Spring, anyone?

It's time. I've put it off and I shouldn't have. I need to order this year's tomato seeds. Just doing that will erase the winter fog from my brain and make spring a reality and not just a distant hope. I'm using the Tomato Growers Supply catalog this year and although I've been warned, I may try to grow just a couple more tomato types than last year. Maybe some bush tomatoes as they don't take up the space that the big caged tomatoes do. Not that space is really a problem, the garden is potentially 100'x30' and I'm only growing gourds on the majority of that space. They don't mind a little company. The problem is the harvest. We love tomatoes, but last year we were overwhelmed at times. There were tomatoes on the sink, on the counter, in baskets and more on the vine. The freezer still has a good number of sauces and whole tomatoes in it. We don't want to repeat that experience and since this is tomato growing country, it's hard to find someone to give them to.

So space isn't a problem and I've identified the harvest as one problem; it's also ambition, and these darn catalogs feed the fire of that ambition. But I may have a solution; my son-in-law had a large garden last year and I heard that he wanted to increase the size of it this year. Plus, he has a greenhouse. I may be able to talk him into growing a few of the more spectacular tomatoes from the catalog. Good idea! I can even get the grandkids to help me…

Back to the gourds…I have a pile of gourd seed packets here on the table and I'm already anxious to get them into the ground. The catalog made me do it. Crazy. I haven't even harvested last year's crop. They have to stay out in the garden to dry and to acquire the fantastic patina that only weather and mould will give them.

I'm an artist and gourds are a part of that. No, I don't do painted gourd birdhouses or other gourd craft. They're fine for some people and I'm not that good of an artist to say that my work is any better than that; my art is simply different. As are my watercolors and acrylics. Different.