January is the perfect time to plant a garden. Snow covers the ground and my back yard has the appearance of a Christmas card, but as I look at the luscious red tomatoes on the cover of the seed catalog cover, all I can picture is a warm June day.
As I turn the catalog pages, I see myself, on a June evening, with trowel in hand, kneeling beside a raised bed garden, carefully sprinkling tiny carrot seeds into a furrow. I see myself gently patting the soil over them, pondering how these minuscule specks will grow into robust, orange carrots. I remind myself to do a better job at thinning this year. Last year I waited too long, thereby stunting the growth.
As I turn the catalog pages, I remember that my garden box needs reorganizing, so I haul a small cardboard container from the basement where I stored it last November.
Now, in the midst of winter, I riffle through the used seed packets, some full, others with a smidgeon of seeds. Other envelopes are empty but saved for reference.
The garden box holds a hodge-podge of seeds, so I decide to sort out the packets and plan for next summer. I find a full envelope of yellow bush beans and wonder why I didn’t plant them. I love wax beans, so I place this packet in the plant-next-summer-pile. Swiss chard? I remember having bad luck with it, but I keep the seeds just in case.
Since I order from Seed Savers Exchange, and the seeds are heirloom, some of the names are unusual. I find a lettuce named Amish Deer Tongue and another called Aunt Mae’s Bibb.
As I reach into the box’s bottom, I unearth proof of my biggest gardening blunder a packet of Country Gentleman sweet corn. There must be someone in Cook County able to grow sweet corn successfully, but it isn’t me. One hapless year, without any thought for reality, I decided to plant sweet corn. I gave no thought to our short gardening season. Amazingly, several ears of corn formed, but the niblets were pale and tasteless. Not worth the trouble.
My biggest garden success this past summer was the Nasturtium and Bachelor’s Button flower seeds. I tossed them in between the rows of veggies where they thrived, blooming beautifully all summer until the last frost.
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