Plotting, Planning, Pondering

Snowflakes, icicles, and the rustle of bare branches in the chill December wind…it’s beginning to look a lot like…...garden planning time.

 

I suppose it’s totally a plant geek sort of thing, but there’s nothing I love more on the most bitter of winter days than to dig out the new seed catalogs and daydream about the garden to come. 

 

And it does require an awful lot of planning.  You know that old saying, it seems everyone has heard it at some meal from a parent or grandparent over the years, about your eyes being bigger than your stomach?  I am pretty much constantly afflicted with the gardening version of that.  Can I grow enough beans for a few decent cannings, plus eight varieties of (multiple) tomato plants on the paltry 1/8^th of an acre my house sits on?  Probably not.  Will that stop me from trying?  Well…..it hasn’t so far.

I’ve no real idea yet of what I’m going to grow this year.  I have my favorites of course, the ones that after much trial and error have become garden necessities:

Royalty Purple Pod Beans, as gorgeous as they are yummy. 

Miniature Red Bell Peppers, quick growing, space saving, prolific, and the best tasting of sweet peppers.
Nyagous Tomatoes, one of the tastiest and most reliable black tomatoes I’ve ever tried.
Trifetti Peppers, the only fruiting plant that I grow entirely for it’s beauty, and how amazingly well its leaves press and dry.

 

Other than those few standbys, I don’t know.  But I do know that outside there is already a blanket of snow on the ground, temps that didn’t quite make it out of the teens, and yet another incoming weather advisory.  It is definitely time for a hot cup of tea, a snuggle up on the couch, seed catalogs, and the dreams of a sleeping garden.