Temptation, Thy Name is Seed Packet

So, how many have you already bought? I cannot resist these Little Envelopes of Hope :)

Can you see that I'm planning to ramp up the Thyme Presence in the garden this year?

and that I have a Love of Sunflowers? Peach Passion Sunflowers? There simply was nothin' this Georgia Girl could do to resist :) ....

and these?

a couple more...

and this year I solemnly promise to open...and plant...all of these packets...and any more that have yet to make their way to Number 17...

Usually most of the seed packets I purchase wind up languishing for a couple of years on the fridge door's topmost shelf (did I say for for a couple of years?) until I toss them into the compost heap hoping for a miracle...The whole teeny seed thing intimidates me...and starting seeds indoors? sheer terror...well, the terror has lost a little of its edge, but I feel safe going with "extreme reluctance"...

One year, I ventured into the whole indoor seed starting with 2 trays of lavender seeds...I babied those things, obsessed over them...and then killed them the first time I dragged them outside to "harden off"...weeks and weeks of coddling and watching right down the drain...thus ended my brief foray into indoor seed starting operations...

If I shake a seed packet and instead of hearing a sturdy little rattle of seeds hear a little soft "whooshing", then right back onto the rack goes that packet...fool me once...

But, I am about to give it another go...Our son has decided that he would like to grow his own peppers and tomatoes...and I, wanting to encourage this baby step towards gardening, wanly smiled and said "Great" while thinking more along the lines of "of all the seeds in all the seed racks in the world, why'd he have to pick peppers and tomatoes?"...I think the only think that might have made my face turner a shade paler would have been a dastardly lavender seed packet*...

I did try an end run around the Ps & Ts...shoving a packet of squash seeds into his face, "Hey, you like squash!"...and "Look! Beans...these are E-A-S-Y"...but he wasn't buyin' it...

So...there is a now one of those plastic seed greenhouse contraptions sittin' on the front porch, waiting...watching and waiting...waiting and watching...for me to gather up my courage and forge ahead...

*Disclaimer: I do not hate lavender...in fact, right now I have 8 fat little lavender plants riding in the back of the mega-mega mini-van waiting for this cold snap to abate so I can plant them out...I just hate starting itty bitty die-deader-than-a-doornail seeds...and wasting all those weeks

February Gardening

This is the veggie garden in winter ...a p-i-t-i-f-u-l sight, isn't it? the fencing went in last spring in a hurried attempt to cordon the area off from the FBDs...bassets don't go around plants...they go through plants...it is, I believe, one of the greatest pleasures they have...anyhoo, I had visions of a lovely white picket fence with squared columns with flat tops where I would artistically perch beautiful terracotta pots overflowing with big blowzy blooms...

This is why in February most of my garden attention is centered around my ever-expanding collection of garden books...

This is a darling gardening book by Celestine Sibley...Celestine was a writer for the AJC and the author of many books...I recall she passed away a while back...at that point, I didn't really know much about her writings...but now that I've become better acquainted with Miss Celestine and her garden, I wish I had caught her columns and, better yet, been her neighbor so we could talk "garden"...

Where we live now, having been here a year, I have yet to find someone with whom to Talk Garden...in our last home, I had a lovely neighbor who has become a dear friend with whom to speak in the Garden Lingo...we would stop whatever we were doing when called to come *see this plant*...and both of us would wander through the other's garden just to enjoy the pleasures of a garden that we didn't have to sweat blood over...a Garden Talk buddy is someone who can point out the beauty of something within your own garden that you cannot see clearly for all the hard work that has gone into producing what is far and away not what you had pictured in your mind's eye...

but Mr G seems to be comin' on as someone with whom I can Talk Garden...so all is not lost...

Anyhoo...when I read a book of garden essays...and don't believe the author is an out-and-out liar...I only say that because an envious vein runs wide and deep through my heart...I can see past the haggard looking mess that empty vegetable garden is and see what it has the potential to become...with lots of hard work, some serendipitous intervention from Mother Nature and a willingness to see one's garden plans as only the starting point for the actual garden that is to come...