GARDEN DIARIES
Cindy Maddera
"I bought more seeds #bakerscreekseeds"
Our drive to Alabama, took us through Mansfield MO. I had forgotten about Mansfield and how it's one of the homesteads for Laura Ingalls Wilder and Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds. As we passed a sign for Baker Creek, I sat up straight in my seat and gasped. "Oh! Can we go there please?!?!?!" Michael said "Of course!", but when we pulled off the highway there was a sign pointing south to the Laura Ingalls Wilder home and north to Baker Creek and I had to make a choice. I picked Baker Creek. It had started to rain on us, so I knew we wouldn't be able to fully enjoy Laura's home. I promised myself that we'd go back. We'd go back and make a weekend of it and maybe by then I'll have had a chance to read a few of the Laura Ingalls Wilder books to the Cabbage. I got real giddy when we pulled into Baker Creek's little village. I saw people walking around dressed in their pioneer clothes, the same people that I see every year in my seed catalogue. I gushed all over one of the ladies working in the seed shop about ordering seeds from them every year and she told me that my story was not uncommon. Of course we bought more seeds while we there.
We came home to a garden that had over grown and taken on a life of it's own. Salad greens and spinach had grown tall and gone to seed. The squash and cantaloupe had spread out and taken up the whole corner of the garden. I pulled six yellow squash that first evening and have been plucking one or two here and there since. The sunflowers, even though there are no blooms yet, are taller than me. And the tomato plants. We have so many green tomatoes. Cherry tomatoes. Roma Tomatoes. Big heirloom tomatoes. The cherry tomatoes seem to like to turn red one at a time. All of the limbs are hanging heavy with green fruit. Soon we will have tomato and basil salads every day for dinner.
Sunday morning I went out with every intention of taming the over grown mess of the garden. I weedeated all around the garden. I pulled up the spinach and salad greens, tossing them in a pile for the chickens. I worked the soil and prepped it for new seeds. I pulled up weeds and picked off another squash. Then I planted the newly purchased seeds. Arugula, water cress and some sort of lettuce. I went a head and planted more purple hulled peas while I was at it. It didn't take long. The garden really isn't that big. Except when I look at it now, it seems huge. There's something legitimate about the garden this year. Official. Maybe it has something to do with boxes we added or the fence we put up around the outside. I look out there now and see a garden like those featured in the likes of Organic Gardening or something. And I am amazed by all of it.
