The seed catalogs arrived! As soon as we brought them in from the mail box, I started poring over them. Our intention is to plant a flower garden out front, but the catalogs begin with tomatoes.
Bright red, juicy tomatoes whose slices drip with the warmth and sunshine of summer. I can’t imagine one of those fist-sized Burger Boys in the afternoon, when the fruit is warm, slicing it into slabs on the sunny porch, sprinkling it with salt, and eating it with a fork. My God.
We don’t have space for a vegetable garden. Well, I should say we don’t have usable space for a vegetable garden. Our yard is large, but consists pretty much of a giant steep hill that’s treacherous to even walk up, much less plant a garden on. Everything would wash away. So, no tomatoes this year. Sadly.
And then I got to the flower and herbs section of the catalog. Emerald sweet basil, spring green lemon balm, silvery lavendar. Happy yellow sunflowers, powder blue hydrangea, purple bee balm. They made me want to buy grow lights and start planting right away.
Which brings me to my dilemma. I’d love to start plants from seed indoors, but I’m not sure how to accomplish it without an extravagent setup: stringing grow lights from the ceiling, scrounging up a large table for flats, and most importantly, finding a place to put the seedlings where the cats won’t destroy them.
I can imagine spending $200-$300 on lights, pots, seeds, and soil, only to come downstairs one morning to a seedling massacre on the floor of the basement. I would spend weeks waiting for sprouts to emerge, then as soon as the green finally arrives, I’d go to bed one night and wake to find pots and dirt and mutliated baby plants scattered on the basement floor, while a cat looks at me with big, “What?” eyes and then licks her paw.
So my guess is that I won’t be planting seeds ahead of time. It would likely be more cost effective, and I’m antsy to get started on the garden, but I’m just not sure how to make it work.
Butterfly Mind 
Containers outside for tomatoes…….that’s what we are going to try! From plants though. Seeds are not my friend, nor the swamp of our yard but small raised bed worked for tomato in dryer years….Ga. Best wishes!
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I do a few tomatoes in our bedroom under the Velux. I have placed my seed order. 🙂 I have learned to leave some just for dreaming.
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Emerald sweet basil, spring green lemon balm, silvery lavendar. Happy yellow sunflowers, powder blue hydrangea, purple bee balm
Such a poetic litany. I want to whisper this three times, like an incantation, so that summer magically appears.
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Tomatoes in pots! Nice big lovely pots! You can have your oh my god warm slices and decorate with them too 😉 And terracing the yard for next year: a great dirt-digging project for those healthy kids. OK, just kidding; that is back-breaking work. Love to see your writing again — a treat.
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I feel you. We’ve got a really nice, fairly big garden but I’m no gardener and neither is my SO. I’d love to have a bunch of fruit and herbs but don’t have the time or the space to grow any of the ‘grow indoors first’ plants. Also my cat would eat anything I do grow, so I’d need to invest more time and money into protecting them. My parents love gardening and have a hug garden but the green gene past me.
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I love seed catalog time. I never have luck starting the more tender seeds indoors because I am a well-meaning-but-terrible gardener…with a cat! So I try to focus on seeds than can be planted directly outside. My dream purchase is a little outdoor greenhouse where I can start seeds. Thank you for the fun post!
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I agree you might be better off with plants rather than seeds, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t still browse through the seed catalogues and dream. My sweetheart grows herbs and plants in the back of his pickup truck – that’s one way to elude the cats!
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a friend once told me “you can either have houseplants or cats, not both” I guess that includes seedlings LOL
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Our cats love hanging out in the greenhouse on sunny winter days but as soon as seed planting starts in ernest I have to kick them out. They don’t knock stuff over so much as lay on the nice warm dirt (and tiny green shoots). Cats…. gotta love em but sometimes… 🙂
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Your words are so beautiful! Thank you for this little treat. I hope you wake up to your beautiful garden someday… 🙂
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Any chance you could build box terraces for your hill?
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