Saturday, February 11, 2006

Saturday musin's

So far I'm just laaaaazin' around with my Cammie Bear watching Olympics and kid shows and drinking my coffee. We ducked out of skiing so he could attend his first Quebec birthday party! Woohoo. VERY important to a 7 year old you know.
Thoughts of springtime have been intruding lately and now its really coming because I got my 2006 online Catalogue notice from Hope Seeds of New Brunswick( www.hopeseeds.com ). This is a very very small seedhouse dealing in heirloom and open pollinated varieties of seed so that the grower has the potential to save their own seeds. I first found Hope Seeds a few years ago when under the ownership of its founder and I have never been disappointed in the quality. I got into the idea of saving my own seed back in my "wanna be self sufficient" days on the homestead...late nineties, 2000? maybe. Like it was sooo long ago. My girlfriend Edith thought it a cool idea too and we gardened our hearts out. I had joined Seeds Of Diversity (very cool) and perused the catalogue laboriousl to pick out the seeds for me. I had a HUGE garden area that I both miss dreadfully for its potential, and am glad to be free of due to its ability to overwhelm this lone gardener. OY! the weeds I could grow! Amazing..almost taller than me! I had very little luck with potatoes or other root crops although I did have amazing carrots one year. I babied them a lot and the attention was rewarded but I am a survivalist gardener...its gotta be able to survive my neglect if I'm going to keep growing it. Carrots DON'T. At least not for me...nor radishes. they are super easy to grow yet all I get are peppery little pebbles for my trouble. fuhgedaboudit.
I miss the space to choose cool sounding crop selections. i never got around to the Vife Etampes pumpkin that looks like its ready for Cinderell's coach. then again pumpkins didn't want to ripen on time for me anyways except once!
Now with much less garden space I am neither overwhelmed nor a survivalist. I am out there every frikkin' day just for my own sanity picking weeds and bugs (damn cane borers on my Morden Ruby), taking photos of bees and butterflies and flowers (I am no good at it), and thinking about what to get rid of (this weird hedgey stuff I hate, some of the cone flowers..just tooooo many, white potentilla (booooring) ) and what I need/want more of (roses, and herbs and veg, and a vine or 12). I also need a compost pile ASAP. I was holding out for a tidy plastic bin since I'm in the burbs, but not anymore baby! I'll dig me a hole and rig a lid like Karen did in Hfx. The trick to speedy compost is in the turning. The best composter I ever used was simply a stack of tires that I could unstack to turn the pile. awesome but ugly.
Come spring the call is going out..If you want hedgey stuff, potentillas, daylilies, or some coneflowers CALL ME!! Free!

2 comments:

Jessica said...

WW and i were out today aquiring seeds for lettuce and different herbs. The problem for us is that we live in an apartment and its hard to find the space to garden. Espically with Miss Lily cat eating all the shoots that come up. She LOVES to eat plants. Oy!

Ali P said...

Well at least you are growing good stuffs for HER! LOL