Every Garden A Wildcat

There's a slogan from the 50's that Kansas State fans have resurrected: "Every Man a Wildcat," or EMAW. I almost went to K-State, before U of Tulsa promised me a bigger scholarship, but I've never really been a fan of either of the Kansas rivals (or much of anybody else, for that matter). The fact that my sister is now a Jayhawk by marriage (note the URL) definitely means we don't have K-State stuff around.

This has been a bit of a problem. K-State is purple, purple, purple… when we went up for a scholarship acceptance dinner, there was so much purple around that I recall whispering to my parents, "If the food is purple, we're leaving." And the twins' colors are pink for Kayla, lavender for Megan. We have to be verrrry careful that it doesn't cross the line into purple when buying for her.

Anyway, I coped with the ridiculous cold snap* by planning the garden, and it's getting to be time to start plants indoors, so I went seed shopping. In some cases, I didn't have specific varieties in mind, and chatting with Beth at Valley Feed led to a few changes. And when I got home, I realized I had a pattern going.

• Cosmic Purple carrots (purple exterior, orange interior with a yellow core)
• Purple Plum radishes (I know, yet another radish variety)
• Black Beauty eggplants (dark purple)

Add that to what I already had:

• Purple Ruffles basil
• Purple Top rutabaga
• Hyacinth beans
• Purple bell peppers

Yeah, that's a theme right there. This led to a discussion on Twitter of all the possibilities for purple veggies: onions, potatoes, kale, cauliflower, snap beans (apart from the hyacinths, which are mostly ornamental), asparagus, cabbage… seed potatoes weren't in yet, but I got Purple Majesty ones last year and they're very good.

Today was a visit to Johnson's Garden Center, both to hang up a farmers-market vendor flier and to check over their seed selection. Johnson's seed is all prepackaged, so I didn't expect much (though that was where I got purple potatoes last year)… but then I found purple tomatillos. And bought them, despite having already bought regular tomatillos.

That clinches it: I have a color theme. It's probably not too original; K-State is an ag school, after all, so I can bet that if I looked hard enough, I'd find purple varieties that originated there, and are probably named "Wildcat" or "Powercat" even. I'm not sure how well this will fit with my plan to try saving seeds (which necessitates avoiding hybrids), but we'll see.

I don't think ducks come in purple, though.

* We're undergoing weather whiplash now… it's into the high 70's, so we're setting records in the other direction.