Yes, it’s garden catalog order time!

All week long I’ve been reading through my catalogs and pondering and guessing and thinking and plotting and planning. I think I’ve FINALLY narrowed it down.

And I placed my first two orders online now, to take advantage of 2 – $25 off coupons before they expire on the 15th. Hey, saving $50 on plants and garden needs, that’s pretty good and I’ll take it.

Actually, what was cool, is that I actually ordered my two little dwarf Meyer lemon trees! I can’t wait! I have wanted a Meyer lemon tree for ages! Ever since I learned that you can successfully grow REAL lemons, in your house on a little tree, I’ve wanted one. And most of them are pretty expensive. LIke $30- $40 a tree from most mail order places and all. And I just have not seen them here in our nurseries or anything. So when I saw young Meyer lemons for sale in the Gurney’s catalog for $12.95 each, I said, hey, there’s my nearly $25 order and then I’ll get another $25 worth of stuff for free! So I got the two trees and then 2 bunches of the candy apple red sweet onion sets and 2 pounds of good old Yukon Gold potato sets. Nice deal.

And then I had a Henry Fields catalog with a coupon… so I decided it would be best to get some peat pots and other seed starting supplies with that coupon, since I am going to try and start all my veggies this year from seed!!! Yeah, a big undertaking, no doubt, but I’m going to give it a good try. Especially since two of my new raised bed plans are for cold frame beds… where I can start to harden my seedlings off under the protection of some pretty cold frames.

So I got some of those little peat pellets that expand in water, and some little square peat pots and a pair of seed starting trays with the little greenhouse covers. I am going to use those as well as my toilet paper homemade starters as well. I might even do a test of it all, and see what works better and all that. Maybe. We’ll see. In the meanwhile, it’s kinda neat to have all my materials ordered and ready to go. I’m hoping it all arrives in time for my intended seed starting operation.

I think I am going to start my seeds the day after St. Patrick’s day. I would have started them ON St. Patrick’s day, but we have an Opry that day and it would be too hectic. So the day after is nice, it will be a calm relaxing day and one ready to start the spring garden season! That puts us about 2 months till the ALL SAFE date around here of May 15th. But to be honest, we were already planting around the first of May, that is usually fine and safe for most plants around here.

The 18th will give me a good 3 weeks of inside starting time and then perhaps first of May, I’ll start to set them outside more and more as the weather permits. I’m sure that as soon as the ground is snowless and warming up, we’ll be starting to put together the new raised beds and to get dirt down and mulch and all that fun fun stuff. And then once that’s all done and ready, then we’ll start to plant seed in the boxes as well, and to transplant the successful seedlings that we’ve grown.

So my plan is to get all my “pay the bills” work done in the next 3-4 weeks. Winter ain’t long for this place, I tell ya… and I can’t wait for a little spring time flush and those sweet spring breezes to dust out the house and my spirits! Soon…. sooooon…..

I’ll post soon all the cool heirloom seeds that I’m ordering next week. I FINALLY narrowed it all down!!!

It was very tough, but I think I did it.

Great article…. 100 things to do with Meyer Lemons…