Visions of Vegetables Dancing in Our Heads

The seed catalog finally arrived!! For years, I've read Martha Stewart Living and every January I wondered how she could get so excited over a seed catalog. Now I think I finally understand. While I am devouring information on beekeeping in the Backyard Homestead and wondering how many chickens would fit in that mid-century modern chicken coop I saw advertised in Mary Jane's Farm, it is JSM who is salivating over the Baker Creek Heirloom Seed Catalog we got in the mail last week.

JSM was captivated by the gardens at Monticello when we visited in 2007 and since we lived in an urban condo at the time we purchased some seeds that never got planted. When I saw that The New York Times called Baker Creek "the evangelists of heirloom seeds" and The Oprah Magazine wrote "....these are the people on the cutting edge of food culture..." I knew he would love it! It's 100+ pages of 1/4 inch print with color photographs of all varieties of heirloom vegetables and descriptions even Thomas Jefferson would love - a little history, some plant descriptions and great recipe ideas! Just think - instead of the imported produce available at Safeway we could be eating the same variety of tomatoes available to our great-great grandparents! How about a lemon cucumber from 1884 or a Costoluto Genovese tomato from the early 19th century? Arugula, peppers, squash, pumpkins, lettuces, and radishes in more varieties than I can shake a stick at and everything sounds so luscious!

Good thing JSM made all the decisions for us - I would never have been able to! I can't wait to see what his visions of garden grandeur will bring us this summer, but I am wondering if we'll have enough room for the $43 worth of seeds he purchased (300 seeds in a pack average about $2.) Since we won't be planting until May (Pacific NW weather is to blame!) we have lots of time to plan our little corner of the food world and dream of the abundance we hope we'll have come August. In the meantime we planted our first plant in the yard (a rosemary bush) and a little herb garden to get us started.

And now for a little perspective......we clearly have a lot more work to do! But, hooray for a couple nice days to get some planting done!