It's been a long time since I rock and rolled

and an even longer time since I blogged. But I actually started the 2012 garden today and for today at least, I feel compelled to keep track of it. I'm not making any promises to you or myself that I'll keep up with it, but for now here it is.
This week my tax refund came in, and not a minute too soon (before the direct deposit hit I was staring at $36.00 in my checking account) I did a literal dance of joy, because the arrival of the tax refund means I can finally send off the seed orders I had agonized over about a month ago. I started out with flights of fancy and whittled it down to the bare necessities (and a few flights of fancy...I mean, I can't NOT grow the Indigo Rose tomato!!!!) My stockpile of seed, including quite a few saved seeds from the previous harvest, was pretty substantial. I tried harder than usual to be realistic about what I could actually FIT, and what we would actually EAT. Now that I am committed to pickling and fermenting, I have expanded the cucumber, carrot, cabbage, radish and turnip populations. Now that rebby and I are both madly in love with kale chips, I am dedicating a whole raised bed to three or four varieties of kale. And now that I know I can grow decent garlic, a bed is dedicated to garlics too. I've got onion plants coming from Pinetree this year---I've grown from sets previously so I'm excited to see what happens with the plants. I started a few varieties too---which I'll interplant with some other things for integrated pest management. And then there's the leeks....I was so thrilled by my leek luck this past season that I have gone totally overboard with the leek love. Since most varieties need a long growing season, they will be tucked here and there amongst other plants as well. One thing I've learned is how to maximize space in my little plot.
So, today I started cabbages, leeks, onions, kales, and collards. The work of putting my seedling shelves back together and assembling the starter mat and grow lights and filling the slots with coconut grow pellets and watering them and watching them explode....it made me so very happy. Growing food really seems to be my calling. I love it.
In addition to getting the seedling nursery up and running today, I started on the major project of cleaning and organizing my office room. I don't even want to try to describe the state of things in there now but I got two bookshelves for $25 each from Construction Junction and started putting things on them and already I feel so much better about the world. Give me a month.