With the snow piled high and recent temperatures at record and near record lows, it’s time to think spring and gardening. Several seed catalogs arrived in my mailbox before Christmas. I gave them a quick glance and stacked them up. Now with February and the back of winter broken (I can hope), it’s time to gather up the seed catalogs and savor the beautiful photos of ripe tomatoes, long green cucumbers, and sweet corn so fresh and yellow that it wants to jump right off the page.
Seed catalogs, somewhat like the old Sears Christmas catalogs that I fondly remember, are filled with hope and joy. The vegetables displayed set a high bar for my gardening adventures, now going on for more than 50 years. I remember my mother, sitting by the wood-burning cook stove on a cold winter evening, paging through a seed catalog and smiling. Her mind was well into the gardening season, while the rest of her was trying to keep warm with temperatures well below zero.
It is now that I must make up my mind about which vegetable seeds to order, especially which tomato seeds. Last year I grew seven different varieties of tomatoes. With a very wet August at the farm—15 inches of rain in 10 days—none of them did well. Too much water and too much blight.
For those interested, I am speaking at Garden Expo (Alliant Center in Madison) on Saturday, Feb.9, 2:15 and again on Sunday, Feb. 10 at 1:00 p.m.
THE OLD TIMER SAYS: Time to think spring. Seed catalogs can help do it.
UPCOMING EVENTS:
February 5, 11:45-12:30. Larry Meiller Show, Public Radio. We’ll be discussing my books: Once a Professor, and Simple Things: Lessons From the Family Farm.
February 9, 2:15 Garden Expo, Alliant Center, Madison “Ten Simple Things I’ve Learned From Fifty years of gardening”
February 10, 1:00 p.m. Garden Expo, Alliant Center, Madison (Repeat topic)
February 15, 6:00 p.m. State of Wisconsin Mediation Program, Wintergreen Hotel and Conference Center, Wisconsin Dells. After dinner speaker.
PURCHASING BOOKS AND DVDs:
Order your signed Apps books and DVDs from the Patterson Memorial Library in Wild Rose, a fundraiser for them. Phone: 920-622-3835 for prices and ordering.
Patterson Memorial Library
500 Division Street
Wild Rose, WI 54984
barnard@wildroselibrary.
www.wildroselibrary.org
Popular recent Books:
Simple Things: Lessons from the Family Farm (fun to read in winter)
Garden Wisdom (Time to begin planning for the upcoming garden season)
Old Farm Country Cookbook
The Quiet Season (All about winter)
Cold as Thunder (A look into the future)
The Travels of Increase Joseph (Historical fiction about Wisconsin before 1900)
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