In the midst of winter– an invincible summer

Big Ugly Barn in winter

“In the midst of winter I learned there is within me an invincible summer.”

–Albert Camus

This has been some winter on Big Ugly. We know the rest of the country has shivered from arctic vortex blasts, ice storms and more snow than we’ve seen in a couple of decades.  But the hills (and the snowplows) of WV are not equipped to cope.  By mid February most of the kids in our Grow Appalachia counties had made it to school less than ten days since mid December.

So….we started dreaming of summer.  Searching the Internet for heirloom seeds from companies that have signed the safe seed pledge. We found three east of the Mississippi:  Eden, High Mowing and Sow Tree Seeds.  High Mowing (highmowingseeds.com) and Sow True (sowtrueseed.com) were so excited to hear about Grow Appalachia that they sent us free seed packets from last year (up to 100 from each company that have up to an 85% germination rate.)  So in addition to the main stays we can try Tai Soi Asian Greens, Burgundy Okra, and Lemon Cucumbers.

For the most part we’ve ordered in bulk (why order 20 packets of basil when for the same price you can get 30,000 seeds!)  And with the help of a trusty hard plastic cell tray from Peaceful Valley (341 cells per tray) we had seedlings emerge during the coldest ice storm in twenty years.

Cabbage germinating–we look forward to setting these into the ground.

Think Broccoli! Hope these will be just right when it is time to set them out for good.

by

Michael Tierney