I thought about what great things we will grow this year as I walked beside the prize winning entries at the Vermont Farm show earlier this week. With the weather being unseasonably warm and the packages of seeds arriving almost daily, it was hard not to start cleaning out the greenhouse and heading to the farm store for seed starting mix.
It is always exciting to receive a package in the mail and this year more than most as I try to remember exactly what was ordered and from which company in between the fog of 3:00 a.m. baby feedings and the pile of new seed catalogs from new seed suppliers, some organic, some for feed seed, some heirloom so that seeds can be saved for next year (don’t tell Monsanto), and some with specialty products that you can’t get from the place you have used forever.
This year the search for seeds started while lying on the couch growing the next generation of farmer. The company we have been using forever has increased their seed prices more than twenty percent on several of their products. We have always been happy with their seeds, germination rates, flavor and production but their prices are getting too much for this fledgling farm to support. So the exploration began. Blog perusing, book reading, garden forum lurking, list surfing, etc.; new companies were located and catalog requests were completed. Next year I hope to do much more online seed shopping, but knowing I would have a brand new little man occupying much of my time and my train of thought this year, I requested paper.
Dear husband and I went through each catalog marking varieties we wanted to try, some brand new and others which were tried and true; a couple new flowers, some new varieties of melons and seed to grow food for this year’s pigs and with any luck a new venture with another furry creature as well. Between feedings and doctor visits and mom’s subsequent hospitalization, we managed to get them ordered.
Visiting the farm show, opening plain brown boxes and envelopes containing bright beautiful packages of seed, and lovely warm weather have inspired dreams of the farm and working outside this spring and summer. Much work remains to be done this winter on the apple trees and acquiring materials for new raised beds, expanding the greenhouse and new farm buildings (the temporary garage blew away in a windstorm while I was in the hospital with our new son). Each dream remembered adds another project or great flower idea to the ever growing list of things to research or buy. We were even discussing an ATV or perhaps a bigger tractor, although, this particular model might not be in the budget for this year.
