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Grow Something New in 2022
Seeds planted in soil trigger feelings in gardeners akin to giving birth. It’s all about birthing life in the garden. Reading about seeds is almost as good. Many of us consult seed catalogues throughout the winter in anticipation of spring planting. Often, we will stick to plants that have performed well for us.
This year, I suggest trying something new, perhaps a type of heirloom cucumber known as Hmong Red, a lovely variety of squash known as Gelber-Englischer custard squash, or Zapotec Green corn. It’s doubtful you’ll find the above-mentioned seeds in your local DIY garden center. These seeds are heirlooms marketed through The Baker Creek Heirloom Seed Company, founded by Jere and Emilee Gettle, authors of The Heirloom Life Gardener.
Heirloom seeds go far beyond the heirloom tomato and other vegetables offered at local DIY outlets and garden centers. And Baker Creek isn’t the only seed company with a catalog and shops that sell heirlooms. But they’ve worked very hard at making the Baker Creek name synonymous with the grow-your-own-food revolution that focuses on seed not altered by scientists. In other words, the seed has not been genetically modified (GMO).
Thousands of types of heirloom vegetable seeds are available when you know where to look for them. Search for catalogues online. Among others, check out: https://www.seedsavers.org/catalog, https://www.rareseeds.com, and https://www.edenbrothers.com/store/heirloom_seeds.html
Time Spent in a Potager Garden Renews the Spirit
With the official start of summer a few days away, I find myself leaving my computer and the scene I’m writing on my third novel to take a break in the garden. Alive with honeybees, bumblebees, butterflies, and hummingbirds, the garden is perfect place for a respite and a cup of tea.
Honeybees love to forage on all types of blooming lavender.
Quite like a potager garden that includes flowers, herbs, trees, vegetables, berries, and grapes, mine also includes a patch of corn.
Climbing Sally Holmes roses with trusses of ivory blooms grow behind the 4-foot-tall corn.
Embroidered around the edges of the garden, there are climbing roses, fruit trees, and lots of lavender. Along the rows of lavender, there are peach trees with fruit the size of softballs and five pomegranate trees, laden with blooms and new fruit.
The pomegranates aren’t quite this large yet, but the trees have so much fruit, they’ll have to be thinned.
As I meander, I discover the trees of red and yellow plums have begun to drop their ripe fruit. I’ve got to make those plums into jelly or jam and ditto on the apricots.
Ripe apricots hang on the tree only so long before they drop.
But that work will have to wait until my late afternoon tea break. My novel won’t write itself. Still, the time I spend in the garden revitalizes my spirit and refreshes my brain cells, enabling me to return to the computer and the scene I’m writing with renewed vision and vigor.
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If you enjoy reading about gardening, keeping bees, raising chickens, and creating delicious recipes, check out my novels from Kensington Publishing.
First book in Meera Lester’s Henny Penny Farmette series of cozy mysteries
The Henny Penny Farmette series of cozy mysteries are available at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Kobo Books, Walmart, and other online and traditional bookstores everywhere. Available in hardcover, Kindle, and mass market paperback formats.
Novel #2 in the Henny Penny Farmette series, available Oct. 1, 2016