When you have too many things to remember, it’s fun to set yourself up for a surprise. Weeks ago, I mailed an order for some wacky selections from the Baker Creek Heirloom Seed catalog. I did not check my P.O. box daily. When you order seeds in the middle of winter, there’s no hurry; you’re not going to plant them anytime soon.

When the manila envelope arrived, I had forgotten the late-night impulse buy and was pleasantly surprised.

The Baker Creek company is cool. If the company was a boy, and I was 12 years old, I would have a mad crush on “him.” Even the padded packaging has a certain “coolness factor,” with vintage adds on the envelope, as if the company’s image is suspended in a different time. In my romantic vision, the seeds had been shipped by train, packed by a grubby guy wearing overalls, and sent with postage stamps in the upper right-hand corner (the kind of stamps you had to lick).

In my infatuated state, the seed packets can do no wrong. One small envelope shows a photo of an outstretched hand holding purple beans, another shows swan-shaped crookneck squash. A bearded man looks whimsical as he poses with purple basil tucked behind his ear.

The images of the ground cherries remind me of water lilies emerging from dry land — the tawny fruit encased in papery leaves, others unfurling. It could only get cooler if I actually put the seeds in some soil.

And then the dilemma. I had talked about trading seeds with my mother. However, she never bought interesting seeds, and certainly not the totally cool seeds I now had in hand. Would I share with her anyway? Would she remember our pact?

My goodness! It’s my mother! What kind of seed-hoarding ingrate have I become?

Just about the time I was banishing bad thoughts, I was sent some very useful information from the kind gals who put on the annual seed swap.

The annual seed swap takes place from 12-2 p.m. Jan. 25, a Saturday, in the big room at Trinity Methodist Church at Fifth Street and Flume.

I love the seed swap. I’m not talking mere infatuation here. This is one of the many things that makes a person proud to live in Chico.

You can gather up all your seeds from last year and kindly share them with others. The really great part about it is you can also take a few seeds home.

Maybe I’ll invite my mother.

Seed tips

You certainly don’t want to be greedy, so bring your own envelopes or small pieces of paper within which to wrap just a few seeds. Bring a pen as well, to write down the names of your treasures.

You can also use your phone to take photographs of the important seed-planting tips.

When you bring plants or seeds to share, make sure you label carefully, so other people don’t need to guess.

The generous souls who have helped organize this event for the past 11 years include Sherri Scott.

Serious seed swapping

When I chatted with Sherri recently, she said serious seed-savers are invited to pop in early, for extra time for seed talk, starting at 11:30 a.m. This allows savers of seeds to chat in a more casual environment, before things get hectic.

Organizers are also hoping folks who lost gardens in the Camp Fire will also get there early. When people are rebuilding their yards, or a new yard, they’ll have more questions to ask.

Sherri did not mention how old is too old for seeds to share. However, remember that seeds do have a shelf life. The point of an event like this is to share joy, not to offload your mistreated and neglected seeds stash — only to cause garden disappointment.

You can also bring unwanted, but still functional garden tools to share.

Sherri said gardeners can share bulbs, seedlings or plant divisions. You can also bring in cuttings and scions. Scions are cuttings of new growth that can be grafted onto root stock, or the remains from trees that burned to the ground, to provide new top growth from a favored plant. Scions are used to make fruit cocktail trees, which will bear peaches on one branch, and other fruit on another. What fun!

If you’re kind-hearted, by all means, bring fruit from your trees or other garden-things you may think to bring, Sherri continued.

If you can’t make the event, you can learn more about Sherri and her group via the Chico Seed Lending Library’s Facebook page, https://www.facebook.com/ChicoSLL/.

Tomatoes can be a perennial plant in tropical South America. Yet, around here, they turn to slimy mush when you leave town on a cold day.

Before leaving town for a visit with Dad, I snatched three red, ripe cherry tomatoes, which would turn out to be the last for the year.

When I returned from my family holiday feast, 3 pounds heavier, I knew the time was overdue for tackling the tangle of tomatoes.

Looking over plants that were once mighty is a source of sadness. My tomatoes had a triumphant run. I grew large, cherry tomatoes, planted as seeds in January by my third-grade students. In mid-winter, I helped the garden gurus keep the plants cozy in our school greenhouse. When the weather suddenly turned warm, I drove to the school on weekends to offer them water.

They grew and grew until we proudly sold them at our school’s harvest festival.

Over the summer, the plants produced so well in my yard, I was inspired to dry not one but two full loads in my dehydrator. My guess is that I’ll have dried tomatoes on hand from now until 2021, even if I share a few with select friends.

Yet, even heroic tomato plants can take a quick dive to death’s door. By the time the snow and rain swept through the valley, my tomatoes were so wearied, they looked like Jon Snow after battling the white walkers.

When I returned from the weekend of ice cream and Edward’s key lime pie, I had only one hour of daylight remaining in my weekend.

I snipped off the gnarled leaves of the once-stellar tomato plants and discovered an overabundance of green goodness. Green tomatoes. So many green tomatoes it seemed like a waste to toss them in the compost pile. Of course, I had no intention of eating them.

I had learned my lesson years ago. Once, I had been filled with curiosity, and had more time on my hands. I sleuthed out seldom-used green tomato recipes. I tried frying them, and made some type of green tomato fritters. I even made a small, experimental green tomato pie.

However, when you can buy chocolate, ice cream and French fries easily, these vintage Southern recipes for green tomatoes lose their appeal.

I concluded those quaint recipes stemmed from hunger. If you had a farmhouse filled with growing children, you’d find a way to eat every last twig grown in the garden.

Maybe some sort of nostalgia for a better time came over me. I decided those green tomatoes were too beautiful to waste.

I decided to pick the fruit and at least give folks a chance to eat them. It didn’t take long to gift them to a coworker and my really cool neighbor, Del.

I kept a few and will decide this week if my palette has changed. I could eat just about anything that is drenched in batter and deep fried, perhaps even cardboard.

Some recipes seem fairly straightforward: About four green tomatoes, salt and pepper, oil, 1 cup cornmeal, 2 large eggs.

Slice the tomatoes ¼ inch thick, season and pat dry. Dip the slices in beaten eggs and drag through the cornmeal. Fry and dip in your favorite dressing. One friend suggested adding Cajun spices.

I’ve had trouble with fruit flies recently. However, I’ll try to ripen a few of my green goblins indoors.

I found a video online, https://bit.ly/2Le3MEk, which suggests wrapping each tomato in newspaper, then placing the batch in a cardboard box. Adding some apples will help speed up the process. The trick is to check them once a week and see if there’s anything that needs to be tossed. Choose a cold closet or garage, because temperatures need to be 50-70 degrees. Or you can add a bit of apple and stuff the green tomatoes in a paper bag.

Undoubtedly, the tomatoes will taste like those mealy, pinkish-white tomatoes we find in the grocery store this time of year, but hey, they probably still contain high amounts of Vitamin C.

A few more notes

If you want to torture yourself with other tomato possibilities, I found some information about starting new tomato plants with suckers, found between the tomato’s main stem and a leaf branch, www.agardenlife.com/long-tomato-plants-live-need-know/. This video is worth watching, simply to listen to the guy’s Southern accent.

Bulbs in barely-August, Halloween costumes in September and Christmas wrap before Turkey day … Stores are more and more brazen these days about stocking the shelves for events that are still a season away.

I shake my head with confusion and hear myself muttering: “Things just aren’t the way they used to be … .”

Now I know what getting old feels like.

I could call it “old fashioned,” but frankly, my traditions are just “old.” I send paper Christmas cards, buy gifts in stores with a roof and walls and sometimes make gifts by hand.

In the near future, we’ll have hologram Christmas trees and virtual visits with Santa. Most households will have a special room in their garage to “make” gifts via a 3D printer.

This week, I used my cellphone to log a holiday event in my Google calendar. (This whole cellphone calendar idea is new to me, but makes sense in a modern world).

My calendar is color coded – work is blue, personal is purple and days deemed as holidays by Google are green.

Since when did Black Friday become a holiday? I’m so outdated that the green reminder of America’s biggest shopping day was a huge shock to me.

I can understand why Taxes Due is a helpful reminder. However, I’m fairly certain the mass merchandisers can do a decent job of reminding us about Black Friday, without the aid of Google.

Very soon, Black Friday will also be outdated. While visiting my folks, we saw a television commercial for the “12 days of Black Friday.” Will Google soon add 12 green reminders on my cellphone?

Gifts with glue and guts

For several years, I tried to rebel against the consumerism of the holiday – mostly because I lacked available funds.

I also liked the idea of making crafts in my living room while watching schmaltzy Hallmark holiday romance movies. The problem is that I’m not very crafty. Some gifts were a hit, like the hand-painted clay ornaments, no-bake fudge, crochet washcloths and painted “God jars.” Other years, my gifts looked like they were made by barn animals. One noteworthy disaster included the origami swan mobiles, made with recycled Christmas cards and attached to a metal clothes hanger.

Some ideas are better left as merely ideas.

This week, I visited Dad and perused the holiday decorations, which are on display year-round.

“Dad, whatever happened to that really ugly origami swan mobile I made that year?” I asked.

“The Smithsonian stopped by one day and asked for it,” Dad quipped.

As much as I make fun of merchandise that arrives in stores months before you need it, I’m glad spring-blooming bulbs were on sale before I became temporarily unemployed.

Last year, I grew hyacinths in my classroom almost continuously. At the winter break, I gifted each of my students with a bulb, a glass jar filled with pebbles, and planting instructions.

My intention was to again have bulbs blooming year-round.

At my current job at the college, I share an office. So far, I have two hyacinth bulbs in vases. The roots are growing nicely and I should have blooms before Valentine’s Day.

Three bulbs are doing their thing on my kitchen counter at home.

I haven’t counted, but I think I have about 40 bulbs remaining.

I can’t think of a better “crafty” Christmas idea than planting bulbs in decorative pots, and giving them as gifts. A hand-written note will explain that the pot of dirt should be placed where it will receive rain. Next spring, the recipient will appreciate how much I love them.

In the meantime, I need to get cracking on writing those old-fashioned Christmas cards. Maybe my friends will be inspired to use them for origami.