Saturday, March 11, 2023

2023 Gardening: Buying Seeds

 Of course with getting ready for gardening and land re-design, one needs seeds to do it.

It would be fair to say that I have all the seeds I could possible need at this point from previous years of growing or previous purchases.  It would be fair.  But I think it is a form of (helpful) mental instability that almost every gardener I know always buy more seeds  anyway.  

Part of it is to try different or new plants we have not grown in the past

Part of it, I suspect, is also the fact that we like looking through seed catalogs and then ordering.  It combines garden therapy and retail therapy into a nice package - and hopefully, with crops at the end.

As longer term readers may recall, last year my previous long term seed supplier made a decision to be political about an issue they had no need to be political about.  I tend to be a lazy shopper, and the only thing that will encourage me to change vendors is either 1) Bad product and unsatisfactory service; or 2) Choosing sides on things you have not need to and so disrespecting your customer base.  Thankfully, I was able to find the good folks at Baker Creek Seeds:


I have made at least two orders with them to date (and the third one is on the way).  They are prompt, have a wonderful selection and great seed packets, and they send an extra packet of seeds.  They also do non-political sorts of profit sharing for things like agricultural improvements and programs, something I am 100% on board with.  They are good folks, well worth your time and money.

They do not not, however, really carry a large selection of grain or pasture grasses, two things I was also looking for.  Grain is just a habit that I enjoy; although I never really get a huge harvest, it makes me happy to grow it.  And with my work to develop/restore my lawn this year, I needed to find something that was bit more native than the usual Johnson Grass/Bermuda Grass and certainly more drouth resistant.

In the past I have received e-mails (and visited the sites) of Prairie Nursery  and Prairie Moon Nursery. They both have great websites and I would encourage you to go there and look around.  There is a lot in the alternate field/lawn covering and habitat restoration arena I had no idea was out there.  They seem like the sort of companies I need to order something from, if for no other reason than I support the sorts of things they are doing.

Unfortunately, for this initial effort, they do not have anything which seems to immediately fit my bill, as I am slightly outside of the growing zones they target.  So I had to keep looking.

Then, after a fair amount of slowly drifting on the ebbing tides of InterWeb searches, I found the good folks at Native American Seeds:


Also seem like fine folks:  same mission as the folks above, covering a set of different planting zones.  Turns out they did have some of what I needed (what I bought will have to wait for the first few restoration products [I am told this sort of thing is a useful device to build tension and lure readers back]).  They also - thankfully like everyone else - send you a catalog.  In this case, one with a pretty righteous pictures of a puma on the cover:


Because nothing says "I like gardening" like an apex predator on the cover!

This is not to rule out my local non-big box nurseries, and I do need to take some time next week (before Spring gets away from me) to stop by at least one of those as well (they need my support too).

I love this time of year, if for no other reason than the anticipation of growing things has not yet given way to the reality of trying to grow things.  

That, and not matter how much I fail, gardening fills some hole in my soul that nothing else will.

16 comments:

  1. Nylon127:56 AM

    A post with excellent timing TB, last growing season was dry, grass suffered damage, so the links are really helpful. New places to visit curtesy of electricity.

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    1. Glad to help, Nylon12. To be honest, I am excited about looking more at these companies, and some like them. If I judge your living zone to be correct, I think Prairie Moon and Prairie Nursery might have good alternatives for you.

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  2. As iron sharpens iron, thanks for the info.

    I wonder how many old seed packets will be dug up for the collapse series spring planting. I have some age unknown Amish canning tomato seeds on a damp paper towel in a baggie for that check.

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    1. You are welcome Michael.

      To the second question, likely a lot throughout the world of the Collapse. Technically this is the first full season without the benefits of civilization.

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  3. Anonymous11:07 AM

    I was told by an old lady when I first got into gardening and went around asking everyone for advice that if I had any packets left over to wrap carefully in plastic wrap and stick in the freezer. I've planted, successfully, packets that had been in 2/3 years.
    gl

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    1. GL - That is interesting (and good advice). I have more than a few; I will have to give them a try. I certainly keep all my extras in the refrigerator at least.

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  4. The collapse series has lost grid power some months ago. But hopefully germination tests (AND Planting those successful ones) will help this spring.

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    1. Good advice for both the real and fictional worlds, Michael.

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  5. The old seeds I'm testing will be too early for planting here. However, if I indoor plant them for a small harvest AND for rooting the suckers, those suckers will be ready for warm season plantings.

    Last winter one successful seed out of the ten I tested grew me 12 suckers for spring plantings. Those suckers planted 8 thrived and I made sucker plantings out of them I gave to friends for a mid summer harvest.

    Tomatoes love fish gut teas as well as pond muck side dressings. Fact is all my garden gets that TLC. Potatoes I don't use the fish guts as too much nitrogen means LOTS of Leaves, Little Potatoes but pond muck works well. Squash and corn LOVES it.

    https://www.ruralsprout.com/clone-tomato-plants-from-cuttings/

    Snip The beautiful thing about directly rooting in the dirt, especially if you are using a substantial sized stem, is that it takes much less time to get your new plant established and on its way to producing tomatoes.

    Because tomatoes are self-pollinating, you can even take a few cuttings from your plants in the fall and grow tomatoes indoors. You’ll need to fertilize them more frequently. Give the stems with flowers a little shake once a day to help pollination, or try some of these other tomato hand pollination techniques, and you’ll be enjoying fresh tomatoes in the middle of the winter.

    Rabbit hole alert! I discovered you can also grow peppers from suckers just like tomatoes!

    Cuttings like seedlings need some TLC and hardening outside before transplanting.

    One important fact is disease. Wash your tools between plants. Never take cuttings from a diseased plant. Smokers are carriers of tobacco virus that ruins all nightshades. So, wash those hands before starting any gardening.

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    1. Fascinating Michael. I have never tried tomatoes from anything other than seeds or plants (same with peppers).

      The potatoes not loving nitrogen probably explains my lack of harvest in sweet potatoes last year. I will move "back" to the reqular garden plot this year.

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  6. TB, you have inspired me to finally place an order with Baker Creek Rare Seeds. I've looked at their website since last year, even put stuff in my cart, but I never clicked the submit order button. It should be easier to make my decision now that the time for starting seeds indoors is nearly passed for my area. I told myself I wanted to start seeds, but didn't feel up to it when it was optimal. Now I think I should just embrace feeling relieved to not deal with it.

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    1. Yay buying seeds! I have never had good fortune at starting seeds inside, thus I always "wait" until the outside conditions are appropriate.

      I predict you will like Baker Creek. Seems like a top-quality organization and they send a free seed packet.

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  7. We've used Baker Creek Seeds for many years and have been happy with them. We also tried some from a new to us company called Row 7 which emphasizes taste and was created for chefs. We bought some snow peas from them for this spring. They were quite expensive so this is just a test to see if it is worth it.

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    1. Ed - Thanks for the feedback and the reference. I will look them up.

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  8. I agree TB, gardening fills my soul too. It's a great time of year and this year I'm actually going to put together a grow light garden in the basement! I had such bad luck last gardening season that I figured, why not try? I'll post about that next week. I think it's going to be successful as I can't seem to get away from all of the hungry seed-eating critters here lol!

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    1. Adapt and overcome Rain, adapt and overcome - plus, I imagine that will give you a (much) longer growing season.

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