The Modern Victory Garden

This is the season of the dreamtime.   That quiet period when nights are long, temperatures are chill, and the garden is largely hibernating for the winter.   The rush of the annual garden season grows still, and there is time – time to plan, consider options, and most of all … time to dream.               

For many of us the Muse of our aspirations is delivered right to our mailbox.   Glossy and beautiful, every variety described in glowing terms - the annual parade of seed catalogs cannot fail to excite the imagination and provides much needed distraction as we while away the long winter nights.   I must get at least 15 catalogs a year.   Enjoy reading through all of them, but usually order (seeds and supplies) from only about 4.   A few of my particular favorites:

The catalogs set the dreams in motion, but the seeds… oh the seeds!   They are like a rare treasure that must be acquired, admired, inventoried, and stored with great care.   My seeds have all been requested, saved, or purchased for the 2010 garden season and as of today several of them are here, but many more are yet to still arrive.    Some recent arrivals:

The really big order from Territorial Seed should be coming any day now and it will largely complete the annual seed acquisition process.        

The seed order arrivals tend to just throw gasoline on my fire of excitement and impatience for spring to arrive.   I have gardened all of my adult life and yet I still get a bad case of spring fever year after year.   It helps to find useful employment for my energy and enthusiasm.   One form of off-season entertainment is to busy oneself with the construction of various garden structures or equipment.   Last year my shop project was the horizontal pea trellis, which turned out to be a resounding success.   This year, I have a simple idea in my head for a planting jig to make closely spaced planting easier to do – uniform spacing and fast to employ.   I spent a little time in the shop yesterday evening refining the idea and figuring out what supplies are already on hand, and what will need to be purchased.   Hoping to purchase the few items I need this coming weekend and get the working prototype put together.   I will need to clear off a section of the shop bench before I can do much work though!   All the small hand tools seem to just end up there as permanent residents.                                        

Sources of garden dreams also come in the form of surprise gifts that come my way.   I paid a visit to my sister and her husband on Christmas eve day.   She had acquired some really nice looking (and large!) planting containers – the kind that medium to large potted trees are sold in.   She gifted me with four of these beauties and I must have spent a good week enjoying thinking about all the possibilities of what I could grow in them next season.         

For now, I have settled on the idea of using them to grow four “Siletz” tomato plants.                                                                      

So what are dreams made of?   For me it would be seed catalogs, seeds, garden related shop projects, unexpected gifts of containers, but most of all, the first trays of seedling starts growing on under lights - promises of bounty to come.       

What are your garden dreams made of?