Right about the time Christmas cards started arriving in our mailbox, so did a smattering of seed catalogs. Mail doesn't get any better that the combination of both.
I love these catalogs. Similar to the way I used to pour over the toy section in the JC Penny catalog, I pour over heirloom tomatoes, a variety of beets that spans the rainbow and sweet corn.
Rory and I have gone on two dates this week (gasp!) and on both dates we spent most of our time talking about our 2014 garden. I even brought a seed catalog and a notebook in to the chinese restaurant last night and we sketched our game plan for the garden ahead while eating pot stickers.
Our 2013 garden was a pretty great success. We started with a lawn and ended up with awesome BLT's, lots of potatoes, sweet peas, eggplants, beans, onions, peppers and sweet corn. I'd consider that a success.
Here's my greatest gardening take away point (I think I've said it before...I'll probably say it again): gardening is all about trial and error. You try things. And some seeds, plants or methods of gardening work great, and others don't. So the next year you course correct and try something different. Sometimes you know why a crop didn't produce well, sometimes you don't. I remember feeling pressure while planting our first garden to "do it right." And though there are rules in planting seeds that you should follow, there is also a whole lot of wait-and-see in gardening. So a girl like me needs to just relax. And then enjoy how amazing it is that we are planting teeny seeds that have life in them and will grow to produce food for us to eat!
Our garden in 2013 was basically strips on lawn that Rory rototilled up. Then he painstakingly went up and down each strip with a pitchfork and scooped the sod into the wheelbarrow. It took a long time. With each pitchfork he had to loosen the grass, shake the dirt off and dump it into the wheelbarrow. But he kept at it.
We planted berries in the front of the garden, in two patches running horizontally. We prepped one patch for blueberries, getting the soil to the right acidity level so we can plant blueberries this year.
Our only water spigot is way up on the side of the house. Which would be a pretty long way to drag a hose. So one Friday afternoon Rory ran an errand and come home with a trencher and proceeded to put down hose that would reach a second spigot out near the garden.
When he was done with that he built his own drip irrigation system out of pvc piping. Because in his words, "I'm not going to go out there every thirty minutes and move a sprinkler around. This is way easier." And of course in the long run it was easier. But watching him diligently drill holes every few inches down his pvc pipes didn't look super easy...
He used extra pvc to built a trellis for the sweet peas and for a while we protected our baby tomato plants with cement cylinders.
The potatoes were heaped with hay and for a while our garden was looking pretty impressive.
So much so that we had to put some fencing up to deter the animals. But my budget-happy husband only spent enough money to fence three sides of the garden. The plan was that we'd buy more fencing the next month when we had more money back in the "lawn-and-garden" category of the budget. But that never happened, so we had a three sided fence all season. And actually not a lot of critters either. I think the animals haven't found us yet...
We were gone much of July and came back to a very overgrown, but wildly producing garden. This is the joy of gardening! Our first tomato was celebrated with much enthusiasm. Until Ivar tried a bite and threw it "far, far away."
And even better than the first red tomato, are the first fried green tomatoes. My absolute favorite. One of the biggest reasons I enjoy a vegetable garden. I think I made fried green tomatoes six or seven times last August and September.
This 2013 garden was largely Rory's venture. I wasn't really interested in helping out. But something has changed in me for 2014. I have been looking at canning books and working backwards: if I want to can this many quarts of tomato sauce, how many plants do we need this year? I have a sketch of our garden all figured out after our date tonight and I'm excited. And Rory is thrilled that I'm joining in.
And if I loose motivation, I will just look at this lovely picture and remind me: it is totally worth it. Because this BLT killed me. It was so good.
And now, if you'd like some seed catalogs to come to your mailbox, click on these links and fill out your address. It makes for happy, happy mail and makes for much easier garden planning. Burpee Catalog, Johnny's Catalog and Rare Seeds Catalog are my three favorite. And this site has links to 68 other free seed catalogs! (In case winter has got you down and you're needing A LOT of happy mail.)
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