THE SEED CATALOGUES

Seed catalogues, or catalogs, depending on where you live, start arriving at most gardeners’ homes just about three weeks before Christmas. That is plenty of time for us to get all the gardens put to bed for the winter and a good taste of the winter to come. We are already longing to be in the garden instead of in the house.
If there was a National Contest of Seed Catalogue Receivers, I would be the winner hands down, all I would have to do is wheel in with my stacks of goodies and everyone else would give up and go home.
The reason I get so many catalogues is no surprise: I order from nearly every one of them.
I am so tired of being in the house that by the time the first one arrives all I want is spring and as quickly as possible. With that in mind, as I look thru each one I find something that I have never seen before, that I have never tasted before, that might be better than what I planted last year, germinates quicker, grows bigger, tastes better, there are countless possibilities.
One year I pledged only to order from a few, postage costs were increasing and all gardeners know you can pay double or more for postage on one packet of seed than the seed alone costs. So, I made lists, I crossed off, I substituted, I added, I eliminated, and at the end had a meager few places to order from.
So, the stack just sat and percolated and I stewed, I would walk by, but I would not open even the top catalogue, the list was made and that was that. I kept busy with my planting charts and plans for which seeds would go in the ground in which place.
Then March hit and with it a snow storm to stop all thoughts of spring, couldn’t go outside, couldn’t even get outside, it snowed for 14 straight days, 7 feet on the ground, then the snow stopped, it started to warm up and the 7 foot that was on the roof fell right in front of the front door – I was stranded, totally stranded until someone could come and dig me out!!!
I paced, I fiddled with everything, I cleaned house, and on day 3 I sat down beside the stack of catalogues and started to go thru them, I was going to throw out what I wasn’t going to order from.
Then like a bolt, cabin fever hit me, and if you have never suffered from this, it isn’t a pretty sight, I started tearing thru the catalogues, making new lists, adding up orders, writing checks, getting them ready to mail. I started a new garden chart, I incorporated all the new wonderful plants that I would have if summer ever came.
Day 4, the scoopers came and dug me out and I raced to the mailbox with my hands full of seed orders.
And, peace once again reigned in my world, the seeds were ordered and I would have a new bigger, better, more fun garden the coming summer than ever before!

The Awesome Auger

When you live in the land of hard clay and solid rock you are instantly drawn to things that dig holes more easily. My collection includes a rock splitter, a pole driver, a sharp shooter, a mallet and chisel and a very high pressure nozzle for hydra blasting. So, when I saw this wonder tool on TV called the Awesome Auger I was enthralled. Not only did I buy myself one- I bought both of my girls one. It turned out to be almost as advertised. With that thing attached to a drill and a hundred feet of heavy duty extension cord I could dig some holes!
In the spring we visited our daughter Lee . I was excited to present her with her new toy. She looked at the weird contraption in my hands with squinty eyes and a cocked head. Without much enthusiasm she said ,“Interesting”. That’s code for yucky. There was definitely a chill in the air. Even the steel of the auger felt colder in my hands.
However, the next morning found me and “Augie” happily digging holes for the seedlings lee and I were planting. Lee was planting and patting the dirt snug. When we got to the last few holes Lee said “Let me try that”. Yea! She was warming up. All went well and on the last hole Lee released the trigger and let go of the drill.
But the drill didn’t stop! Suddenly the auger was bouncing across the ground like a manic mambo dancer; I’d swear it was chasing Lee.
“What the ………….” I stood frozen for a few stunned seconds. Then I thought, as comical as this looks, there is real danger here. Just as it was catching her, I ran to the cord and jerked the plug out then skidded to a stop beside Lee who was sitting on the ground. She was rubbing a badly bruised leg with a nasty abrasion and glaring murderously at the Auger.
Of all things…This is a girl who is proficient with a chain saw, skill saw and heavy equipment much bigger than she is . And with never so much as a ding.
That afternoon at our daily family council (happy hour) Lee’s husband, Bo, proclaimed the auger;
Unwelcome in polite society,
Banished to the mountains forever
And
Put under lock and key until transport could be arranged.
I repressed the urge to declare the whole thing the drill’s fault. Some things are better left unsaid.
And given the bad juju between Lee and the auger I really couldn’t say that with certainty.
Could I?

THE SEED CATALOGUES

Seed catalogues, or catalogs, depending on where you live, start arriving at most gardeners’ homes just about three weeks before Christmas. That is plenty of time for us to get all the gardens put to bed for the winter and a good taste of the winter to come. We are already longing to be in the garden instead of in the house.
If there was a National Contest of Seed Catalogue Receivers, I would be the winner hands down, all I would have to do is wheel in with my stacks of goodies and everyone else would give up and go home.
The reason I get so many catalogues is no surprise: I order from nearly every one of them.
I am so tired of being in the house that by the time the first one arrives all I want is spring and as quickly as possible. With that in mind, as I look thru each one I find something that I have never seen before, that I have never tasted before, that might be better than what I planted last year, germinates quicker, grows bigger, tastes better, there are countless possibilities.
One year I pledged only to order from a few, postage costs were increasing and all gardeners know you can pay double or more for postage on one packet of seed than the seed alone costs. So, I made lists, I crossed off, I substituted, I added, I eliminated, and at the end had a meager few places to order from.
So, the stack just sat and percolated and I stewed, I would walk by, but I would not open even the top catalogue, the list was made and that was that. I kept busy with my planting charts and plans for which seeds would go in the ground in which place.
Then March hit and with it a snow storm to stop all thoughts of spring, couldn’t go outside, couldn’t even get outside, it snowed for 14 straight days, 7 feet on the ground, then the snow stopped, it started to warm up and the 7 foot that was on the roof fell right in front of the front door – I was stranded, totally stranded until someone could come and dig me out!!!
I paced, I fiddled with everything, I cleaned house, and on day 3 I sat down beside the stack of catalogues and started to go thru them, I was going to throw out what I wasn’t going to order from.
Then like a bolt, cabin fever hit me, and if you have never suffered from this, it isn’t a pretty sight, I started tearing thru the catalogues, making new lists, adding up orders, writing checks, getting them ready to mail. I started a new garden chart, I incorporated all the new wonderful plants that I would have if summer ever came.
Day 4, the scoopers came and dug me out and I raced to the mailbox with my hands full of seed orders.
And, peace once again reigned in my world, the seeds were ordered and I would have a new bigger, better, more fun garden the coming summer than ever before!

I AM SO PROUD

I am the first one in my family to go to gardening school!
Pooh on all their BSs, MSs and PHDs, I am now a
Master Gardener in training.
Yesterday was my third lesson. Already the mysteries are beginning to reveal themselves. Who knew that soil (you can’t say dirt) needs to be 25% air, 25% water and 50%other stuff. Needless to say that it’s hard to figure out how I will get to that from the hard clay and rock that is my mountain home. But now that the secrets of the universe are within my grasp I have faith.
I must say that everything is a bit more complicated than I thought. It’s a miracle that anything I did before brought forth so much. Just think of what will happen now. I started out taking copious notes but it occurred to me that everything is probably in the book issued us. The history of the world could be in there it’s about 6 inches thick. My time is better spent listening to the stream of experts that come to talk to us.
Being a noticer, there are many things I have noticed about this group. The first thing was that nobody in the group is excessively fluffy. In fact, I may be the fluffiest person there. I’m working on that. The second is that while they all take the course seriously, no one seems to take themselves too seriously. I like that. The third is that it’s not clubby, I like that. We are there for a purpose. And I’m learning so much! I like that!!!
One of the things I have long thought was verified by our speaker yesterday. The plant can’t distinguish between nutrients provided organically or chemically. Nitrogen is nitrogen is nitrogen. So spending outrageous amounts of money on the idea that everything must be organic is a choice, not a law, even for good gardeners.
I will give you some trivia every week from the course.
Did you know that a tomato is a berry? Did you know that an Irish potato is a stem? Did you know that all tree nuts are fruits?
That’s all the news for now. See you next week.

BIRDS

I love birds and my neighbor loves squirrels – can you see the collision coming?

She proudly told me last winter that she had “raised” an entire litter of squirrels in her yard. I took a deep breath and responded in my nicest tone – OH.

I feed the birds, more regularly than I feel the humans that live here, and nearly as often as I feed my beloved dog. I buy special feed for the birds, I know what food each kind likes to eat and I furnish it. I cut oranges and put grape jelly for the orioles in their feeder. I have the thistle feeder, the sunflower seed feeder, and the mixed seed feeder. My neighbors are no longer shocked to see me in my jammies filling a bird feeder.

This year I have one less feeder as the squirrels ate the bottom wire mesh out of a feeder my step-mother gave to me. Now all my feeders are squirrel-proof, a complicated system of heavy wire cage around the feeder which only birds can get thru, baffles, greased hangers, I have it all. And no one has told the squirrels that they cannot get into these feeders so they try several times each day.

This summer I had a new bird, a hawk. I don’t know what hawks eat, and I don’t feed him, but I think he eats small rodents and he spends a lot of his time perched on a post in my backyard. I do not discourage him, I look at him as a second line of defense against the fat little squirrels, even my most imperial tone doesn’t discourage them more than a few seconds.

My dog will not chase squirrels as she has figured out after several attempts that she cannot climb trees, so why put forth the effort. The odds there are too uneven.

This winter, as the trees all lost their leaves, I can look out my window and see dozens of bird nests in the branches. I think I have identified the hawk nest, it is the largest of all the nests and in the maple tree in my front yard.

So, I watch my hawk (I have taken possession of him as much as anyone can a hawk), I feed the birds, I chase the squirrels, who aren’t one bit afraid of me and will run up a tree and cuss down at me, and I know I must truly blessed to have such a circus going on in my backyard.

My own little garden greenhouse

I am trying something new this year. Lee bought me a contraption that looks like a giant garment bag with 4 shelves. The shelves will hold 3 trays each of starter pots. The whole thing is covered with a clear plastic cover. It has a door with zippers on each side which gives you wonderful access. I have never had any luck with tiny seeds, this year I am determined. Did you know that the wave petunias are around $3.00 a package of seed? That they take 90 days to bloom? Which is why I planted them the 1st of February. Each seed is coated with something. I use my buddy's toilet paper roll method for the dirt but I only filled the roll 2/3 up with potting soil, the last 1/3 I used a very light sprouting mix. My thinking is that the light sprouting soil won't support the root growth needed. I watered everything well with a turkey baster put the trays in there , put a heating pad in a plastic bag set on medium on the bottom shelf and zipped it up. Most of them sprouted!! Yea!! I have gotten this far many times, Some thing happens between here and the second leaves. I am hoping that this closed, moist enviroment will make the difference. I haven't had to water them in a whole week. Everyday or so I spray a little fine mist into each shelf area. What do I do next? I could use some garden tips for fine seeds.

Pavlov Had Nothing on My Mother

Many of us remember that Pavlov was a scientist that always fed these dogs to the sound of a buzzer. Over time the sound caused the same response in the animals as the smell or sight of food.

Extreme salivation

I think it’s called conditioning.

My premise is that many parents, worldwide, unwittingly use this as a training method for their children. The most heinous use of this conditioning is in potty training. Mothers, turning on the water in the wash basin to encourage their tots to make the same sound in the potty.

Future gardeners beware.

Now, I never asked my Mother and she never said but I have empirical proof that this diabolical method was used on me. As a young person you don’t even realize this has happened. As you reach your senior years the conditioning reasserts itself with a vengeance.

An avid gardener, I love to be outside. The day slips away before you know it. At some point during the day you begin to realize that you have to go.

“In a minute,” you tell yourself. You are vaguely aware that this happens several times. You’re busy and you keep putting it off, not wanting to spend a second of this beautiful day inside.

Finally it’s almost time to start dinner. Just one more quick thing!

And you turn on the hose!

Thanks, Mom