Another post Dawn inspired me to get my seeds in order and that led to me making a list and wow its going to be a great gardening year.
kim

Kim, I'm glad your garden plan is shaping up so nicely and I can feel your excitement.

I've been working on my garden planning quite a bit here and there in the last week or two, in between all the holiday preps, and am looking forward to the arrival of planting time too.

This is the only time of the year that we have a "perfect" garden---while it is in the planning stages and we can visualize its perfection in our minds. Once the garden season actually arrives, the weather and the pests will make achieving that perfect dream garden a challenge, but I am happy to settle for less than perfection because the process of gardening itself is as important, if not more so, than the yield from the garden.

SESE and BCHS are two of my faves, but don't overlook Pinetree Garden Seeds (their prices are fabulous), the Sample Seed Shop (its owner, Remy, is a GW member, and everything I've bought from her has done really well here) and Swallowtail Garden Seeds (their shipping is as fast as Willhite's). I've already ordered from SESE online and I'm in the process of finishing my order from Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds. I always fill up my shopping cart and then wait a day or go before going back to edit it because I always want to order a lot more seeds than I ever possibly could use.

One thing that gets me fired up and ready for the garden season is when the perennial flowers and herbs (and reseeding annuals) start sprouting and growing in late autumn or early winter. There's nothing like seeing new growth appear beneath the frozen remains of the plants. My garden already has tons of tansy, silver tansy, wormwood, comfrey, larkspur, poppies, Malva sylvestris 'Zebrina' and bluebonnets popping up, along with a moderate amount of lemon balm, chamomile and hollyhocks. It likely is a good thing all these sprout early because it prevents me from forgetting they are there and rototilling their soil.

The bees and ladybugs have been out in profusion during the last couple of weeks, which have been warmer than average, and I'm glad to see a few things (dianthus and dandelions) in bloom for the bees. The weedy henbit plants should be blooming in January if they don't get hit too hard by freezing weather, and that is great for the small creatures looking for nectar and pollen. I know henbit is a weed and most people don't care for it, but I love it. It feeds the little flying creatures when there isn't much else to keep them alive. When the henbit starts blooming here, I know that planting time is just around the corner.

When I mentioned to Tim the other day that I couldn't wait for Christmas to get here, he was baffled when I said that the best week in December is the week after Christmas because that is when the stores start shoving all the holiday stuff out of the way and begin putting out the earliest garden stock arrivals---bagged onion sets, different kinds of bulbs, corms, rhizomes, asparagus roots, seed potatoes, etc. Shortly after that, seed-starting supplies and seed racks appear. Do any of us really need those things in December or early January here in our climate? No, probably not. Well, definitely not, but that doesn't make me any less happy to see them because they do herald the coming of the planting season.

Dawn

I do need more seeds, that's what I told my son yesterday. I went through all my saved, new and old seeds. There is a lot but there are at least 20 I don't have. He is sure I am nuts and he said I have crossed over to addicted and no he is not giving me his debit card.
I am looking forward to having a much bigger garden so I can really get more of each type in there. one or two winter squash plants don't produce enough get me through.
I got some bulbs at walmart on clearance the other day and was going to see how/when to plant them. I was not really into flowers until last year and now I am hooked. I will start wintersowing again soon. I need to measure the exact space of the garden so I can spend my vacation relaxing and planning. LOL
kim

Kim, People like us always need and want more seeds, and it doesn't matter how many we have, we'll find a reason to need, want, search out and buy more. Have you noticed that?

A gardening addiction is not the worst form of addiction. As Jay always says, I can quit any time I want to. I just don't want to, and likely never will.

I always tell Tim he's lucky to have a wife who hoards seeds because seeds take up relatively little space compared to purses or shoes or boots or something else. I don't have to have a whole, big walk-in closet for my seeds---just a nice storage tote with a lid.

The Seed Savers Exchange catalog arrived yesterday, and the photo on the cover is just so gorgeous (as always) and it looks good enough to eat. My plan for this morning is to look through the SSE catalog, find what I want, order it, and then tell Santa Tim that he is buying (or, lol, has bought) me garden seeds for Christmas.

Dawn

Dawn that is great.

I have noticed no matter how many seeds I have I want need more. My first garden I think I had 12 pkgs.
My new garden is approx. 175' x 100'.
Reckon that will be big enough?

I think I do have an addictive personality. It is a good thing I never got into bad addictions. I spent last night exploring Pinetree's catolog on line. Also a Canadian company, Richters, with a million herbs. I didn't think I needed much this year (and really, I don't), but my wish list is huge. I want to experiment with unusual greens. Growing our own lettuce was maybe the most productive thing about my garden last year, that and, of course, decent tasting tomatoes. I just want to "collect" herbs. I participated in an herb swap and a flower swap, so I will have all of those to play with, too. Every day I find a new article or post that has something I want to try. I keep telling my husband I want dirt for Christmas(to fill new beds). There's a new pair of garden scissors for my stocking. I got thermometers that record the high and low, one for the greenhouse and one for the yard in general. At some point I want to see what the temps up next to the south side of the house are, I think it is much warmer there.

Kim, No, it is never enough. For an avid gardener, the garden is never quite big enough for everything they want to grow. You're (or at least I am) always dreaming of the 5 more things you'd grow if you had a little more square footage.

No matter how many seeds you have, you'll always be looking for that one more special packet that you know you haven't found yet too. It's like being a prospector, but instead of prospecting for silver or gold, we're looking for the next veggie, flower, fruit, herb or whatever it is that we think our own garden or landscape is missing.

Amy, I have an addictive personality too, but the only things I've really become addicted to involve gardening....and chocolate. I'm happy that my addictions are fairly good things. I laughed when you mentioned dirt to fill beds as a gift you want. I am SO like that and it baffles my husband and son that I actually request soil-less mix, compost or mulch on and for all special occasions. They always just stare at me as if I have some sort of mental imbalance. How silly! I think I am perfectly normal. Who does not want lovely, rich compost or soil or a soil-less mix for Christmas? Or seeds, scissors, plants, thermometers, flats, shade cloth, weedblock, rain gauges, or.....whatever else. lol lol lol

I love Richter's and have grown quite a few herbs from their seed the last couple of years including tansy, silver tansy, comfrey, wormwood, milk thistle, fennel, bronze fennel, Florence fennel and roselle (hibiscus sabdariffa). I was flipping through their catalog yesterday morning, circling things I want to try and, when I was done, I had to laugh at myself, because there's no way I have enough room for all the stuff I circled. I'll go back and work on a serious order when I have my "gotta grow it all" attitude reined in and under control a little bit more than I do this week.

All fall, I said to myself constantly "I am going to grow fewer tomatoes next year and more of other stuff". It practically became my mantra. "Less tomatoes. Less tomatoes. Room for other stuff. Less time spent canning." I really said it and I really meant it at the time. Then, I sat down the last couple of weeks and tried to work on my tomato grow list and it was rather large. Ridiculously large. Not at all the grow list of a person who is cutting back on growing too many tomatoes in order to free up space for other stuff. I set that list aside as well and thought I'd take a break from it for a few days to see if I could whittle the list down to a more manageable number of varieties. Then, the SSE catalog arrived, so I know I'm in trouble because they always have varieties I've been intending to try, but haven't grown yet.

I have tried to focus on all the preparations for the holidays. I really have. Decorating the house. Shopping, Wrapping presents. Putting together 200 (see, I am a crazy woman) gift bags, all of which contain at least 2 jars of canned goodies from our garden). Baking. Picking out the outfits to wear to the holiday parties and gatherings, etc., etc., etc. I've tried to ignore the growing stack of catalogs. I've tried to ignore the siren call of the garden, pleading with me to come out and work some compost into the soil. I've tried to ignore the lady bugs I find crawling on the exterior of the house looking for a way inside (all the caulking we did before painting the house really did close up all their secret entryways). Who can ignore a lady bug that needs a place to overwinter? Well, I can't, so I scoop them up in my hands and carry them to the greenhouse to overwinter on the daturas, lantanas or lettuce. I love Christmas, but even it cannot pull 100% of my mind away from gardening. Never has. Never will. Gardening is such a part of me that it is a part of almost everything I do. I am fairly sure my blood isn't red or blue....it surely is green. Need proof? In the week after Christmas, when normal people are hitting the post-holiday sales looking for bargains, I'm scanning the garden center aisles to see if the first shipment of gardening supplies has arrived yet. For me, the new garden year begins the very first day I see any sort of garden-related merchandise arriving in the stores. It doesn't matter if there's a foot of snow on the ground and we cannot plant anything for another 6-8 weeks. As far as I am concerned, spring begins when the supplies hit the store shelves. I may get irritated when some retailer puts up a Christmas tree in early September, but I'm thrilled when they have seed potatoes the last week in December.

Dawn

At the end of fall I was pretty gardened out and was glad for the break. But it's only December and I'm starting to get the itch again! I've already started planning for some changes and now spring can't come fast enough... I'm one of those people that when I get an idea in my head, I want to do it right away (this is good and bad lol).

I tend to feel that way too, but in a drought year (and it seems like most of my years are drought years), I skip planting a fall garden and do my resting/recovery in October and November so that by the time December rolls around, my mind thinks that Spring will be arriving any day now. After battling drought all summer long, I do feel gardened out. Like you, I get the itch again pretty quickly though. My recovery time is relatively brief.

It is raining today, or otherwise I would have found an excuse to slip out to the garden to look at the flowers that are in bloom (mostly dianthus, but also a couple of dandelions). I am tired of the winter wheat color of the landscape and ready for more green plants and colorful flowers. Our weather has been weird and all over the place, so it hasn't felt too much like winter yet. I think that makes me feel the spring gardening itch even earlier than usual.

The latest catalogs to arrive are from two of my favorite seed sources: Southern Exposure Seed Exchange and Peaceful Valley Farm Supply.

I love SESE so much that on the day I received the email stating that their website had been updated, I went right to it to see what was new and than a day or two later I ordered everything I thought I wanted or needed. I'm willing to bet that after I look through the catalog, the odds are that I'll find something else I must have. I always do.