2011 A New Year of Gardening

The weatherman reports that Atlanta could see another dusting of snow. Which caused my spirit to sink. The kids are excited at the possibility of playing in the white stuff, but I am ill-equipped to handle dreary weather when it dips “down south.”

When the weather turns icy I can think of nothing better than to curl up on the couch and read the latest release. I’m not talking about what the New York Times list tells us we should read. I’m referring to the stack of seed catalogues that receive top priority during the month of January.

With pen in hand and sticky notes ready, I thumb through each magazine. This is the year, I convince myself, that my garden will surpass those I see on the cover of a magazine. I’ll begin by planting a salad bed (which, by the way, should be planted fairly soon here in the south). It will produce a rainbow of leafy goodness. Not the boring “lettuce” and “mustard” like my parents grow. We’ll have none of that in my garden. Oh no, my salad “bed” will be exotic.

I’ll have a garden filled with lettuce no one can pronounce: Purple Mizuna and Rouge d’Hiver, and a touch of Skyphos (to add some pink to the mix). This year, I’ll sprout my own wheat grass (have you checked out the prices of wheat grass lately?), I’ll give Dill one more try and plant Chamomile, primarily because I noticed a charming Chamomile Rake that seems to be the smartest invention since the sticky notes that now color the pages of the catalog.

I’ll draw out my design and plant the seeds with care. I’ll call my dad and brag because my planting season in Georgia begins a few weeks before his in North Carolina. He’ll laugh, because he knows that regardless of what I plant or when, his little Bowen tractor has worked the ground into a powdery consistency that grows anything he darn well pleases.

As an aside, last week he worked two truckloads of nearly-rotten sawdust into his garden.