Sow There! 5-25
It’s fun to have friends who share your passion — be it roller derby, bargain-hunting, wild-game hunting or gardening.
Sally at work and I have bonded via our green thumbs and a few weeks ago she brought in a batch of old seed packets. They were dated 2005 and 2006, but I was delighted. I considered it a birthday gift for both this year and next.
I don’t know how other gardeners feel, but sometimes I just get itchy. I want to put something new in the ground, just to see if it grows. These seed packets were the perfect excuse.
I walked around the relatively small yard looking for places to “stick things in the ground.”
With seed packets from a friend, particularly ones that are years old, who cares?
I placed seeds in gravel piles. Only one cucumber sprouted from a month ago (and those were new seeds, mind you!) So I planted a whole seed packet from 2005. Now I have 20 sprouts and must make that grueling decision about what babies will survive my yanking.
It’s very fun, however, the mystery of it all. What will survive?
I called my friend Fabulous Phil, the eclectic banjo player who has been an inspiration so many times for this column.
He had a funny story.
This January he went to one of those big-box stores to buy something. His wife Dody lost him, of course. He was in the little gardening aisle.
They had seed packets on sale for 10 cents each.
I can just envision Phil’s face as he came across this bounty.
Phil claimed he “just happened to go down that aisle,” but Dody and I know better. He went to that aisle like a politician goes to money.
With considerable exuberance on the phone, he recounted how he went and grabbed one of those plastic baskets to pile up on the bargains.
At the end, he had 110 seed packets. Similar to me, he didn’t really care if they sprouted — not at 10 cents a pop.
Fabulous Phil took the seed packets up to the counter and sadly there was a line behind him. He tried to tell the “kid” at the register that he had 110 packets.
“I’m telling you, Heather, I took one or two of every seed packet they had.”
But the clerk insisted it was policy to run each and every seed packet through the electronic system. At the end he was charged $11 and some change for tax.
Phil said he felt badly for the people behind him who were just trying to buy some embarrassing ointment or hair dye.
Gardeners and good friends often think alike. Phil sprinkled the seeds all over his yard, not caring if they came up. Now he’s growing some things he never thought he would.
He has sprouts of collard greens and beets in addition to all the usuals he grows, including fruit trees and vegetables.
But the shocker was that Phil and Dody didn’t plant many tomatoes this year. I was shocked and amazed as Phil has been an annual staple for me to visit, shamelessly, for the reason of claiming vegetables with which to make salsa.
Phil, being shameless himself, said he had read in my column that we had 15 tomato plants in the yard so this year he was relying on me to provide him with HIS salsa needs.
Hmmmm.
I guess it’s only fair.