Fun with seeds!

Now those of you out there that have read all of my blog posts (you guys are the best!) will recall that, last fall, we laid out a plan for the garden. In “Now THAT’s a garden!” you saw us take a piece of our land and turn it into this enormous garden plot.  A full half acre of beautiful tilled land, just calling out for some plants to grow.  So…. what to grow?? 

Let me introduce you to the concept of “seed catalogues”! Farmer/country folks get absolutely crazy excited by receiving seed catalogues in the mail.  They spend hours reviewing and researching for the best crop seeds to get for their type of gardening and where they live.  Heritage seeds. non-GMO seeds, direct sowing vs indoor starts, the possibilities are endless!  Clearly, I had no idea that seeds could generate this kind of excitement! I have to tell ya… we so got sucked into the seed vortex.  We hhhmmmm’d and hhhaaawww’d over what to get.  We sat down together as a family and spent an entire NIGHT deciding what to order! Visions of rows and rows of carrots and peas, beans and lettuce, corn and cucumbers…… everything in the catalogue looked so good!!! Look at that garden!  We have room for everything!  Not a single thought given to the fact that we have never had a garden, grown a plant of any kind or have any clue what might grow well…. or not, in our area. Except for hay, we know for sure that hay grows in this area. Anyway, we settle on our seed choices and wait impatiently for our seeds to arrive.

Before you can blink, the seeds arrive – with another catalogue for flowers you might just have to have – I know enough now not to even open it at this point!  Since I am now a good farmer wife, I show some interest and take some time to look at all the lovely seed packets in the box.  Being well versed in the business world, I know a chart and a graph when I see one.  Curiosity is peaked, so I have look at what this is all about!  Before I know it I am head first into plant hardiness zones, planting schedules, germination times, and frost dates.  WHAT??!!!  Did we even buy the right seeds??  Farmers almanac online tells us when our frost dates are – when is last frost in the spring and when is first frost in the fall.   Visions of a beautiful sunny day, me in my jeans and a t-shirt, wearing a big floppy hat and brandishing a pretty little shovel as I drop seeds into little holes in the earth, are dying a quick death as reality sets in. What made me think that it was as simple as shoving the seeds into the earth, adding water and sun, and presto! you have vegetables?? Most of you guys are city folks…. didn’t you think it would go something like that???

Since we clearly never  back down from a challenge, we just keep moving forward.  Information organization, charting, graphing and planning are things that fall very squarely in my wheelhouse.  So I get busy.  I create a spreadsheet (of course! Those of you who have worked with me, know I love my spreadsheets!).  I lay out all the kinds of vegetables we have seeds for, then what varieties. Next up is planting times, can they be put right into the garden or do they have to be started indoors, then when can those grown indoors go outside.  Next up is planting depths, spacing, days to maturity and yield numbers.  How many of each seed do we have and how many should we be planting.  I chart it all, colour code the different dates and times (because I am crazy!) and am quite proud of my efforts when I am done.

We have 17 planting beds in each row, and there are 3 rows.  In the first 2 rows, the planting beds are 30 feet long and in the last row the beds are 15 feet long.  Now we need to decide where to place the plants in each of the beds.  I pretty smugly start looking at taller plants on one side and ground plants/root veggies on the other, done!   Nope!  Were any of you aware that there is something called “companion planting”!!??  I think not!  Companion planting is a plan where you plant certain veggies near each other to help them grow better, as well as which veggies you should keep apart from one another.   Great! Just Great!  I toss aside my taller to shorter plan and start looking at what the companion plants are for each of our lovely veggies. OMG!  This is a nightmare….!!!!   Beans need to be planted near the cucumber and radishes, but away from the garlic and the onions. Anything in the cabbage family (broccoli, kale, brussel sprouts) can be cozied up to the potatoes and the spinach, but cannot be near the pole beans.   And don’t put the tomatoes anywhere near the corn…… oh man!  Didn’t I move to the country for the simple life?????

Oh and wait! Did I talk about the pest control plants yet?  You apparently need to plant oregano near the melons, chives near the peas, and marigolds and nasturtiums just about everywhere. I have no idea what a nasturtium even looks like! My spreadsheet now consists of three different tabs to track this mess and I have set up a colour scheme to the whole thing that tells us what needs to be planted – indoors or outdoors, when, and how often.  It’s a little overwhelming.   Then I realize that…. according to the colour scheme, we should have started the tomatoes and the peppers – indoors – last week.  We are behind already!

Off to the store for supplies. germination soil ( really?!! regular soil doesn’t cut it?), seedling trays, and little signs so that we know what is planted in each tray.  Then there are the indoor grow lights to help them get big and strong, and the heat mat.  Apparently some seeds need to be kept warm in order to germinate. Who knew? And entire afternoon spent planting and watering, and we have our garden started!  Keep your fingers crossed!  We will need all the help we can get!