Let the Planning Begin!

It's the most wonderful time of the year...

Yes, that is correct: The garden catalogs are pouring in! I love it, for just when the nights seem long and dark, along come the seed catalogs filled with a siren-song promise that soon, spring will come and once again, I can be outside playing in the dirt. I have plans for garden expansion everywhere: front yard, side yard, in the back orchard, and in the back garden. One of my nefarious plans is pictured here: Yes, you guessed it. It's a hoophouse. (Otherwise known as a low-tech greenhouse.) I am ridiculously excited about it. This year will be the year that I successfully grow bell peppers, watermelons, and hot peppers galore. Since I put in the privacy fence (Ahem. For full story, see July 2011), I now have a lovely sheltered area that will hopefully create a pocket of warm, wind-protected, growing-lusciousness where my more delicate veggies can flourish.

I am also organizing a Seed Share event in the area, where hopefully my fellow gardeners and I can trade spare seeds, as well as band together to save on shipping and get happy seeds from happy, non-GMO sources, and save the planet one square foot garden at a time. So if you happen to be hanging about on Saturday, January 14th, come on over to the village community center and check out your seed ordering options.

Jeez louise, listen to me. Am I going a little nutty over garden plans or what?? Ah well, I can't help it. Green & growing things speak to me. Besides, it beats drinking too many Gingerbread Man cocktails and losing brain cells to online Mahjong marathons. See? Everyone would be soooo much happier if they gardened, too. Maybe I should start a fan group. I think I need a tee-shirt slogan. "Veggie Vigilante"? "Garden Goddess"? "I Heart Dirt"? Maybe I'll just stick with my bumper stickers. I'm waiting on a great one, free from the American Farmland Trust: "No Farms, No Food". You betcha.