Sunday, January 13, 2008

Seed fever!

Ah, it's that time of year again! I've just been to Danielle's blog and she's posted this year's seed order with all kinds of good excuses for going crazy. I'm sharing some of her excuses, especially the idea that many of these seeds will be used again next year and that I will be saving a lot more seed this year. And Danielle alluded to the fact that the days of having anything we want shipped to us whenever we want could soon be coming to an end. We feel that it's a good idea to get a broad, diverse selection of seeds here while we still can. We are also growing for a variety of people this year, including the farmer's market, so we want a colorful, diverse offering from the garden.

Here's what I had left over from last year:
(And damn that Danielle with her list in alphabetical order! I had to put mine into a spreadsheet to sort it because I can't think that hard this time of night).

Arugula: our seed
Basil: Genovese sweet
Beans: blue lake pole
Beet: detroit dark red
Beetberry
Broccoli: Nutri-bud
Carrot: Japanese imperial long, scarlet nantes, dragon, red core chantenay
Cilantro: our seed
Cucumber: lemon
Gourd: bottle
Kale: dinosaur
Lettuce: ruben's red, merlot red, mesclun mix, cosmo savoy, green salad bowl, bronze mignonette, NY head
Mache (lamb's lettuce)
Parsley: Italian flat leaf
Peas: little marvel, sugar pod, pioneer shell, sugar snap
Pumpkin: sugar pie, jack be little, howden
Spinach: viroflay, bloomsdale
Watermelon: sugarbaby

And now for this year's seed order, which should help Danielle (and Jim) to feel better:

Artichoke: imperial star
Bean: pinto, genuine cornfield pole, christmas lima, king of the garden lima
Beets: chioggia, yellow mangel, touchstone gold
Broccoli: early green, waltham
Cabbage: red drumhead
Canteloupe: charentais, stutz supreme
Carrot: kurota chantenay, napa, yellowstone
Chamomile: german
Chard: perpetual, golden
Chile: NM sandia hot, NM big jim
Comfrey: (root cuttings from next door)
Corn: luscious sweet (F1, organic), popcorn TBD
Cucumber: mideast prolific, Armenian
Eggplant: rosa bianca, imperial black beauty
Hops: crystal, chinook
Jerusalem artichoke: (from next door)
Kale: red ursa
Okra: a gift from Pam G!
Onions: valencia, ruby ring
Peanuts: NM organic valencia from the co-op
Pepper: California wonder, Cal. Wonder orange, Stockton's select, ancho/poblano, jalapeno, cayenne
Potatoes: purple viking, all blue, laratte fingerling, red cloud, red gold, russet nugget
Pumpkin: Wyatt's wonder (Scotty wants to grow a big one)
Spinach: america
Squash: buttercup, yellow crookneck, black beauty, tahitian
Sweet potato: 100 slips, variety of heirlooms
Tomatillo: verde
Tomato: zapotec pleated, green zebra, roma, san marzano, ropreco, yellow pear, cabernet grape, oregon spring bush, brandywine, valencia
Watermelon: Malali

We've had a request for brussels sprouts, so I need to order those (any favorites to suggest?), and I still need to decide on a popcorn variety. I'm also working on a few additions to my herb garden which I'll pick up at this year's herb festival at the Nature Center. And I have a lot of flower seeds that I didn't mention here, but didn't get any new ones this year. I'll be growing some more bread poppies for sure--they were so much fun to grow and it was easy to save the seeds.

I already have onions and some herbs started indoors, and lettuce, cilantro, beetberry, spinach, broccoli, and mache coming up in the cold frame. What fun!

3 comments:

Danielle said...

Damn you woman! You made me remember some things I forgot! lol

I think I can definitely do the horseradish/ comfrey exchange. I need to double check my roots, though.

I still want to get mache, comfrey, arnica; mangels and jerusalem artichoke for feed roots; and some grains like amaranth and quinoa that offer high yields from few plants.

I'm also planning to get a few trees/ shrubs for the yard, including nut trees, persimmon, and witch hazel.

Sorry about the whole alphabetizing thing—at least I only did it with some of the varieties. Really, I was almost anal enough to want to alphabetize those, too.

Yarrow said...

oh, wonderful! i'm envious. i'm not on many seed-catalog lists yet, and we're so not ready to start seedlings! But my wonderful friend Brian is *giving* us a greenhouse he doesn't use (he raised orchids for a while a few years back and it has sat there being a storage shed ever since)--an 8x10 double-wall-polycarbonate greenhouse with vents and floor pavers and shelves and a lighting hookup and everything. it's going to be wonderful. when we get that over here and set up, next month, then we'll start planting the cold-season seeds! and by next spring, i hope to be raising cold-season greens in there. and saving seeds! we have some seed potatoes, sunflowers, tomatoes, basil, peppers. but i didn't get any seeds from the cucumbers, the wonderful butternut squash, peas, or chard from last year. though come to think of it, maybe we have some squash and chard seeds left in last year's packet.

i see a Plants of the SW trip in my near future...

Anonymous said...

I have no seeds and will plant no seeds (I live on a rock pile), but how I love to read about your seeds and plans and those of your online friends. I admire all of you!

Nino