Gardening with Friends

It's seed ordering time!

Yep. It's that time of year when I stop leafing through seed catalogues and actually go downstairs, get online and order what I want.

I've got about an acre of veggie garden, and I still don't have enough room to plant every single seedling that comes up all viable and beautiful from each one of those packets. If you've got gardening pals, you might consider putting together a group order. Everyone puts together a wish list, brings it to a seed meeting, and negotiates with everyone else so that they can split up packets as much as possible. It costs less, and everyone will have more than enough. Why bother? How about this: Maybe you have only enough space for five tomatoes. Seems kind of silly to buy 25 seeds, and be stuck with just that one variety, when you and your friends can pick your three favorites and everyone gets a few seeds of each.

An alternative is to learn about seed storage. I do okay in the seed storage department, but it's a real science. The more you learn, the better chances you'll have of seeds not just sprouting but actually becoming thriving plants. There's still the issue of having to buy in to whole packets of each variety of thing, which can be expensive, but at least you'll be able to have the same sort of garden each year and learn more about how to grow it better. Of course if you chose your varieties poorly, that may mean making the best of an iffy thing. Or you can toss the loser seeds and keep the best ones.

But it's more fun to garden with friends. Check out your local gardening clubs. I found a whole bunch of them in the newspaper without even trying. And Google is your friend, as always. Even if it doesn't seem like your sort of thing, it doesn't hurt to do a little snooping around. You never know. You may discover that there's a local turnip society. It can be nice to know that you're not the only person in town who loves turnips.