This always has me thinking of Spring, and what I want to plant for this year. We have just received the first two catalogs of the season, the Burgess catalog, and Richard Owen Nursery. I am sure that more will be arriving as January goes on. This year, I plan on starting most of the seeds inside so that the squirrels do not eat all of the larger ones like they have done before. I love watching the little furry creatures; but it makes me really mad to find all of the shelled and eaten sunflower and squash seeds. I am thinking of growing some of those really long and skinny cucumbers this year. I have seen them in stores; but never tried growing them. According to the catalog information, they grow on sturdy vines, and are pretty easy to grow. We have a lot of trees on the property, and where it is sunny, the ground is hard packed, and some of it has been graveled over as well; so I do a lot of the growing in planter pots, or the wooden planters that Bobby has been making for us. That way, we can take advantage of the area where we do have enough sunshine .
I've been seeing more posts on Facebook from the gardening sites I follow, as well as an increase in the number of seed and plant related emails. I will have to take a look and see what I can get. I would like to grow some tomatoes again. If I plant lettuce again, it will probably be eaten by the cats again, but since mine enjoy it, maybe I'll plant some downstairs in the yard for the stray cats. I'm pretty limited, since I normally only do container gardening, but might also do one additional flowering plant/vine on the balcony. I added a pink Mandevilla last year, so maybe I'll look for something purple. I saw some gorgeous pink/purple Honeysuckle vine pictures on Pinterest, so I might have to follow up on that and see if I can buy some.
@Yvonne Smith- Yes, the catalogs! This is the exciting part of the year for gardeners; I remember. I grew very little from seed, living in the Northeast but I enjoyed the catalogs anyway. My perennial flowers were bought young and divided as needed. Annuals from babies in flats. The people next door grew the veggies. Have fun with your "dream book" .
I especially loved the catalogues in the cold New England winters, particularly the lush tropical flowering plants. Even though I didn't garden when I lived up there, except the occasional indoor house plant, my parents would receive the catalogues. I would pore over them, dreaming of living in a warmer climate where I could garden year round. Here I am, in Texas, and my plants are living outdoors year round, although not quite blooming year round, but they're still beautiful.
Nooooooooooooo! Say it ain't so, Yvonne! Okay, I'm not a gardener. Not anywhere close. But a few years ago I wanted to plant some really special bulbs in the fall for spring blooming. I wanted special tulips mailed to me directly from Holland and I wanted the most beautiful daffodils that I could find. So I requested some catalogs online. Ohhhhh my! Never again! They won't leave me alone! I keep getting catalogs... tons of them even though I only ordered a few, so they must share mailing lists. I find one (or sometimes 3 or 4!) in the mailbox on any given day and march them directly to the recycle box while groaning about the waste of paper, resources, postage, and the mailman's poor back. Requesting to be removed from their mailing lists did *NO* good because I tried it. They are taking over my world and I don't need any more bulbs!!
Oh, dear ! I guess I really did the WRONG thing ! And here I thought that if you liked tulips and daffodils you would enjoy having catalogs about every single other kind of flower and plant. Now I realize that I should not have spent all of those long hours on my computer searching for the gardening catalogs and having them all sent to you. Every year, too...... Oh, well. No more gardening catalogs, although I AM pleased to hear that they did all listen when I asked them to please share your name around with any other gardening catalog that they thought you might also like. I guess I will have to find something else that you might enjoy more than the gardening catalogs, @Mari North . Maybe pet catalogs would be better. How are you with hamster and gerbil supplies instead ? (Or maybe even along with the gardening catalogs, since they are now committed to sending them to you.)
I used to order my bulbs from a place in Holland, as well. I wish I could remember the name because they were great. One year, my bulbs came in a little moldy. I called their 800 number to their NY office to complain. They said the ship hit some bad storm and several barrels of bulb orders were damaged in that the tops came partly off getting the bulbs wet. They promised a new shipment in time for planting. Thank goodness I had ordered early. My mother in law didn't want me to throw the bulbs away and planted quite a few of them. They came up in the Spring and were beautiful.
My heirloom tomato seeds arrived today ! ! Yea ! Yea ! I ordered them on eBay, and got most of the seeds from the same company, so they all shipped (free) together. I have several different kinds of tomatoes, a banana melon (looks like a 2-foot long cantaloupe ), and a serpent melon, which is also called an Armenian cucumber. It grows several feet long, and twists as it grows, and is eaten like you would use a cucumber. I also got some sage and some oregano seeds. Both of those are perennials ; so once I get them started, they should come back each year, and also spread. When I lived in Idaho, I started out with three little oregano plants, and within a few years, I had large clumps of oregano growing all along the fence line . Each year, I would divide the clumps and plant more of it so that it would spread. I was able to harvest at least two crops of oregano each season, and dried it for use in the winter. I had so much that I could give some away to my family and friends, as well. We do not have as much sunshine here; but I am hoping that it will grow successfully, and I can at least have what we can use for ourselves and Robin. I am going to start putting some of the new seeds into the Aerogarden to sprout. Most of the plants that were growing in there when Robin brought it over are now large enough to transplant into planters, and the largest ones have already been transplanted.
@Yvonne Smith , you sound so happy with your garden plans and I am drooling for those heirloom tomatoes! Now I want you to grow basil to go with them so I can eat them all vicariously.
Ruby--------Guess what ! I DO have basil growing already, and it is large enough to put on the maters right now . When Robin brought me the Aerogarden , she had basil, cilantro, dill, and parsley already growing in there. I am in the process of transplanting all of those into planters next, and then will start some of the heirloom tomatoes, so they will be large and ready to go outside in planters once the weather gets warm enough this spring. I will start them in the Aerogarden and then into planters in the house until it warms up, and then we can have tomatoes getting ripe much faster this summer. At least, that is the plan. I am watching the Aerogarden sales on Amazon, and would like to have one of the ones that have a special sprouting tray with it.
Today is December 23, 2017 and we got a seed catalog in the mail. It seems they start earlier every year.