We had our first significant snowfall
last week here in Southwest Iowa. It has been an unusually mild and
dry winter here this year, but I will take it. Generally speaking we
are blessed with quite an abundance of snowfall and sub-zero
temperatures during our winters in Iowa.
This week the thermometer has bounced back up into the upper 40's and low 50's giving way to the rapid melting of the 5 inches of snow that fell last week. It's nice to see the grass showing through the snow again and breathe in the mild fresh air outside.
I took a little stroll around my yard today just so that I could bask in the warm sunshine. Suddenly, I realized that spring is just around the corner and it would be planting time again once more. Oh, how I look forward to planting my vegetable, herb and flower gardens in the spring. Digging in that fresh black dirt is so therapeutic to my soul.
I don't use any pesticides or chemicals on my lawn, garden or flowers so the neighborhood birds, bees and worms just love my yard. I feel that is my duty as a steward of the earth to contribute to a healthy environment when at all possible.
When it comes to buying seeds and plants each year, I try my best to only purchase organically grown plants and organically produced GMO free seeds. I have found this to be a very challenging task some years, however. I live in the first Nursery Capital of the World, the place where seeds were first commercially grown, packaged and made available through purchase through catalogs. Yet, little organic and non-GMO seed is even produced here, probably because it would be nearly an impossible task to accomplish since all of the nursery fields are surrounded by farmland where the crops are all GMO and heavily sprayed with chemicals.
So.....I've come to accept it and look elsewhere for what I need if nothing is available locally. One of the places that I love is actually by way of a nursery called “Seeds of Change” or seedsofchange.com. Their online and print catalogs offer a large variety of Certified Organic non-GMO seeds and plants including fruits, vegetables, herbs, flowers and fruit trees. They also offer a variety of gardening products, even raised planting beds.
I have ordered seeds online from Seeds of Change for the past 3 years and have had excellent germination, growth and production from the seeds that I purchased. And, I feel so good that the plants and foods that I am growing are chemically and GMO free. The difference in taste between the foods produced from seed and plants that aren't organically grown and those that are is like night and day.
Seeds of Change has not paid me and I receive no compensation for endorsing them. I just love their products and would like to pass along the information to those who are organically conscience. I also appreciate their Safe Seed Pledge . The first couple of sentences read, “Agriculture and seeds provide the basis upon which our lives depend. We must protect this foundation as a safe and genetically stable source for future generations.........”
Anyway, in closing...it's time to get your seeds ordered from wherever it is that you order them so that you will be ready for spring planting. I can't wait until those tiny green shoots start to poke up out of the ground.....Happy Planting!
