The Poor Plant Stand...

Oh my, it's the month of seeds!
The mailman has been so kind to me lately...
Just the other day... oh wait! Do you know about Folia?
You don't!?
Folia's cool webtool helps you get all your seeds in a row - from listing chores to tracking frosts, researching sowing and harvesting timing to tracking observations about your garden.  Think of it like Facebook and Flikr and Wikipedia, all rolled into one great site! You can connect with other gardeners from all over the world, no matter what anyone plants or where they grow it. So, go check out myfolia.com after you've read all about my great seeds and you'll see what I mean!

So, a couple of weeks ago I connected with another gardener who lives not too far from where we just moved from. Ironic, no? This gardener is known across Folia for being THE person to go to if you want to know anything or grow any kind of tomato.  One of the features on Folia is a seed swap list. In a nut-shell,  each gardener can post a list of what they're looking for, and another list of the seeds they have to swap. So I reached out to this other gardener because I wanted to try and get ahold of some rare tomato seeds. We talked swap terms, and just the other day my seeds came in the mail!! So here's what was sent:
Tomatoes:

• Goose Creek (exceedingly rare) (Apparently smuggled into the country by a Caribbean slave two generations ago)
• Blush (Reputed to be the cross of two great tasting tomatoes, 'Maglia Rose' and 'Zucchero', these being chosen by an eight year old for their taste)
• Carbon
• Amana Orange (Said to be named for Amana, Iowa)

As well as a packet of 'Black Oil' sunflower seeds!

I was pretty excited, and it didn't take us long to start them off, and of course make sure all the info was recorded in the plant journal I keep.

Today, as if all this seedy goodness was not enough, more seeds arrived in the mail !!

In a large manilla envelope was my Heritage Harvest Seeds order!

I got more tomatoes! 'Manitoba', 'Bison', 'Martino's Roma', 'Early Annie', and purple tomatillos!

I also got 'Red Stalk' celery, 'Old Homestead' rhubarb, 'Mascara' lettuce, 'Doe Hill' peppers, 'Alma Paprika' peppers, and yet more cilantro!

I'm all aquiver to get these new seeds started, but we're running out of room in the plant stand.

What to do...what to do?

Temp: -8C/18F

Sky: clear

Wind: none

Seeds, Seeds Seeds!!

If you've been reading here for any length of time, you know I like to support smaller business. I especially enjoy ordering seeds from a smaller supplier if I can, so when I found Heritage Harvest Seeds  and T&T Seeds, both in a zone cooler than mine, I was thrilled! Today I placed an order with T&T. We ordered an elderberry bush, 5 "Fall Gold" raspberries and 5 "Royal Purple" raspberries. I've never seen raspberries this shade, dear readers, and I cannot wait to see the preserves we make from these! I also ordered green tomatillos from them.
Because I was on a roll, I also ordered purple tomatillos from Heritage Harvest. That salsa should be eye-catching!
We weren't done yet! Then we started "Mammoth Russian" sunflowers, "Walla Walla" onions and cilantro for kicks!
Our basil is coming up wonderfully, and I think I'll have to transplant our Mesclun soon too! It's growing by leaps and bounds!
How do you encourage spring at your house?

Current temperature: -1 degree Celcius or 26 F
Overcast
Very breezy!

Heritage Harvest and the Rare Bean

I know I've mentioned this before, but I adore the catalog of Heritage Harvest Seed! I placed my first order last week, hopefully they'll still have in stock what I ordered. I left it later than I like. The tough part was decided from 12 pages of tomatoes which to order! We already have 3 or 4 different kinds of tomato seeds here, but I want to add to them this summer. So from 12 pages in the catalogue, I wrote out about 20 different kinds, and then put it aside until better sense could take over. Then I whittled the list to 4, I think. I wanted early harvesters, as well as determinate type so we could grow them again from any seed we saved. I was proud of myself for only ordering those tomatoes! I also ordered red celery, and rhubarb.
I have high hopes for this order!
I'm sure I'll be thrilled with it. I like that these folks grow this seed themselves, they don't just get it from someone else. They've been in business for 10 years no, and they're proud of the fact that they don't deal in hybrids or GMO's. Many of their seeds are either heritage or heirloom, and many have fascinating histories! Like the beans passed down through three generations within one family, until being forgotten in a bag somewhere until they made their way into the hands of one of the owners of HHS ten years later. Wouldn't you know, a number of them sprouted! It makes me smile to think that an extremely rare bean seed that I might order has such a history behind it!

Their catalogue makes for more fascinating reading than most seed catalogues that arrive at the end of winter. Not only are the pen and ink drawings charming, they include little tid-bits like this:
"The Hidatsa, Mandan and Arikara Indians dried squash to keep over the winter. The squash was cut about 3/8" thick and placed on willow rods called squash spits. The slices were spaced slightly on the rod so air could circulate around them. The squash spits were then placed on the upper rails of the drying stage to dry."

If you live in Canada, or know a gardener who does, I encourage you to check out their website, or even order a catalogue. Peruse it, fall in love with it like I did and rest assured that we're preserving some very rare and endangered seeds, and those that would like to.
You won't be sorry you at least looked.