Holiday light display at the NC Arboretum, seen in a mid December visit

Last year was a busy one for my blog, with my periodic seed collection review and the entire republishing of Off The Vine. It will be impossible to match that, so I am pondering what this blog will be for the coming year. It has been a bit of a rocky start to the new year, with me, then Sue, coming down with COVID. We are both on the mend, thanks to having had all of our vaccines and boosters, and prescriptions of Paxlovid.

I spent lots of December fulfilling seed requests, but that job is not yet complete. Next week I will finish the job, and lots of gardeners will have interesting (and in some cases, important) things to grow in their gardens this year and beyond. I’ve also been working on updating the genealogies of some of the more important varieties in my tomato collection - tracking each seed lot from when I received it to the most recent grow out. It is certainly the super-geeky side of my heirloom seed and gardening passion, but I find it fun and relaxing - as well as a real data management challenge.

Requests for gardening workshops are coming in, and there are already a number of Zooms, and two close by in-person talks, sitting in my calendar. I plan to resume live Instagram sessions from my back yard, probably starting in March, when I start planting seeds. I won’t be selling seedlings on any sort of scale this year - that phase of my gardening life has now passed. For those that are local to me here in Hendersonville, a good friend plans to sell heirloom tomato seedlings - I will provide information when it becomes certain.

The Dwarf Tomato Project is, if not grinding to a halt, now moving at a much slower rate, which is appropriate for where we are, with so many successful releases. Given that, it is going to be a different type of garden for me this year - but more on that later on.

In closing, it will be another, interesting, fun gardening season - I look forward to sharing my findings with you as always. On we go, into 2023!