I don’t think it is any coincidence that the most fruitful season of gardening and baseball season take place at the same time. I honestly prefer fall and winter weather, but the brutal heat in the south means fresh produce and baseball games (and lightening bugs of course). These two things have always overlapped and just this past week I started to realize that it is a theme that never rests in my warm weather life. My most recent purchase form Amazon started this thought – clear notebook pockets to store and safely peruse my seed collection. Instant flashback to the notebooks my cousins and I would bring to our grandparents for Sunday dinner. First page displayed our favorites, which back then were some of the best Atlanta Braves ever to play the game. Sid Bream, David Justice, Greg Maddox, and John Smoltz were my prized cards. The 1996 Beckett priced that David Justice card at $99. Not merely a printed piece of cardboard! This was a treasure. Sitting in my grandparent’s front room I would covet the collection of my oldest cousin Shannon. Shannon had a job and a car (with a sunroof, so cool) and could buy her own baseball cards whenever she wanted. Every big player was represented. Holograms, gold series, Pop-Up Topps cards, she had them all. The best ones neatly presented in perfect clear pockets perfect to flip through countless times and chat about baseball moments we held in our hearts.
Fast forward to now, thirty years have seen baseball cards drift from the forefront of kids lives. I am a millennial approaching middle age and my joy comes from my God, my family, and my backyard garden. Seed catalogs are the highlight of my winter as I flip through considering the possibilities for the coming year. However, all that deep contemplation goes out the window as I place my order. The internet calls and the mass lists I have compiled for my favorite and most needed seeds are ignored as I do what can only be called stream of conscious seed shopping. I usually am working with a self-imposed spending limit and one or two MUST HAVES. I open the packages of new seeds with the same reverence I showed those Topps and Pinnacle cards of my youth. I organize them into Ziplock bags labeled with whatever category I have deemed appropriate: Front bed, early spring, next fall. I will reassess my stacks multiple times during the season. Every time I plant, I say goodbye to empty packs or glue my favorites into my garden journal. And now I will have a seed book. A place to flip and flit and gawk at my seed packets. Today it’s less about how much money a sleeve might hold, it’s about the possible harvest. Potential lives in every envelope. Behind every beautiful picture. Some will disappoint me, and some, like my precious Braves, will do so multiple times. But just like those Atlanta heroes, they will bring good times in the sun, precious memories, and if things go my way, I might just win it all.