Okay, so it’s the middle of January and it’s 12 degrees out so it isn’t really time to go out gardening, but this time of year I start to get that ache that every gardener gets in the middle of winter, that need to go grub around in the dirt and mess around with plants. The handful of house plants we have is better than nothing, but it just isn’t the same.
But this is, believe it or not, a good time of year to start the garden season. It’s never too 
early to start planning, making lists of things that need to be done, and beginning to get things you may need when the weather finally does cooperate.
It could be an interesting season here. We’re thinking of adding a new raised bed back in the low part of the backyard by building a stone retaining wall. The iris bed is way too low, the irises need to be dug out and broken up anyway, and that area is so low I’m amazed that anything grows back there anyway. We’re also thinking of adding another bed, this one not raised, on the south side of the house/garage. If we do all of this, and that’s still up in the air at this point, it will be a fairly ambitious project and could be a lot of fun.
We were thinking of doing this anyway, but what really lit a fire under us was that Eldest Son showed up at Christmas with an entire grocery bag full of seed packets. Seriously. He works at the corporate offices of a large discount retailer, and they occasionally run special deals for employees where they can get merchandise that is being dropped, out of season, etc. for literally pennies on the dollar. And they were getting rid of all of their seeds from the previous summer. So he got one or two packets of everything. Literally. He got one or two packets of every single type of seed they sold in their garden centers. We have something like 120+ different varieties of seed to play with this spring.
So Mrs. GF and I are looking forward to having a lot of fun this spring, needless to say. Oh, there’s going to be a lot we aren’t going to be able to use. At least not right away. And probably we’ll never use quite a bit of it, but we’re going to have a lot of fun figuring out what we want to plant because no matter what we want to put in this coming spring, we probably have it already.
grouchyfarmer 
What a windfall! And fortunate for you that there is space to expand. Have fun sorting through the seeds, reading the packets, and rearranging them in your dreams.
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Thanks! We’re going to have great fun trying to figure out what to plant this spring. Eldest Son overheard me and my wife talking in the fall about expanding the gardens come spring and came up with the prefect gift.
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What a gift! Just the dreams the seeds spark is a gift!
I’ve been meaning to ask your opinion –
What kind of tomato do you think I should plant on the balcony? I’m going to need to order the seed this week I think. But I can’t decide on one. Boxcar Willie was deeply disappointing in size. He tasted good, but he was basically a large cherry tomato.
I want it to be a slicing tomato.
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There’s a variety called Bushsteak which is pretty good for containers. It only gets about 20 inches tall and produces nice sized juicy tomatoes. There’s another variety called Marglobe that produces nice size round fruit, and it starts producing fairly early, with first picking about 70-75 days. Most of the other types I know of that work well in containers have small fruit, 2 inches or less, basically cherry type.
I’m probably going to put in Roma type tomatoes. They’re smaller, but they have fewer seeds and are less watery and good for making sauce and soup, which is what we’re mostly interested in. We’ll probably put in a few of a different variety for eating fresh like a beefsteak type.
And the seeds! Wow, what a great gift! We’ll never have an opportunity to plant everything, but it’s going to be great fun picking out what to put in.
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Thank you!
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Wow. Seed envy. Look forward to seeing the results! X
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We’re very impatient for spring to get here. Probably going to add one or two more raised beds for vegetables and are considering ripping out a large part of the lawn to expand the flower gardens.
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