Green Tinted Glasses

I got a seed catalog at the post office today. If you didn’t think an old guy could get giddy as a school boy over a seed catalog, you’re mistaken. It’s kinda like when I was a kid and the Sears and J.C.Penny Christmas catalogs arrived in the mail. I’d grab a catalog and go through it over and over again. The excitement was non-stop dreaming about the new toys you could get! Of course there were always fights when those catalogs showed up, because our house had three kids but only two catalogs. Well I’m at the age now where toys are not my number one priority, but do have toys around to play with the grandkids. Ah, but the seed catalogs are special. I can have them all to myself and feel the exhilaration of the coming spring! This is way better than the vision through the window of 4 feet of snow and the thermometer at 4°. I look in the seed catalog and see green things- green leaves, green stalks, and green fruits! I look out the window and see white- ugh! Think I’ll lower the blinds so I don’t have to see out there anymore. Dang it, the blinds are white too! Maybe I’ll just paint the blinds with scenes of green plants and trees to alter my veiw of reality? OK me, do you really think I’m that gullible- maybe? I go to the fridge and write down- green tinted glasses on the grocery list. Now where was I, oh yeah, seed catalogs! I used to get gobs of seed catalogs in the mail, but now only one or two. The seed guys want you to go online now and do your ordering, so you pay with a credit card and they can get the money instantaneously. Making catalogs and mailing them are, evidently, too expensive now days. These things weren’t too expensive not long ago, but now are. Hmm, I wonder what could be causing that? Anyway, the seed catalog is an alert to all of us that the transition from the snow shovel to the dirt shovel is near and you’d better get prepared! The seed companies send out their catalogs as early as they can, because nobody’s bought any seeds since last spring and they need money cause they’re almost broke! Now if you live in Alaska like I do, most of the seeds in the catalog from the ‘lower 48’ aren’t compatible with the Alaskan climate. The cool soil temperature is a limiting factor, as is the length of the growing season. And, as gardeners know, every growing year is different than the one before. Some years it seems you can grow anything and some years you can’t grow diddly. And there’s alot of can’t in Alaska. We get about 90 days of growing season where I live, but it can freeze any day of the year. I still remember my Dahlias freezing on the 4th July one year- still mad about that! I got my love of Dahlias from my mother and still love them both. The weather in Alaska varies significantly throughout the year. The tilting of Earth on an axis causes the planet’s northern and southern latitudes to get widely fluctuating amounts of daylight throughout the year. We get about 19+ hours of daylight on June 21. This extra light gives us a boost in our growing season. We get about 7+ hours of daylight on December 21. This gives us a loss in our mental stability! Let’s just say, it’s alot nicer here in the summer, even with the mosquitoes. I’ve seen it over 100° here, and I’ve seen it -55° here. So, it’s always hard to predict what the year’s going to bring when it comes to the weather and what you can and can’t grow outside in Alaska. You can always grow peas, but you’re not growing okra. You can grow pumpkins, but you’re not growing melons. Growing any of the cruciferous veggies is not a problem. All the root crops grow fairly easily too. Some years you can get a bumper crop of beans and some years very few. You can grow tomatoes outside- if you only want green tomatoes. You can grow summer squash, but not winter squash. Of course I don’t know anything you can grow in the winter except snow. What you can’t grow outside, you grow in the heated greenhouse. I start all my plants in the green house, starting with the tomatoes on March 1st. I grew about 20 stalks of corn last year outside, but started them in the greenhouse 60 days before putting them out on June 1st. We got about 20 decent ears- a lot of work, but if gives a guy bragging rights! My greenhouse is 16’x 32’ and it gets so full by planting time it’s a pain in the gluteus maximus just trying to get around in there when it’s full- it’s a good pain though! So the time is getting near! Got most of the greenhouse cleaned, been digging out all the pots, and my thumb is starting to turn green! I’m as hyped up as Sheldon Cooper before the first day of school! Oh Crap, it’s snowing again! Guess I’ll be using that big flat shovel for awhile longer before I get my hands on the garden tools. Now where the heck did I put that seed catalog?