With zealous husband, the garden plot thickens

 We have babies at our house — lots and lots of little babies.

The Early Girls and Gold Nuggets seem to favor my side of the family, reliable and hearty performers. But the Holy Moles, the Anchos and the Purple Cayennes, with their promised fiery and robust flavors, are Hintze through and through.

My husband has returned to gardening in a very big way this year. It started just after the first of the year when those colorful seed catalogs began arriving in droves. Five seed orders from five different companies later, we now have enough seeds to grow a 50-acre truck garden.

The biggest spare bedroom has been transformed into something resembling a neonatal facility for plants. A special electric heater keeps the soil at just the right temperature for sprouting the dozens of seeds that lie in just the right soil underneath plastic domes.

I staged only a mild protest when he decided to nurture endless varieties of tomatoes and peppers, plus who knows what else? I think he’s dabbling with eggplant and baby bok choy, too.

“But I always get my tomatoes and peppers from the farmers market, from Judy, you know, the lady at Terrapin Farm,” I whined.

“Yeah, I know, but wouldn’t it be fun to raise our own?” he wondered.

“OK, but that’s your deal. I’m not watering them or keeping track of stuff,” I sniffed, knowing full well he’d already made a list of what to plant, how many, date, time, temperature, etc. His gardening journal is like a baby book for plants — when they were born, when they sprouted, when they got their first leaves ...

His tendency toward uber-gardening is well-documented. I saved all his plant journals from when we lived in Eastern Montana and had endless garden space on our hobby farm. With all of the personal notations, “good producer,” “won’t plant this again,” they were just too endearing to throw away.

Watching him plant those minuscule seeds with his very large hands (which I might mention have been described by strangers as “bear paws”) was painstaking until I offered him tweezers.

Who knew the guy could sit there for two hours and drop seeds one by one into what seemed like endless little plugs of starter soil.

Now come to find out, all of these tiny seedlings will have to be replanted into bigger containers to grow big enough to plant in our gardens — that’s right, gardens. Since the garden spot at our house has been outgrown, my husband has commandeered a spacious plot where he works.

It all seems way too labor-intensive for me, but if he’s willing to shoulder the load I won’t stand in his way. And I’ll admit those dear little wisps of green are growing on me, no pun intended. I can see their potential and what they’ll one day turn out to be — succulent fresh produce and later, after we’ve eaten our fill, a ton of salsa.

Last year the salsa-making sessions went on way too long, producing shelves and shelves of filled jars. In fact, our married daughter who stops by now and then to get provisions from the “Hintze Warehouse” commented just the other day on the vast salsa supply in the basement.

With the number of plants growing under our roof right now, we probably will be able to put Pace out of business.

It’s only a matter of time now until this long and arduous winter is behind us and we’re up to our elbows in composted garden soil and bedding plants. The sun will beat down on us, the sweat will roll off, and I can’t wait.

Features editor Lynnette Hintze may be reached at 758-4421 or by email at lhintze@dailyinterlake.com.