris... hint hint!) We have gardened together in the past, and it was wonderful!

This thought of organic gardening brings me to a dilemma--where to get my seeds? I have made a personal commitment not to buy seeds from certain large agri-companies who persist in playing God with questionable practices in bio-technology. Thankfully, I have found quite a few seed companies that have committed to a safe seed pledge that I have come to depend upon. My favorite of these is Fedco Seeds. The majority of the seeds in the garden this year will come from Fedco. There are quite a few others that are worth mentioning also: Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds, Seeds of Change, and Seed Savers Exchange. And not only can one depend on safe seeds from these companies, their catalogs are feasts for the eyes.

Next post I will try to include the list of seeds that will hopefully be speeding their way in the mail to me soon! In the meantime I leave you with this quote:

By the time one is eighty, it is said, there is no longer a tug of war in the garden with the May flowers hauling like mad against the claims of the other months. All is at last in balance and all is serene. The gardener is usually dead, of course.
~Henry Mitchell, The Essential Earthman, 1981