Thursday, October 26, 2006

Thursday Thirteen, Seed Racing Edition

Seed Racing. It has wrecked families, ruined marriages and destroyed careers. The obsession with this new and exciting sport where people plant different kinds of seeds in little pots and see which ones are ready to transplant into the ground first is sweeping the nation. Yes, this blog has been a part of that craze, but we’d like to think our interest has been a healthy one, born out of financial necessity. It’s not that way for everyone.

Already stories of Seed Racing hooliganism are finding their way onto the nightly news. Who can forget the tragic story of that one botanist who was trampled by a mob in Belgium when he suggested that a ficus benjamina could blow the doors off of a locust tree nine times out of ten?

It’s one thing to read stories of such chaos and mayhem in the newspapers, it’s another thing to confront it in your own life. Admit it. You’ve been spending time wondering whether you should have planted your mixed tall zinnias in Uncle Malcom’s potting soil instead of Miracle Grow mix. When your neighbor asked you to watch his cat for him while he was on vacation, you raided his compost heap and concealed your crime by replacing it with cheap fill dirt.

When your spouse talks to you, you’re daydreaming of the seed racks at Home Depot, aren’t you?

The madness has to stop. For today’s Thursday Thirteen, The Scratching Post offers you the thirteen ways to tell if you’ve got a Seed Racing addiction.

1. Photography. Your camera is filled with comparative photos of the plants you’re growing from seed. Like this.



2. You participate in the discussion board at Blossom Swap. From your PDA. Through a wireless connection. In the bathroom. At Starbucks. When you don’t really have to go. And your spouse is waiting for you outside.

3. You make little signs for your rows of seeds. You wish you had a home laminating machine so you could make them look better. You plan out national flags you would put on those signs as well.

4. Discussions of soil pH in your house sometimes take a nasty turn.

5. Late at night when everyone else in the family has gone to bed, you lock the door, close the blinds tightly and surf the Internet for videos like this.

6. You imagine your plants like tiny athletes, doing elaborate end zone dances when you finally plant them in the ground.

7. When you talk to your plants, you imagine their responses couched in sports phrases like, “Well, I just take things one day at a time. I don’t try to get too high when I have a good day growing. I really have to credit my teammates, water and fertilizer for this big growth spurt.”

8. Your seedling pots have more endorsement stickers than a NASCAR vehicle.

9. You show your seedlings photos of what they will look like as adults.

10. After showing them the photos, you tell them that they’ll look like this someday if only they apply themselves.

11. You invent quotes from the other seedlings and pin them on the walls around the pots like a locker room bulletin board. “The Painted Daisies say you could plant them in gravel and they’d still beat the tar out of the English Lavender.”

12. Your credit card company calls you to verify that you’ve bought potting soil at eleven different locations in the last three weeks.

13. You post photos of your seed experiments on your blog and ask your readers to vote for their favorites. Like this.

Which type of plant will be the first one to be transplantable?
English Daisies
Painted Daisies
English Lavender
Gold Dust Alyssum
I can't pick. This is too exciting! I need to go lie down for a while
  
Free polls from Pollhost.com


If too many of these signs apply to you, then I encourage you to stop what you’re doing and call the Seed Racing Addiction Hotline at 1-800-PLEASE, NO MORE SEEDS.


Get the Thursday Thirteen code here!

The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! If you participate, leave the link to your Thirteen in others comments. It’s easy, and fun! Be sure to update your Thirteen with links that are left for you, as well! I will link to everyone who participates and leaves a link to their 13 things. Trackbacks, pings, comment links accepted!



Technorati tags:

14 comments:

JAM said...

Excellent T13. I had never heard of this disorder. Thank you for providing such a direly needed public service by bringin this to our awareness. I don't think I have to worry about getting caught up in this, it's too much like the science fair projects our daughters did for several years.

Darla said...

OMG, this is wonderful. I'm still laughing. There should be a telethon. Or little green ribbons. Something.

Aloysius said...

That's really funny. But--no catnip?

Kukka-Maria said...

I'm pretty sure this is the funniest thing I've read all day! Laminated signs...I snorted my apple cider through my nose!

K T Cat said...

Aloysius, I did buy catnip, but not as a seed. I got a small plant and repotted it immediately in top-notch soil and a much larger container in an optimum spot.

Only the best for our Maximum Leader.

K T Cat said...

Kukka,

That was a very sweet thing to say. Yours are always hysterical.

Unknown said...

Neato TT!! I wish I had a clue about which was which. LOL

Thanks for visiting my blog.

Anonymous said...

ROFL!!! That's one of the FUNNIEST T13s I've ever had the pleasure of reading LOL!

Slackermommy said...

You're killing me! This is hysterical! It's a joke, right? People don't actually have this disorder? Do they?

K T Cat said...

Well, err, not really. I need flowers for my flower beds and couldn't afford them so I'm starting them from seed. One thing led to another and now I'm blogging about it.

I don't really put stickers on the pots, no. As for the rest, you'll just have to stop by again and see.

:-)

Carmen said...

i would so lose, as my seeds would pop through the soil and see my black thumb and pop back under again.

Anonymous said...

This is super amusing! Thanks!

Tink said...

*LOL*, great list! Pfew, I'm not addicted to this.
Thanks for stopping by.

Anonymous said...

This is just too flippin' hilarious!

I have been lax in the catnip department. I think I'm afraid of what my already crazy cats would do if I gave it to them!

BTW, does anyone know what catnip would do to a dog?

;o)