Seed Catalogs

Many years ago, I used to start getting seed catalogs at Christmas time, and considered them God's Christmas gift to me.  Right after Christmas, with a week off between Christmas and New Years, I would go into a very heavy schedule of working all day in an office, and then selling tickets, ushering, or taking tickets for an event staff group at the public buildings in Kansas City, Missouri.  I worked for 28 years doing this, and ended with managing a theater's public spaces for the symphony, the opera, and the ballet, but that's another story.  Back then, the shows would come hot and heavy... we would have the Metropolitan Flower, Lawn and Garden Show, which in those days was a huge affair.  It would be preceded by the Boat, Sports and Travel show, and followed by the Home Show, the Mobile Home show, etc. etc.etc.  As I sat in my little ticket booth on Saturdays and Sundays in January and early February, I would read my seed catalogs and plan my gardens.  I did this for many years. 

Many of these shows have gone by the wayside with the economy the way it is... and the flower show has been rolled into the home remodeling show, and is a very small entity indeed, in fact, we did not go to either this year, because of their disappointment last year.  However, Keith has ordered our vegetable seeds already, and I am getting myself in gear to order flower seeds this weekend.

These are the catalogs I'm using:

This is my fantasy order.  Usually every year I plan a big order, only to never send it in or go online.  I love their plants.  I am ordering ONE or TWO things this year, because our gardens deserve it!

This one, of course, has the cool vegetable seeds, and don't let the down-hominess of the Gettles fool you, they are on both coasts now, and heirloom seeds are a big business.  If you notice, I have quite a few pages marked, but as Keith has already ordered the vegetables, I'll pare this order down to a few things.

And this old standard got most of our order this year:

In fact, they sent a second catalog just this week with a different cover, as if to say "Hurry up, Mary Ann, Hurry up! "

I hope to have my orders ready by tomorrow sometime, and will let you all know what I ordered.

With lettuce by head at 1.88 each at Walmart last night, we have got to grow as much as we can.  Keith is itching to get his pea seeds in the ground within a week!

On a sadder note, Dovey did die today in the big henhouse.  Keith found her dead this afternoon, and saved her for me to see.  I knew this morning, so held her for a second and said goodbye.  She must have died shortly thereafter, because she was stiff by midafternoon.  We are hoping it was old age and infirmity and not anything catching, but are going to clean as much as we can this weekend.  It will take very good weather and the pressure washer to get the gunk from the starlings out, but we will do that soon.

Everyone enjoy Farm Friend Friday at Verde Farm!