Monday, January 26, 2004

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SEEDS AND SELF-CONTROL

The jinchoge savor of Spring gave me the urge to order my basil seeds from the always reliable Territorial Seeds, and I was just going to order the usual Spicy Globe and Nufar Genovese Basils I get every year to use in salads and for making my flavored oils and vinegars and pesto; but also as usual whenever I open a seed catalog, especially Territorial's very handy and fast online one with the pictures and descriptions, I just can't help myself (but when summer comes, I don't mind at all having had so many seeds). So I ordered the usual Spicy globe and Nufar, but then I thought maybe this year, in the probably vain but manically recurrent hope of no monkeys (who are likely simply biding their time up mountain with telescopes), I'd try some special tomatoes for sauces and sun-drying, so I ordered seeds for Principe Borghese and Oroma tomatoes; thence I drifted into the bean section and had to order some Major and Venture bush beans to go with the local green beans I got yesterday at the garden store; and of course in any Japanese garden, so far (in so many ways) from the gustatorial heat of the tropics, one simply must wander over to the pepper section and order some Early Jalapeno seeds, plus a truly zingy-looking hot pepper blend with some Habanero, Long thin cayenne and Mulata Isleno; plus back in the herb section a goodly quantity of seeds for another favorite, East Indian lemon grass to plant here and there in the garden, a beautiful plant that makes lots and lots of delicious lemony tea, is great in Indo-Asian cooking and grows well here. Who cares about self-control at the nadir of Winter when it comes to seeds, the very wellsprings of life...

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