Challenges

The seeds are in the pots in the window.

Drives me nuts. I wanted the greenhouse already! I wanted shelves and shelves of these!

Oh, well, one does what one can. I seem to be a very patient person, but in reality I am eaten alive by wants, wants, wants! I want it all and I want it now!

Sigh. Patience is something I have HAD to learn over years and years. I can't make a ceramic product without pouring the mold. And Waiting. Then popping it out of the mold. And waiting. Then undercoating it. Then firing it. And waiting. Then glazing it and firing it again. And waiting.

I can't make the little green heads of the plants pop out of the soil. Can't force them at all. I can water and sun and warm, but I can't MAKE them grow. Dammit.

Lots more seeds in the basement. Old seeds. Not going to waste pots on maybes - but I AM going to plant them ALL this year, bit by bit.

Do I REALLY have two WHOLE FLATS of green beans and peas, and a whole flat of Zucchini and crookneck? Betchreass. They send me HUNDREDS of these - and only 16 tomato seeds per packet! One Mortgage Lifter tomato packet, and two Opelaikas for paste, and one cherry tomato packet for Mike because he likes picking and eating them right off the vine. Grrrrrr. Good thing I like these things! I'm not planting anything I don't like or won't use.

Last year I carefully saved my basil and marjoram seeds, and dried the herbs. So what do they send me as my free seed? Oh, go on. Guess. Herb seeds aren't hybrid and can be saved year to year, so I do. Sigh. But I did order the sage, chives, and the parsley. We like Parsley.

And the Wave petunias have to be babied, scarified (rubbed with sandpaper) and soaked, and then planted in soilless mix - not covered. Argh again. Another reason I hate hybrids - but the Waves got so much comment last year, spilling over the hanging pots. They really look nice come July. Sigh. The Morning Glories and Coreopsis I can just throw on the ground, but noooooo. Not the Waves. Sigh.

Still to come are the plants - the onions, the potatoes, the blueberries. They won't send those til April - a good thing. I talked one night at the bar to the guy who plants the potato farm near here, and they won't plant til April. So it is a good thing. My Daffs and tulips (TULIPS!! That I don't Have to dig up every summer!) haven't even poked their heads up here yet.

I have to make my spreadsheet, show when I planted what, how long it takes, when I put them in the garden, etc. I want to do this RIGHT so I know and understand my new growing seasons, and what will grow here and what won't, so when I DO start to sell bedding plants I'll have the right ones.

I have to confess here that, as much as I have always NEEDED more room for more plants, dreamed and salivated and desired more space and more more MORE seeds planted and growing, I am a little daunted by the size of these gardens. This is what I've always wanted, dreamed of, and worked towards - but now I have to DO it. I am a little scared.

I think that instead of going to O'Neill for the Irish Festival next weekend I'll stay home and order my chickens. I have x amount of money, and I am going to spend it all - or at least a good amount - on my future here, not on a brief day of frivolity. My friends at work laughed at me - they take days off to go places and do things, and I've told them that the day the chickens come in at the Post Office (Nancy at the PO will call me) is the day I'll take off so I can get them started. You have to take each shipped chicken by hand, dip their little beaks in the water, then turn them loose in the brooder under the carefully adjusted heat lamp. Then you have to scatter the chick starter around so that they can find it. THEN you have to watch them for the first few hours to make sure that the lamp is not too close or too far away, to make sure that they don't smother each other because they pile up when they are cold, etc. Sigh. Everything has to be carefully done because they don't have mamas - and I want them to think of me as their mama. At least until they start breeding on their own in the yard!

So many decisions and so little time. So much space and so few seeds to fill it. So many hopes and dreams about to be realized by my own efforts. I have to ignore that little tremble in my heart and just DO it. Argh.