Last night and this morning I have been going through my seed catalogs. The last few years I have been concentrating on growing flowers to photograph. This year I feel like growing more vegetables again. I have been pouring through the seed catalogs. I still don’t have one or two of my favorites but I am going to go ahead and select what I want to order anyway. There are so many good companies today that I have my choice of who I want to order from and feel that I am doing good by supporting them. My favorites are the Seed Savers’ Exchange, Southern Exposure Seed Exchange, Territorial Seed Company, Select Seeds, Nichols Garden Nursery, Seeds of Change and Johnny’s Selected Seeds. I have been gardening for decades and have been doing business with some of these firms for many years. All these seed companies are ‘green’ companies. I choose them on the basis of organically grown seed, heirloom seeds, non-GMO seeds and, of course, the quality of the seed that I have gotten over the years. This list is not inclusive. They are only the companies that I have done business with and had a pleasant experience with them. The good problem is that there are now so many ‘green’ seed companies. The bad problem is that I have to chose and not support some other deserving companies.
What I like to do is get the seed catalog in the mail, go through it marking the varieties I want (and dog-earing the pages for reference) and then go to the website. On the website I especially appreciate it if it has been programmed so that I can key in the catalog reference number for each of my selections. That way I do not have to search throughout their site for what I want. Having keyed in the numbers I then have a listing of all that I have ordered. At some point in submitting the order I print out a list of my entire order. Now I know what I have ordered from that supplier without having to tediously write out all the descriptions. When my order arrives I can then use this printed copy to verify that I received all the right seeds. Since I order from several companies I also use these printouts to help me avoid duplications from the other companies as I key in my next order. The good problem is that there are so many varieties to choose from. The bad problems are I don’t have enough space to plant all that I would like to grow, I don’t have the time to plant, weed and water them all even if I did have the space and if I did have the space and time there would be more flowers than I could photograph and vegetables that my wife and I could eat.
So I guess it’s like the story of the poor farmer of yore who went to the wise man and complained that his house was too small and noisy. The wise man advised him to bring his cows into the downstairs bay. He did so but came back the next week to the wise man and said that did not help. As a matter of fact he said it’s even worse. So the wise man told him to bring his chickens in with the cows. The poor farmer was back again saying that did not help. So the wise man told him to bring his barn cats into the house. And for good measure, he should to bring his dogs in with him and his wife. Surely there was room enough room for the doves to roost in the house. By now when the farmer came back to the wise man he had lost confidence in the wisdom of the wise man. But this time the wise man told him to remove all the animals from his house. The poor farmer then realized that his house was indeed spacious and quiet.
Sometimes the definition of a good problem and a bad problem depends on how we are looking at it.
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