The best laid plans ....

Ok, I know.   These 'new' seed packets all say '2012' on them.   That's because I don't have a picture of any 2013 seeds because I procrastinated ordering, and then got sick and couldn't lift a finger to do anything until just last week.

On April 1 it all started with a little tickle, which turned into a cough, which turned into the Dread Flu that kept me down and out for over 2 weeks.   Emerging from the Bubonic Plague and Spanish Influenza Spa and Weight Loss Clinic at last, I rushed to get my precious tomato seeds started before our short WoO was closed.   Happy to fire up my fabulous light cart, last year's Big Garden Splurge.

Despite a serious, ongoing case of the draggies, I've had to keep going and thus my recovery has been slower than normal.   I have scheduled extra massage, gulped down extra supplements and had extra acupuncture sessions, all in an effort to get back on my feet and out into the garden.

After attending a special intensive class a couple of weeks ago on Chinese pulse diagnosis, my wonderful TCM/acupuncturist had a field day reading and interpreting my various pulses.   Mmmm, she said ...... aha ....... interesting ........ and made some expected comments on lung, kidney and the like.   Then she turned to my other arm, saying, 'I'm excited to see what your liver is up to!'  and then she just started laughing.   'It's all over the place, very restless, up and down and all around.....'

Kind of like a carnival ride? I asked and she laughed again.  'Exactly' so she gave me some suggestions for calming and balancing the frisky organ, and a sheet to read about ways to act in harmony with the energies of Spring.

It talks about the need to move slowly and easily, transitioning from the still, more inward and inactive months of Winter.   It advises one to:  "Rest at night and get up early, stride freely through the courtyard, let down your hair and indulge in the leisurely feeling of a morning stroll;  this is how you should raise your spirits in spring..."

"Spring is the season of harmony.   This is the time to roam through gardens and forests, to sit leisurely in scenic kiosks and take in the tranquil sights of nature....."

I then noticed that these were the translated words of a 16th Century Chinese poet and 'medical scholar'.  Wow, I thought, this sounds like pretty good 450-year old advice.

Of course my favorite parts are about striding freely through the courtyard.   If only I had a courtyard!  and indulging in the leisurely feeling of a morning stroll.   So much more appealing than the constant underlying voice in my head to 'get out and start exercising!'  'lift some weights!'  'get fit!'   and do it NOW!

I also love the advice to roam through gardens and forests, sitting leisurely in scenic kiosks. I am wracking my brain to come up with local scenic kiosks.   Perhaps a covered bench in a downtown park -- or one of the trailside benches on Pilot Butte or the Deschutes River Trail would count as 'kiosks'.   Or possibly this is a cosmic hint that I should get to work building a gazebo in the back yard.

At any rate, I am coming into harmony, I can feel it.   The week of warm, sunny weather we've just had is helping.  Sprouting tomato babies are helping.   The scenic kiosks are beckoning later in the week, on our planned anniversary camping trip.   I'm pretty sure they are out there.   When I find them, I'll have photos.   Meanwhile, I'm off to the courtyard/back garden to throw a little dirt around.

(scenic kiosk of a previous year)

Bloggers' Luck?

In my everyday life, I don't win things. Contests, sweepstakes, drawings. I never win them. In this I am following in the footsteps of this blog's namesake, Arabella -- the original Arabella, my grandmother -- who claimed to have only won one thing in her entire, long life. At the tender age of 5 or so, she correctly guessed how many jelly beans (or other Victorian era items -- did they have jelly beans in 1896?) were in a big glass jar at the county fair, and won a wonderful music box. It is still in the family -- my sister currently has it, but we have discussed trading off at some point. A fine thing to win, if you are going to win one thing.

Since I began reading blogs, though, specifically garden blogs, I have won 3 (three!) separate items, in different blog giveaways. A year or two ago, when I first discovered my favorite garden blog, Garden Rant, I won a pair of gardening gloves.

Last December, I won a most excellent book, which I quite need -- having nothing but dry shade in my yard. (Except of course for the dry sun.)

Now comes word that I have won a copy of the most excellent, latest, hot-off-the-presses edition of the Sunset Western Garden Book from yet another fine blog (Gossip in the Garden). This book is The Bible for gardeners in The West, and I have personally owned every edition since the 1967 version.

I discovered the (probably) 1959

version as a newlywed in 1971, as I was rifling my mother's bookshelves during a summer visit. I was spending the summer at a US Forest Service guard station (as devoted new wifey to my firefighter/sweetheart) 30 miles from a paved road and after only a few weeks I was desperate for reading material. I borrowed it on an impulse, despite never having had the slightest urge to garden up to that point in my life.

Once I got home to our little plywood home in the woods (fire guard station) I opened it and was instantly captivated. I still don't know why, but possibly it was a newly-awakened nesting urge, due to my recent entrance into the married state. All I know is that, once I got my nose into that book, I became aflame with the desire to dig.

Come September, I left my sweetheart in the mountains to finish up fire season, and returned alone to our crummy rental duplex next to the McKinleyville exit off Highway 101 (northern California coast, 'in the redwoods;), and started creating my first garden. I dug a small flower bed in front of the house and planted daffodils and crocus -- which did well.

I spaded a huge area in the side 'yard' -- really just a weedy, grassy area used by former tenants to bury their garbage. And I do mean garbage. This being the pre-recycling era, I was digging up not just rusted cans and broken bottles, but potato chip packages, old toothbrushes, clothing --- ewww. I persevered, though, and proudly showed my sweetheart my neatly planted rows of leeks, carrots, lettuce, onions and more when he returned a few weeks later.

Alas, most of the seeds did not come up -- I had planted them far too deeply, and the carrots, strangely successful, were eaten over a period of several days by gophers (as I watched in astonishment from the window). No matter. I was hooked. And I am still planting carrots and co. in my garden, with better success and fewer pests. My sweetheart is still a bit shocked that I garden -- he doesn't get the 'fun' of it. But he gladly eats my successes, and realized the time I spend in the garden is time I don't spend getting into all kinds of other trouble.

OK, what other garden blog contests can I enter?

Get a Grip, Ned....

or, there's no need to panic just because I loaned my favorite seed catalogs to a friend, and am now going through withdrawal .......

When I first started gardening, at the tender age of 21, I was pretty much on my own for inspiration and information. No internet, no knowledgeable neighbors; just my mother (300 miles away and in a vastly different climate zone) and the garden books I found at the library. At the time I lived in a mild-winter area (northern California coast) and could pretty much plant year-round. I killed lots of plants and murdered a lot of seeds in my first stumbling efforts but had fun anyway. With the wisdom of hindsight, I can say that beginning gardeners should just plan on this happening, no matter where they live.

A few years later when we moved to Central Oregon, things got a bit dicier. The neighbors all said, 'you can't grow anything here' but I ignored them and planted anyway. A lot of things died as the local axiom 'frost is possible any day of the year' proved to be true. Blackened squash and bean vines in July -- oh my!

But I was determined and found a few resources for encouragement: legendary local OSU Extension Service agent, Marvin Young (with his list of vegetables that would indeed grow here), and a wizard gardening friend or two who astounded the community with beautiful perennial flower and vegetable gardens in the face of the common wisdom against such bountiful potential.

The only local source of seeds was the occasional rack in the hardware store, and there wasn't much of a selection, nor were most of the varieties particularly well-suited to our crazy climate. I became a seed catalog junkie, welcoming into my home the standard Burpee and Park seed companies back when they were still smallish and family-owned, along with a growing crowd of newcomers and new-to-me oldtimers: Johnny's, Nichols, Gurney's, Stokes..... I was soon able to turn up my nose at the pitiful local offerings, and order varieties that showed actual promise of surviving our short growing season. With the birth of the heritage seed movement, options expanded again: Seed Savers' Exchange, Seeds Trust (then High Altitude Gardens), and many more. Now there is an embarrassment of riches in the seed catalog world.

Early in December, I looked forward to the catalogs, which began to show up in my mailbox right after Christmas. They come earlier now, but I still feel a tingle of anticipation when the first one arrives. In my early garden journals, I noted the date of the first entry in what I thought of as the Seed Catalog Sweepstakes. I'm a bit more blase nowadays, but I still love to see them piling up on the shelf, awaiting the day I have time to sit down and start making lists of things I need. Want. Lust after. Whatever.

Luckily, I have help in sorting it all out.