The MiL and I sat down at the dining room table on Sunday and . . . made a big ole mess.
That right there is hundreds of pounds of food . . . assuming I can get them all in the ground and keep those goddamn rabbits from eating it all.
First I sorted the seeds, tossing aside the flower seeds, because pfffft, flowers. I want the edible stuff. Flowers are the MiL's gig. Then I threw out, at the MiL's direction, some really old seeds that would be a waste of time to plant, because spinach seeds from 2005? Are not going to germinate. And then, I took note of what we had left. We had a lot left. Including far too many packets of cabbage and pumpkin seeds. Really now, why do we have four different packets of cabbage seeds? Who the hell plants, and eats, that many cabbages? No need to buy cabbage seeds, then. Noted.
Then I sorted these packets into Seeds to Be Started Indoors, Seeds to Be Sown Directly in the Ground, and Seeds We Might Not Have Room For*. And THEN, I wrote down a schedule for the seeds that need to be started indoors (like hot peppers and eggplants get planted first, around the beginning of March, then bell peppers at the end of March, leeks at the first of April, etc.).
And then we could FINALLY actually make the lists of seeds we needed to buy. There were quite a lot we needed to buy. We had no lettuce seeds, no beet seeds, no corn, radishes, peas . . . well, you get the idea. We ended up ordering from four different companies (Pinetree, John Scheepers Kitchen Garden Seeds, Harris, and Burpee--I always giggle to myself when I see this name) to get all the varieties we wanted.
Seed ordering is such an inherently hopeful activity. It's a sign that winter really WILL be over sometime, that it will eventually be warm enough to plant and grow green (and purple, and red, and yellow . . .) things again. I'm always filled with giddy optimism at the sight of all those seeds. It's the only time of year when the garden is nothing but a joy, because, of course, no actual WORK has to be done yet.
We just won't think of all the digging and planting and weeding and watering and sore muscles to come. No, for now, we'll just focus on the seeds and their promise of spring. Amen.
* The MiL actually said during this process that our garden is TOO SMALL. Have you SEEN the size of our garden? If it were any bigger, I'd need a tractor and a couple of laborers to deal with it all.
12 comments:
It's all so exciting! I'm going to garden vicariously through you this year. I just don't have it in me to ACTUALLY do it. I could shoot at the rabbits, though!
When we had an unseasonably warm day on Sunday & the snow was melting, I got totally excited about planting my minuscule herb & tomato garden (your garden eats my garden FOR BREAKFAST). Then I remembered having to plant and weed and water it all the time...damn needy plants.
Here is where I posted the fruition of my first attempt at gardening (if you get a chance):
http://bigskygirls.blogspot.com/2008/07/ill-never-be-martha-no-matter-how-hard.html
Martha is my perfect green-thumb grandmother...or Martha Stewart.
I was also thinking, did you save any seeds from that crazy tomato that your cat ruined? You could've had it's offspring to eat!!!
And I loved the name you picked for your drink & the story behind it. Good job RLS.
If it wouldn't be too much trouble, would you please tell us what you are planting and if it is started indoors or out so we can all follow along and have hundreds of pounds of food?
I mean, as you are doing it.
I love seed magazines this time of year! We just received the Seed Savers Spring issue and I am putting an order together soon. Ah dreaming of spring...
Your garden is TOO SMALL? My god, that MiL is a slave driver.
I don't mind the gardening. (Well, I do a little, but I'll get out there and weed and water and all that.) But I only grow flowers so there's nothing to do after that. If I had to harvest the garden and then can it, I'd have to shoot my brains out.
A. Your MiL is delusional. OR - maybe she plans to get you a groundskeeper for your birthday?
B. YAY for seed buying time! I'm on it, too. Although on a MUCH smaller scale. I *may* order 4 packets of seeds.
Out of curiosity, do you mind sharing *roughly* how much you spent on seeds, and how much produce they will, uh, produce? I'm just curious how much your labor is worth... you know, if you spend $100 on seeds and the resulting produce would cost $1,000 in the grocery store, that type of thing. Ok, on second thought I know that involves math. We'll have to bring in Drew for that, cuz I hate math, too.
It's easy to get carried away when sitting in a chair dreaming, isn't it?
Heh, sounds like MIL might be thinking about enlarging the garden. Crack that whip, MIL! ;) It's always so much easier when there is someone else to do the work. Cloning suddenly doesn't sound like such a bad idea, does it?
RLS: We often try to figure out the market value of our produce when we're sitting around eating it, but it's really, really hard to do. For one thing, the value is actually more equivalent to farmers market prices, which are significantly higher than grocery store prices, because our garden is almost entirely organic. Then there's the point that many of the varieties of things we grow (like the specialty eggplants and beets we like) wouldn't be available anywhere we shop, anyway, and if we were to pay city prices for them (likely the only place you'd be able to find them), the value goes way up.
I spent about $90 on seeds this year. However, not all of those will be planted this year. Some of the packets will only be partially used, and then they'll be planted the following year. But do I get ten times the value of the seeds out of that garden in actual food? Easily.
Different foods have different price returns, too. For example, I eat LOTS of fresh lettuce when we have all I can eat. So $10.00 worth a week from about$5.00 worth of seed for three or four months--it mounts up. And then there are the tomatoes, the tomatoes, the tomatoes. The cabbage seed we planted last year cost 90 cents, I think, and we got from it at least $15.00 of cabbage (and still have a good firm head to use: it keeps!). So let's hear it for "Ruby Perfection" -- knowing the names of one's vegetables may be worth a fortune in itself. And some things--like those cabbages, take up a lot of space for a long time, even though they are easy to grow. So yes, perhaps a bit more space would be nice: as it is, we plant leaf lettuce between the sweet corn rows, a practice I highly recommend. By the time the corn gets big, the lettuce is finished.
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