Guess what?! Guess what?! I feel like a kid in a candy store, jumping around with excitement and anticipation. I started my gardening planning tonight. Yippee for Me!
I have been a little busy lately. Besides just being a mom and wife and working, you all know I recently went back to college fulltime to start a whole new degree. I also had a hysterectomy last week. Great timing, eh? I have been working hard this week and last week to keep up with my homework and studying during recovery. I really miss being in class, and at work. I can’t return to either job just yet. So yes, I am busy, but because I can’t work, I had a little extra time on my hands. Key word being “little.” I also turned 45 this week and loved every minute of my relaxing birthday being spoiled. Relaxing, but still kept me busy!
I have been thinking about my garden a lot lately. I don’t know if it’s this amazing weather (50+ degrees in Minnesota in Feb is crazy); or that I have been sitting outside by the fire staring at my garden; or that I am writing a paper about it for one of my classes. Either way, it’s had me thinking. And not just about ordering seeds, although I will get to that further down.
I have been thinking of going outside the box on my normal veggies I plant. I really want to mix things up this season. I want to challenge myself to grow some unusual and unique veggies. I will still have our staples, that won’t be messed with: Tomatoes, bell peppers, lettuce, jalapenos, and herbs. But for the others, I want more variety. I want color. I want fun. Last week I started researching and looking for variations of our normal veggies, or a foreign variation of some of our staples. On my phone I created a photo album and started saving screenshots of veggies I found interesting.
Tonight, I really hammered down on the planning. I went through my album and made a list of the plants I most wanted in my garden this season. With that list, I did more research to see which of chosen plants pair well together. Pairing your plants will increase their growth and success. There are plants that help each other grow, as well as enemy plants that should not be put together. Just like people, really. I have wanted to hone in on pairing my plants but haven’t tried it out yet. This will be the season for that.
Once I had my pairing list, I went looking for my Garden Journal and Logbook. It was a gift from my mom several years ago and I love it! Each year I draw a diagram of my growing spaces and what I am planting and where. I am a visual person. I need to see that bird’s eye view of the plan. In addition to that, I track information about that season’s crop. I try to remember to write down when I put seedlings in the ground. I also started keeping receipts. I wanted to see if the more expensive greenhouses were worth the extra money. For flowers, they are totally worth it! Veggie…eh.
Once I had it all laid out on the graph paper, I started ordering the seeds. I wanted to make sure I had a space for everything before I started filling my cart. I was able to order most of my bizarre seeds on www.rareseeds.com I tried to get a couple from both Burpee and Gurney’s. Neither site was very user friendly. I eventually gave up on them and ordered my last few from Amazon. Rare seeds didn’t have much zone information, but they seemed to be otherwise very good. They also have recipes for what they sell. That will come in handy later!
My amazon order will be here in a few days. The rare seeds won’t be for a few weeks or a month. If you are ordering seeds that are not common to your area, you may want to get started with your order soon! I saw several that were sold out already.
I can’t wait to share my progress, or failures—I mean learning experiences, with you as these grow! Stay tuned to see what I ordered and where I am going to put them all.
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