Last week I received my first seed catalog of the new season. I was grateful to put my sights on warmer weather and green grass, although winter hasn’t officially started. My first inclination when I saw the catalog in the mailbox was to be cynical Was this mailing a way of pushing the seed buying season earlier? Why not skip the season to rest a little and give thanks for the year’s harvest? I couldn't help but wonder if this act was similar to retail’s Christmas buying season starting at Halloween - the seed company hoped to forgo the fallow Thanksgiving season and skip right to consumerism. This is me at my cynical best.
However, I cannot allow myself to accept that. Rather than recycling the catalog, I read it closely. High Mowing Seeds www.highmowingseeds.com sends its catalog early in the seed selecting season and offers a CSA style discount if you commit now and select later.
Happily, I paged through the catalog on Sunday and circled the different varieties for my 2014 garden. I selected spring, summer, and autumn varieties of carrots, lettuces, and spinaches to eat, store, and share throughout the growing season. 2014 is going to be the year!
The catalog pictures show handsome people hard at work and proud of it. Many of the pictures are set against the beautiful Vermont mountain backdrop. Ah, romance. Of course, it takes only a little imagination to think what is not in the picture - the summer sun bearing down on them day after day, the mosquitoes, and achy bodies after long days. So, I am grateful for their work and for a few dollars have enough seeds to eat all the butternut squash I want come winter. And, if I act now will get their labor at a discount.
Seed selection feeds into my ego: I am a visionary, and I mean that in the worst possible way. I can see a magazine cover quality garden in my backyard. Victory at last! Yet, the execution goes awry sometimes as early as April. Near Victory at last? Like people, myself included, who make New Year's resolutions to lose weight or exercise more, mine is always - take better care of the garden.
I know my promise means much, much more than that. It means taking care of myself and the land around me. It means being a good husband. Inevitably, those New Year’s resolutions of losing weight and exercising more get folded into being outside. It means living a more connected life and returning some of the economy back home. It goes from being cynical to living a more wholesome and connected life.
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