Starting Seeds

Nothing stops the flutter and surge in my heart when seeds I've planted sprout. There's something so irrepressible about germination, and when I have planted the seeds myself, the process somehow means so much more.

Not that I am a guru of the greenhouse. On the contrary, my seed starting methods are a mish-mash of shortcuts and avoidances. I'm not fond of thinning seedlings, and I don't like to transplant such delicate creatures. So I pop two or three seeds in each of the compartments of the container I will use until the plants go in the ground. If extras sprout, I leave them to it more often than not. The flats bask under two flood lamps in the room over our garage.

This year's first sprouter was kale, quickly followed by onion, basil, and dahlia. Gorgeous!

Self-Esteem

In the spring when I am faced with the consequences of autumnal garden neglect, it's hard to feel good about my skills. Perennials droop with soft rotten stalks; sage pushes out green along uneven stems. Floppy fronds of mint criss-cross the patio. Seeds from the two Eastern hornbeams in back threaten to overtake every bed with an army of tiny trees. I find it best to start small, start manageably, and to start nearest the windows. So I tackle the herb garden first.

Raking reveals that sage, thyme, lavendar, mint, chives, and oregano have all made it through. Jury's out on the rosemary.

Roses and raspberries border the herbs, so I get to work on their thorny branches. Soon I can say, "Raspberries are caned, roses pruned," and feel my self-esteem start to regenerate like the red buds of the renegade peony that just showed up back there one spring.

Seed Catalog Review: Seed Savers Exchange

Every summer in the middle of the summer, when you can't remember any more what it feels like to be cold, an audience gathers on a grassy hill. Limestone bluffs guard rows of asparagus and hollyhock. Kids wander between coolers and lawn chairs.

The annual Greg Brown concert is the only time I've been to Seed Savers Exchange farm in northern Iowa, and it was close to ten years ago, but my cells remember the flavor of the place. Maybe this is why I buy almost all of my seeds, and all my potatoes and garlic, from Seed Savers. Maybe it's because it's the only seed catalog I get that's for a non-profit organization, founded in 1975 with the premise that folks should pool their precious heirloom seeds. Seed Savers strikes the same chord in my heart as The Penny Song, a ritual in the kindergarten room at my Unitarian church; imagine eight cherubic faces chanting, "Love is something if you give it away, you end up having more." Heirloom seeds are something if you give them away, you end up having more.

I'm not a member, so I don't get access to the 20,733 varieties of veggies, flowers, and fruits traded by the in crowd. I don't have any family heirloom seeds and don't know much about saving seeds, so it seems silly to join. And yet, Seed Savers is mine and I belong to them. Every spring I order too many varieties of basil. Summers I swoon into the embrace of Nyagous tomatoes. In the fall, I celebrate when my miniature bell peppers succeed. Winters I eat potatoes grown from their potatoes. Where else could I order The Joy of Rhubarb, essays by Wendell Barry, and huckleberry seeds all in one go?

Oregano

Oregano is really a weed, but it has moxie. Determination. Persuasiveness. Oregano is a tasty weed. In June, exasperated, I beat it away from my currant bushes. In March, though, when rosemary is a faded dream and parsley sleeps in seed packets, oregano's hopeful and irrepressible advance against the snowdrift's retreat is a delicious miracle. Long live oregano, bold champion of the herb bed.

Snowmelt

The smell, more than anything else, gets to me - it should be disgusting, wet dirt and rotten leaves. But late winter smells clean and effervescent, as the air, frozen for so many months, breaks free in a bubbly rush. I bend down every time I pass a glimmer of green. Is that a new leaf? Or a remnant of autumn, surviving the cold under the snow's thick blanket?

Lying in bed, I hear in the night and in the early morning the CRACK-thud! of mammoth icicles plunging from roof to the soggy ground. Thump, thump, thump. The baby doesn't wake, but the whole world is waking. My tiny thyme has lived through another winter and tentatively extends a stem. The rosebush blushes green beneath its thorns. Hurrah!

Whoa, Nelly

I can get ahead of myself. Often this problem is a byproduct of reading too quickly. My husband expresses dismay when I accidentally allow him to observe the rate at which I consume literature. When she sees what's going on, my mother also complains. This is not my fault. I read as much as I could as a child - I remember the day when I realized I'd read every book I wanted to in our neighborhood library - and now I read fast. That's how it is. I don't really understand why other people find the need to object to this innocent characteristic, when I'm the one who is constantly running short of reading material.

Lately I've been reading Fresh Food from Small Spaces: The Square Inch Gardener's Guide to Year-Round Growing, Fermenting, and Sprouting by R. J. Ruppenthal. It's dynamite. It makes me want to skip through the catalogs like a Pollyanna in pigtails, filling my virtual shopping basket with Victorian Bell Cloches (Territorial Seed Company), Braising Green Seeds (Seeds of Change), self-watering containers (Gardener's Supply Company), trellises . . . how about a greenhouse? Maybe I should keep bees! Chickens! Mushroom logs!

Whoa, Nelly. I don't even like mushrooms.

Ruppenthal, who turns out to be a professor at Evergreen College, has a very friendly writing voice. He makes it all seem so possible. He delineates which plants grow under various light conditions and what to do after you've been growing stuff in a container for a year and it's time to plant again. Actual, concrete conceptions of how I could actually grow food here are starting to coalesce out of my brain-mist. The trick will be to focus on a few simple things I can add each year. This year, I'm thinking: rhubarb, kale, peas, beans. That's not too complicated, right?

Planting Onions

I planted onion seeds today. It was an act of faith. Faith in the seeds: when I tried starting onions from seeds two years ago, the seeds didn't do much for me. (This time, I will keep them in cooler temperatures and moister soil.) Faith in my mother's commitment to her garden: they are going into her garden, not mine, as onions need big-time space that I just don't have. Faith that a tiny, poky black pyramid will transform into something delicious to eat. It's been a busy, crabby week (teething baby, no sleep). When I walked outside to put away my trowel, smelling the late-afternoon not-quite-frozen golden air, I felt, at last, at peace.