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8 Friday, February 16, 2018 brooklintowncrier.com 70! That's my optimism for the coming season. I've been perusing seed catalogues, a favourite activity this time of year. It's warm, comfortable and almost completely stress free. I seem to have ordered 70 different varieties of vegetables for this summer's garden. Mind you, that's only 33 different vegetables because we need at least four kinds of tomatoes and a few peppers, etc. Yes, almost stress free. Still, making tough decisions about what to keep on the list and what to pass up can be somewhat stressful. Convincing the Assistant Gardener that the $221 I spent on seeds is a good investment isn't so stressful because we'll eat several vegetables with each meal from May to November, about 220 days. A dollar a day Fresh, organic vegetables for about a dollar a day sounds like a bargain to me. That also includes a gym membership I won't need because of the physical benefits of spending a couple of hours daily in the garden. Seed packages usually contain more than I need and most remain viable for at least a couple of years. Each year I throw away older seed packets. But this year I was really organized and created a spread- sheet to keep track. I retained the seeds worth about half of the $221 and added new ones to make up the other half. The result is an expenditure of a little more than $100 to feed us for eight months. Now that's a bargain! One great thing about all those seeds is February gardening. I'll be in the basement sowing them almost every week from the end of February until early May. Sowing and transplanting is a great activity for the worst days of winter and my gardener's soul gets thoroughly fed. Then I can go skiing on the sunny days. Like chess pieces To move things about to find the space I need to accommodate those wonderful little plants is a bit of a chess game. Eventually I run out of room and those plants need to be moved to the heated cold A Garden's Food for Thought Blooming in Brooklin By Ken Brown frame outside. By the time I'm sow-ing the latest seeds like cucumbers, zucchini and melons, I'll already be planting the earliest cool season vegetables such as pak choi, cauliflower and kohl rabi to make room for the late ones. It really is a wonderfully therapeutic activity. How do I decide when to plant what? I dig out my last column or check my web page at gardening- enjoyed.com where all that information can be found. I do grow a few flowers. The begonia seedlings are slowly getting big enough to transplant. The geraniums that have been growing from the cuttings I made last fall are big enough to cut back and produce a double crop. The marigold, morning glory and sweet pea seeds I ordered with the vegetables will get sown at the appropriate times so they can do their double duty. Marigolds get planted in various locations in the vegetable garden to help deter some insects while the other two join the beans and peas on their trellises to make them more colourful. Growing from seeds is really the one of the most interesting and exciting garden activities. Is it the house (above) at 1225 Columbus Rd. West? The current owner is Al Barrett who's lived there for 50 years and practically rebuilt the place. Before him, Warner Lynn lived in the house for 99 years, according to a Lynn relative. Before the Lynns, so goes the claim, the Trulls, United Empire loyalists from Pennsylvania, built the house in 1783. However, according to former Whitby archivist Brian Winter, the house at 42 Cassels Rd. east is the winner. It was built by Dr. James Hunter, in 1845 and was Dr. McKinney's last home in the 1980s and '90s. Winter says there were no houses in this area dating back to 1783 since the first settler did not come to Whitby Township until 1794. Which is Brooklin's oldest house?