Seed Thoughts, By Diana Nothandy


I got another seed catalogue today. A big, glossy catalogue full of beautifully photographed vegetables and short on frivolities like flowers. The pictures of flowers in the last seed catalogue I received withered . My house is such a floral dead zone that even pictures of flowers wilt the minute they get inside. It’s very disheartening.

Yeah, well. I don’t order these catalogs for flowers. They can shove their exotic bulbs right up their manure spreader. I’m not in the market for decorative items. I’m in the market for vegetables.

Do I want to deal with seeds though? They don’t call them seed catalogs because the have pages and pages of interesting seedlings . I’m more of a seedling person I think. I’m not sure I have the patience it takes to grow things from seeds. All the pictures are of these gorgeous, lush, healthy all ready grown and harvested vegetables. There aren’t a lot of pictures of the seeds. They gloss right over the seed stage of the vegetable. I think that's a little disingenuous on their part.

I was thinking about all of this while I was riding my bike. Dogger refused to go for a walk, which was not her being head strong.. Dogger is in the middle of her yearly bout with doggy prickly heat and part of the treatment for doggy prickly heat is massive doses of benadryl. She’s on enough downers to stop a smaller dog or a full sized human in their tracks. When she’s sleeping she’s not itching and when she’s not itching, her rash has a chance to heal. I think walking also exaserbates the problem because the rash is in her little doggy arm pit and walking makes it chafe. She wasn’t so tired that she wasn’t able to run from me when I approached her with her leash for a walk though. Bitch.

But it was way too pretty last night to not take advantage of the weather, I mean really. It would have been wrong to not be outside.  When I left for my ride I left Dogger in the back yard and I didn’t even feel bad about it.

And while I was peddling along I was thinking about seeds.

How big a pain in the ass is starting seeds? A 4 or 5 on the PitA scale? Don’t you need light for that? Do windows count? Do I have enough light coming my windows in for that? Peddle, peddle, peddle Do I really see me doing that? And where would I grow them? Peddle, peddle, peddle Would The Kitty agree to a destroying-my-things detente’ and wouldn’t taking care of seeds be almost like taking care of another animal?  Do I want dozens of tiny pets? Do I want dirt in my house? Peddle, peddle, peddle And how pissed would I be if I did take on all that and they ended up just being stringy and leggy and later ended up not producing anything or what if they all died? But what if they all lived? I don’t have room for dozens of plants, even really interesting plants. Peddle, peddle, peddle And the interesting seeds aren’t free either and at least with two or three cheap boring seedlings you know the plants are viable and under your control Peddle, peddle, peddle Hey look there’s my Church! I could ride my bike to Mass! But.. pretty much the only way to get really interesting vegetable plants is to grow them yourself from interesting seeds because gawd knows the vegetable seedlings available at the stores are not interesting. I mean, what I’m growing I could buy at the store.

Peddle, peddle, peddle

But there are more than just tomatoes, green beans! Spaghetti squash! Peddle, the squash I have now hates me! Peddle, peddle Garlic! Dozens of different types of garlic! I love garlic. Everyone I know loves garlic. And I’m pretty sure I could grow broccoli here in the fall, I love broccoli! Peddle, peddle, peddle But geeze, I’m all ready going to try growing multiple varieties of garlic over the winter. How much work do I want to do after it gets cold and the garden isn’t green and sexy any more? Answer:  Not a lot.

Peddle, peddle peddle.