Garden on the seedy side

Each year we Alaskan gardeners excitedly anticipate the ultimate mid-winter event. Better than local festivals like Colony Christmas and the Fur Rendezvous, this event supersedes even the world-renowned Iditerod. It is the arrival of the seed catalogs.

When mine arrive, I settle into my favorite chair, a cup of tea in one hand and a pen in the other, and contentedly circle everything that I dream of growing in my garden. Dreams cost nothing; my imagination carries me into another world, a world scented with roses where raspberry canes bend low with plum-sized fruit and enormous cabbages have never met a slug. But dreams do not build themselves, so I eventually emerge from Eden and set to work. My wish list, when coldly put to paper, tallies to four figures. After erecting a glasshouse and a gazebo, building trellises for the climbers and benches for the visitors, fashioning a pond, a meadow and a woodland, and employing enough gardeners to empty Kew Gardens, the tally soars to eight figures.

And that jolts me fully awake. How can I possibly manage with my $300 budget?

One of my grand schemes this year is to rely heavily on packets of mixed seed. Let me share some examples, all taken from just one catalog.

By way of annuals, let us look at the sweet pea. This rapidly growing 6-foot vine, even during a cool summer, blooms reliably in shades of white, pink, purple and red — and it smells fantastic. A single packet of 25 seeds is offered for $2.95. But how to choose a single color? My current fancies are cream, deep purple and cerise. I will need three packets for a total of $8.85 and 75 seeds. Whatever will I do with 25 sweet peas, let alone 75? Enter the mixed-seed packet. With a little searching I discover one featuring six colors, including my three fancies, although the purple is not quite so deep and costing only $3.55. For a savings of $5.30, I get three extra colors for free, and I am back to the nearly manageable number of 25 seeds. A good bargain for 10 minutes of work.

Moving on to perennials, let us see if we can do as well. Geraniums are one of my favorites. They are perfect for the front to mid border, which I find hard to populate. They have a long bloom time and are heavily into purple, my garden color of the year. But alas. Geraniums are expensive. The three varieties that I have chosen will cost together $22.85 for a total of 21 seeds. That is more than 7? percent of my budget. Again, I am saved by a packet of mixed seed that, if the catalog illustration is accurate, will provide me with seven or more color varieties and costs only $3.95 for 10 seeds. That is $18.90 less for another 10 minutes of work.

Let us now consider edibles. For the greenhouse, cheery-colored sweet peppers perform well and are delicious eaten raw, stir fried, stuffed, grilled or added to a sauce. A long, narrow scarlet-red variety caught my eye and a jumbo hybrid with orange fruit. These two packets cost a total of $8.50 and have 20 seeds each, certainly twice the number I can use. A mixed packet, including purple, yellow, orange, red and green types, both thick and thin walled, is offered for a savings of $3.55. With a minimum of seven color and thickness combinations, this 28-seed packet will provide a sampling of up to four plants each. Again, a great bargain.

And finally, let us explore possibilities for the vegetable garden. I always love a multi-colored Swiss chard and I’ve found an appealing rainbow-colored radish mix, but I think mixed lettuce may be the best buy. Lettuce seed averages $2.80 per packet, with numbers of seed ranging from 200 to 2,000. I like to grow about a dozen kinds. A quick calculation tells me that this would require 11 percent of my budget at $33.60 and would supply me with a whopping 9,240 seeds. Once I recover from my faint, I notice a 200-seed mixed packet of named lettuce varieties in a pleasing assortment of colors, tastes and textures for only $3.20. Lovely. I’ve saved $30.40, and will have enough salad to share with my neighbors.

I may not be able to finance Eden for $300, but I can still garden. And Kew can keep its staff.

Hally Truelove is a Master Gardener and Plants Woman who lives and gardens in Wasilla with her two daughters, a handful of cats, a bunch of bunnies, some guinea pigs, a dog and a frog. Contact her at 376-0909.