Those Tempting Horrible Seed Catalogs

Just before the holidays my first holiday gifts start arriving in the post - seed catalogs. Oh how they tempt me with their colorful photos and happy descriptions;

"Best Tasting Tomato Ever - Won Over All Our Taste-Testers!"

I am excited yet fearful:

Will I buy more seeds and plants than I have room for in a season?
Will I have too much to harvest and not enough time?
Will the weather hold?

So I stash the catalogs for when I am ready. When it is TIME.

Well folks, it's TIME. So I drag them out, scour through the pages and descriptions, call my friends and family so we can place just one order (right), and place my order(s). Then I proceed to forget all about it.

Until one day....

THEY ARRIVED!!!
Look at all those seeds!!!

And out comes the planning papers, the pens and pencils, the rulers, the linked spreadsheets and of course, all the packets of seeds and their corresponding catalogs. I sort through all the packets and those from previous years where the seed will still be viable, and then I take a walk out in to the garden, covered with snow. Barren of green and yellow, blue and red, purple and orange, buzzing bees and scurrying bugs. I stand there for a good long time and think about what worked best over the years and how the weather has been changing. I think of what I have to do to make it easier to garden and not wear myself out. I think about all that yummy produce, get hungry and go back inside to eat.

After lunch I sit down to the drawing board and begin the slow process of placing each seed where it will grow and thrive. But this is only the drawing of that. I will make many of these drawings and once I am done, I may revise. Then, when the TIME comes around again, the seeds WILL go to their new homes and I will tenderly watch over their growth. I will help them along the way and at harvest time, I will thank them for all that they are and will be.