Beantrees

My first seed order has arrived! Never has such a small box conveyed more promise and excitement for me. With this affirmation that I am a bonafide yeoman farmgirl, I figured that I ought to start behaving like a proper small business owner and begin keeping track of business expenses. So I traipsed on out to Staples, loaded up on printer ink, tupperware boxes, and filing supplies, and came home determined to put my farm in order.

I've been fortunate this winter, in that I've accumulated a small collection of second-hand seeds from Don, my former boss, and Katia, my future co-farmer, as well as some odds and ends I've picked up froms seed swaps and conferences. Second-hand seeds are the remainders at the end of the season, which, while not ideal, are still perfectly good, if you don't mind a little uncertainy in germination rates. I did some research about seed viability rates and set to work sorting my seeds into keepers and tossers.

Only, I have a really hard time throwing away seed. Even when I know it's virtually useless (onion seed, for example, is generally worthless after one year. So onion seed from 2006 will unquestionably suck), I kept pushing my tossers into a third pile, the "don't expect much from them, but hey, maybe a few will sprout?" group. I have a sneaking suspicion that a similar lack of willpower may account for Don's including 4-year-old onion seed in his gift to me...

Gradually, my collection took on a semblance of order, neatly sorted by family and best-by year. At the bottom of a box stuffed with empty seed envelopes from past years and some free samples packets of mixed greens, I stumbled across a strange treat: an unlabeled envelope from a 2008 seed swap. At the time of acquisition I was apparently without either a pen or good information, for the seeds within are completely anonymous, unanchored from variety name or grower identification. A few look to be parsnip seeds (no good by now, most likely), and some others are identifiable as lettuce, though no telling of what stripe. But then there are four huge red beans, lightly speckled with a few black streaks. I immediately thought of the story of Jack and the Beanstalk, imagining my little beans twining out a window and over the snow, climbing up into the clouds to fame and fortune. I tucked my mystery beans safely away for spring.