My (nearly) annual seed giveaway closed on February 15. Seeds are almost in the mail! Here’s where things stand:
I’ve laid out seeds to fill 50 envelopes for winners of this year’s seed giveaway.
- My wife and I selected the grand prize winner!
- I contacted people who nearly almost kind of entered the giveaway but might have missed a critical step (no mailing address received here).
- I designed, printed, and applied new seed envelope labels – more than 160 envelopes.
- I’ve packed 80 seed envelopes with 80 still awaiting attention.
- I wrote (am writing) this post to let participants know their seeds are on the way.
The grand prize, two pruners supplied by Corona Tools, go to Maggie Towson whose winning comment appears below.
The Corona Tools Grand Prize
My wife and I reviewed the comments that qualified participants for a shot at the grand prize (Two Corona Tools pruners). We loved the stories! Thanks so much to everyone who took the time to share.
Several comments gave me a chuckle, and a few were very poignant. The winner scored on both sides with a story that seemed especially fine-tuned to the judges’ sensibilities. It involved not only gardening, but also a dog behaving exactly as dogs do: being ever so helpful in exactly the worst possible way. I had warned that a story about a garden failure may not entertain the judges, but OMG, a PUPPY!
Congratulations to Maggie Towson, and thank you for the wonderful picture you told about Luna. If not for my garden fence and a deep distrust I have of Nutmeg’s (my dog) gardening sensibilities, this could be our story! Your pruners should be in the mail before the snow melts.
And the Seed Giveaway
I hope to fill the remaining 80 seed envelopes tonight. Here’s what’s left after that:
Maggie Towson’s Winning Story
The first summer after our 2nd dog, Luna, joined our family revealed the unfortunate truth that in this yard two gardeners is one too many. The beginning of this revelation was the day I first decided to transplant some seedlings into the main garden. The dogs did dog things in the yard while I worked my way down the first garden row. Part way down the row, I caught movement out of the corner of my eye. I turned in time to see Luna, seedling in mouth, paw at the grass, toss the seedling joyfully into the air, watch it fall on the ground, and pounce on it. Several of the seedling’s brethren had been stolen and ‘replanted’ in similar fashion and littered the backyard in various states of smashery. Ever the optimist, I thought it would be cool to teach her to gently plant seedlings. I don’t even need to illustrate for you the many ways in which that was a stupid idea. So I decided to teach her to pull weeds. She was great at this and really enjoyed it! Unfortunately, she really stinks at distinguishing weeds from not weeds and sees no reason to wait to be instructed to pull something. Not my Luna. She’s proactive! These days, she is banished from the garden (she ignores this rule) and is only allowed to play with the weeds I toss to her (she ignores this rule too).
- Printing and applying mailing labels
- Writing and printing a letter about the seeds I’m mailing
- Stuffing envelopes
- Visiting the post office to get stamps and mail things out
If all goes well, seeds should be on the way on Friday, February 27, or Saturday, February 28.
It’s hard to express how much I enjoyed your comments. I hope you have great luck with the seeds. I’d love to hear from you once or twice through the season about how things are going… it’d be especially awesome if you’d post a photo of plants producing, of tomatoes, peppers, or squash you harvest, or of all of the above. If you wish, email a photo and a comment or two about your experience and I’ll feature it in a blog post during the growing season. If you blog and write a post about how these seeds work out, let me know and I’ll post a link.
Just 20 days until we’re supposed to plant peas in our gardens in central Pennsylvania. I’ve never planted peas in snow… could be interesting.