Love, & a good head of LETTUCE
December/January 2001
By Lindsay Webb
Issue # 189 - December/January 2002
RELATED CONTENT
true BREW December/January 2000 Steep a cup of tea ...for the health of it. by Marguerite Lamb It's...
Check out Catalog Choice, a Web site that works directly with merchants to eliminate the unnecessar...
Rock Port, Mo., took advantage of the power generated from the nearby Loess Hills Wind Farm in a bi...
Iced Teas December/January 2000 Of the 50 billion cups of tea Americans drink annually, 40 billion ...
More than 100 schools in 30 states have installed wind generators, and many more are doing the rese...
By Lindsay Webb
Garden seed catalogs aren't just an order sheet, they're a connection to fond memories of` gardens before.
The Wyoming wind has been scouring us for three days. The temperature is dropping and enormous granite-boulder clouds are building up behind the mountain. It's going to snow. It's going to snow a lot. But here I am, snuggled in with a favorite, well-worn quilt and a mug of chamomile tea. Inside, all toasty warm, and reading.
Not a gripping whodunit nor a deep philosophical tome. No Gothic bodice-ripper; no glossy, coffee-table photography. Not even the latest from Oprah's Book Club.
I am engrossed in printed matter that offers a warm, green-and-gold ray of hope on a cold, blustery, inhospitable day. I am reading a seed catalog.
It seems as though the Halloween party masks have barely been thrown out when my mailbox and those of others like me, lovers of soil and compost all-start to fill with gardening catalogs. I love them all: artfully printed, upscale, imported-veggie sophisticates; humble, almost hand-printed booklets from companies that have been in business forever; mainstream gardener's journals full of tough tools and sound advice.
And here I am, lusting after bright green, ruffled lettuce, aromatic purple basil and tomatoes guaranteed to grow like Jack's beanstalk. Will six lovely zucchini plants be too much? Will five types of lettuce be enough?
For a Georgia-born, many-years-in-East-Texas gal, the seven years I've gardened in Wyoming have been a challenge. The first two springs were major disappointments. I'd done my homework, I thought. Checked out books from the local Master Gardener's program, pored over pamphlets from the Ag Extension Service on how to successfully garden at an altitude of 5,000-plus feet, with alkaline soil, rapidly fluctuating temperatures, brutal winds, intense solar radiation, often nonexistent rainfall, and a long list of critters, large and small, licking their chops to break their winter diet with tender greens from my garden.
"OK," I thought. "I can handle this."
Mother Nature thought differently.
All I'd been warned about happened - winds that stripped bean-plants bare, soil that dried like cement in the sun or turned to dark gray glue when the Wyoming skies grudgingly released a rain shower. Tomatoes blistered before my eyes and earwigs made gracious haciendas in the cabbage. But I fought back - learned more, put into practice gardening wisdom shared by longtime local gardeners, and the last few years have seen great improvement. I continue with the faith that the seedlings I start and lovingly tend under growlights in the utility room will flourish and eventually take hold and thrust their green shoots toward the brilliant Wyoming summer sky.
