We tend to forget that Christmas, as a religious holiday, replaced a much older pagan holiday honoring the winter solstice, the shortest day and the longest night of the year. While Christmas falls on the 25th of December, the true solstice falls on the 21st or 22nd. The good news is, from this day forward, the days get increasingly longer and the nights increasingly shorter – certainly a reason to celebrate.
For me, Christmas signifies that it is time to start thinking about Springtime, and therefore, time to order seeds. Today, I placed on-line orders for a variety of vegetable seeds. I ordered seeds for a variety of heirloom tomato varieties from TomatoFest, and seeds for other garden varieties from Territorial Seeds.
This year’s new heirloom tomato varieties will be:
Aunt Lucy’s Italian Paste
Azoychka
Burraker’s Favorite
Indische Fleish
Mom’s Paste
Nyagous
Riviera
San Marzano Redorta
Boxcar Willie
Carmello
Caspian Pink
Impulse
Mrs. Maxwell’s Big Italian
Paul Robeson
Sasha’s Altai