Until the Real One Comes Around

Most of the ordered seeds arrived some weeks ago (except for the asparagus transplants that won't arrive until March), where they have languished in the closet without further attention.  One of these days the time will come when something cultivational needs to happen with them.  "Something" like putting them in seeding containers in the greenhouse, or sowing them directly into the soil.  Toward that end, this afternoon I began to organize them -- at this point according to source.  Already I have begun to indicate what kind of growing season each requires, with "flags" for earliest and later seeding in the greenhouse.  Eventually I will create a separate inventory according to plant group and management plan rather than vendor; here, however, is the basic historical record of what I have and from whence it came.

It is, as is readily apparent, a mix of the idiosyncratic and the fundamental; the whimsical and the essential, all tied together in a preposterously ambitious bow.  It is, I'll admit, hubris to think I can honor all of these seeds with the care and attention they deserve -- and the list doesn't even include the garlic I've already planted and the fingerling potatoes we saved back from last year's harvest -- but I intend to learn from my mistakes as well as my beginner's dumb luck, so as far as I'm concerned broader is better than narrow.  I'm too old to start small, and too impatient to move slowly.  Besides, part of what sucked me into this intrigue was boredom with the handful of options at the grocery store.  Why settle for iceberg lettuce when you could potentially enjoy Redleaf Amaranth, Flame, Amish Deer Tongue, Tango, and Merveille Des Quatre saisons lettuce?  Why wouldn't you try to by-pass the produce section's "tomato shaped objects" and select instead -- with any luck -- the Emmy, Egg Yolk, Green Zebra and Brandywine tomatoes hanging from the bushes out back?   Just getting to say "Egg Yolk tomato" for the next few months will be worth it, even if the bushes fail to deliver their goods.

And so the conceptual work begins.  Next step is the online garden planner where the layout is conceived and the varietals distributed.  And then...

...a beautiful virtual garden that will eventually bear some, perhaps shocking, resemblance to the one that actually emerges from the ground.