Winter loves

There have been many articles about the winter gardening experience. It is a time where being outside is at a minimal in most of the USA and gardeners are left to stare outside, dreaming of the next year. For me, it begins my yearly brief love affair with seed catalogs. I request several every year and they arrive when the days are short and my next year planning is in full swing.  I can sit inside and pour over every description, imagining seas of flowers and a bounty of vegetables. my theoretical selections circled for reference when planting time actually arrives.  The pictures in some of them can be best described as plant porn. Softly lit, flattering angles, every plant looks like the perfect thing to try. My current favorite catalog is the Baker Heirloom Seed catalog. Their commitment to strange and rare vegetables is only matched by the amazing job they do taking pictures of the fruits and vegetables they offer. They also have a rabbit hole of a website, where an hour or two can slip by in no time.

I do suggest requesting regional plant catalogs since the seeds and shrubs they offer will more likely be growable in your own area. I love Burbee’s but as a kid growing up in a cold area of the country, that catalog could be torture. Many of the things I really liked, I couldn’t grow because the Hardiness zone wasn’t right. Now living in the Northwest, I can grow a wider range of shrubs and perennials, but the hot season vegetables are a little dicey. For anyone who shares my love of seed catalog shopping, here is a website with a whole mass of requestable free seed catalogs

http://freebies.about.com/od/homegardenfreebies/tp/seed-catalogs.htm

Why I garden

Even with a tiny patio, barely any sun, I still tried to cram as many plants as I could into planters this last year. I think my count was about 80 individual plants.  I was more savvy than the year before, it was my second year in the apartment and I knew better the sun pattern along my space. 

The patio early this summer

But why did I bother? I could have spared myself the expense of all the plants, plus the soil, plus the planters. I also had to check the water nearly every day this summer, hauling a pitcher in and out from my kitchen. It could have gone horribly wrong, like my well intended upstairs neighbor, whose plants withered and died after a few weeks. I think it was to prove that I could. That even in a meager 5ftx7ft space, I could grow something, anything.  It wasn’t exactly a private retreat, it faces a common walkway between buildings. It was a tiny explosion of life I could look at everyday.  It made me smile every day when I walked by it, or when I opened up my patio doors for fresh air. It was a mad experiment that paid off in giving me joy and a smile everyday (plus some extra produce).