Planning to Plant

My seed order has arrived!

This is by far the record earliest I've gotten prepared for gardening. I sent in my order in January. Looking back to the first summer we were married, that year I received my seed order in uh... April.

I never thought I'd catch myself getting excited about gardening. Back when I worked at Farmer's Markets, I remember hearing a born-farmer say he started his in January, and my eyes bugged out and probably did a little eye roll because I couldn't believe anybody could be so passionate about having a green thumb. But here I sit, the first week in February, with my seeds all ready, waiting for the snow to melt and sun to shine so I can get some seeds started! Since I'm in north-central Michigan, I can't actually plant outdoors for another 3 1/2 to 4 months. My tomatoes and peppers will be started indoors sometime in March though.

When I sorted out my seeds from previous years, I found I had enough left over of a few items that I didn't have to order quite as much as I had anticipated. We did order heavy on green beans and corn, since these are two items we have or will have used up our stock by summer. We're planning to mass-produce these crops so we can store away enough for the next 2-3 years. When I get tired of canning/freezing, the rest will be either sold at our roadside stand or taken to auction. I am purposely planning a little bit extra to sell, since last year both of these items brought a pretty high price at the produce auction. Beans were up to $22/bushel, and from what I remember, corn was hardly under $3/doz., unless sold by the giant bin.

Other items I bought seeds for include cucumbers, red beets, lettuce, spinach, roma tomatoes, wildflowers, and cut flowers.

The roma tomatoes are for an experiment. I am planning to make a double batch of ketchup this year, but don't really need to stock up on any other tomato products. Ideally a paste tomato works best for ketchup because you don't have to cook off as much juice. I have a tomato variety I like already, but am unsure how well it would sell at the produce auction, so I decided to try my hand at growing romas so I can send whatever I don't need to the auction. They are a common, specialty paste tomato that gathered a high price last year, but was in extremely limited quantity and only was available every couple weeks, even though the auction ran two days a week. We'll see how well they do! To date, I have only had real success with my favorite Amish Paste variety, so it will be interesting to see if I can get romas to grow. 

The wildflowers are because I would like to add some more visual appeal to my garden. Plus, my in-home summer decor is usually made up of fresh wildflower bouquets (often picked and carefully arranged by my sweet husband!). I've tried growing flowers in the past, but have never been faithful in watering them, so they've never come up. I'm hoping this year we'll be seeing nice patches of colorful blooms that we can enjoy all summer long. 

Last week I got to go on a fun shopping trip. Aaron has a rewards card at ACE hardware, since he shops there fairly often for work. We get coupons in the mail every month, and after spending so many dollars (earning him a certain number of points), he'll get gift cards usually for $5 off a purchase of $5 or more. In January, it was ACE's anniversary, and they sent out their rewards members a $10 gift card to be spent on a $10+ purchase. The calendar month flew by, and before we knew it 1/31/18 was here, and the gift coupon was expiring. Since we literally can see the parking lot lights from our house at night, and can't let free money go to waste, I received the honors of browsing the store to use the coupon. It was like a field trip for a stay-at-home mom! I bundled up the kids and went out one wintery afternoon and we rode the cart up and down those aisles. It was quite fun being able to take the time to answer all of Adam's "what's that?" inquiries without feeling like he was taking up precious need-to-focus shopping time. 

This is what we walked out of the store with! A hose nozzle and a piece of caramel (not pictured. It didn't last that long!) that we paid a grand total of 34 cents for! The nozzle was $9.99, but since the purchase had to be $10 in order to activate the coupon, we bought ourselves a treat for the short ride home. I had been needing a hose nozzle for the past few years, but never took the time or money to go out and buy one. Instead, I've spent the past few summers freezing my fingers off by covering the hose opening with my thumb to adjust the spray. Now I have a handy dandy, [almost] free nozzle that I can use! My fingers are already excited to be saved from the ice-cold well water.