Seeds

I have never grown anything from seed. At least not since the third grade.

I would like to have heritage, organic, non-GM, saved seeds - but I don´t. I even made an excel worksheet after getting a couple of catalogues. They don´t ship outside the UK. Sigh.

We have a lovely patio which V has lovingly filled with all kinds of flowers. All my experience with gardening has been with flowers, except for one lonely jalapeño pepper we had in our back yard in Chicago and whose bounty mainly went to our friend Marcos who had a higher tolerance for ¨heat¨ than either of us do.

My associations with vegetable gardening are of my father and his constant battle against weather, plague, and various critters. I focused on flowers.

But now I´m convinced that homegrown produce should be better tasting and better for you. We are limited here to containers, but some day. . .

So throwing caution to the winds I bought several packets of seeds from Lidl (a discount grocery chain). I recycled yogurt containers and shallowly planted in the bagged potting soil we had on hand. Results - bupkis, nada, pfffft. Except for several little tomatoes (unnamed hybrids - so much for my organic/hippy cred). It was indescribably gratifying. After waiting until they got a couple more leaves, I have now transplanted them into flats, along with some new seeds (cilantro, basil) and promptly lost 3 more. We´ll see.