January: All I want is a "Big-Ass Garden"!

Yeah, right! That's what we all say this time of year while we pour over dozens of seed catalogues.
But, I don't get many seed catalogues. I don't need many seed catalogues. I can make a "Big-Ass Garden" from just one seed catalogue! I almost can't help myself.  Each entry in those catalogues is entertaining and informative. I only need one. The anecdotes of history interspersed among the one paragraph descriptions breed fondness for any unknown vegetable and keeps my imagination stoked.... "Climbing beans often grown as ornamental for their brilliant scarlet blossoms that attract hummingbirds....Beautifully mottled purple and black seeds. Heirloom variety grown as early as 1750 by colonists and in 1791 by Thomas Jefferson." How can anyone resist not buying these seeds ? I couldn't. I haven't. I have grown Scarlet Runner Beans every year and haven't been disappointed. They grow and look exactly how the little paragraph describes them to be. They need poles and ropes to climb, as their brilliant scarlet red/orange flowers show their faces here and there along their climbing vines in the sunshine. Over the summer their blossoms turn into these long green pods that surprise me every year when they turn brown and I break them open to find these starkly contrasting huge purple and black mottled beans inside. They are striking. What ecstasy.

Wait. How many of us are out there that can be entertained so much by a seed catalogue? My imagination is great but I have since learned to curb the purchases from the places that those little paragraphs send me. However, I still cave. I can cave even while reading and ogling over FEDCOs black and white newsprint catalogue which, truthfully, reminds me of my .... oh darn... earlier years of ... well... an era... when black and white newsprint was it. Just simply, it.




The truth is, I don't need glossy pages or slick online two dimensional flat screen pages to get it or imagine it or savor it or live it. Newsprint works. It's warm to the touch and doesn't glare back at me. I can fold the pages and easily conceive of its content. The catalogue becomes three dimensional as I caress its pages and look forward and backward over its content. It is three dimensional. (Doesn't that sound futuristic?) Holding inky paper and turning the pages with your fingers is really OK, too, by the way. So, I prefer FEDCO's black and white newsprint catalogue. I also prefer to grow as many as my vegetables organically and from local sources. Do they go together?

My garden planning methods , I've been told, are also dated. I use grid paper. That is paper with blocks  printed on them. I use a pencil and have to sharpen it with a pencil sharpener, and turn it upside down to use its eraser to change my plan. Does this sound familiar or weird? Anyway, I am planning my garden using my favorite catalogue for seeds and grid paper with a wooden pencil for my plan. Maybe I prefer to do it this way because it puts me in the mood. It is methodical and slow causing me to contemplate my decisions. Planning a garden isn't one of those rush jobs, I've learned. It doesn't work that way. Rushing will certainly yield more disappoint than something that you can eat.

Never-the-less, my garden grows every year. Not with vegetables but in size. I think that I need to make more beds to accommodate my plans for the same vegetables from last year that we know we will consume again this year. I can't imagine how I managed the year before. So I dig up more ground and try to add on before the season starts.  That's how we got to have a 55 x 75 ft garden. This year is no different except for one new fact. We put up a new fence and that has defined the area. Not all of it is dug and explains why there is more digging to do to accommodate the simple needs that our family demands.

Now what are the basics that our family needs and loves to eat? I asked this at the dinner table one night and the answer that I got was "Pineapples and bananas"! "Wait a minute you guys"! "I still haven't figured out how to grow lettuce in January"!

Never mind those comments above. I am on it with the planning part, and I'm planning to grow the "the basics" e.g. beans, peas, tomatoes, cabbage, lettuce, spinach, carrots, kale, squash, pumpkins, peppers, eggplants, parsley, basil, onions, leeks, potatoes, shallots, garlic, ...........................................
I think it will still make for a "Big-Ass Garden"!