Monday, January 15, 2007

seed order

I'm planning to order seeds from several sources this year, including many varieties I can't find locally. I like the looks of the mixes (lettuce and beets) and heirloom varieties that they offer. I find it too much work to raise my own seedling indoors, so I only buy seeds that I can plant directly in the garden. Here's my list (which I'll revise until I actually place the order):

(revised Wednesday, January 17)
(revised again Thursday, January 18)
(revised again and ordered Saturday, January 20)

Johnny's Selected Seeds
Carrots, Cosmic purple
Chard, Bright Lights Multicolor
Cucumber, Diva (treated)
Cucumber, Striped Armenian
Endive, Neos (“Chicory Frisee”)
Escarole, Natacha
Beans, Provider, Green bush bean
Inoculant for beans and peas
Lettuce, Allstar gourmet mix
Lettuce, Parris Island
Lettuce, Sylvesta
Radicchio, Indigo (F1)
Snap pea, Sugar Sprint
Zucchini, Cashflow (F1) (treated)

The Cook's Garden
Beet, Rainbow Mix
Cilantro
Lettuce, Heatwave Blend
Soybean, Early Hakucho
Summer Squash Sunburst Patty Pan
Sunflower Russian Giant

Seeds of Change
Beans, Haricot Vert "Maxibel" Bush
Beans, Italian Snap Pole
Beans, Black Seeded Blue Lake Pole Bean
Carrot, Oxhart
Carrot, Red Core Chantenay
Kale, Dinosaur

Last year I used alot of lettuce seeds, since I seeded almost every 2-3 weeks. Some seedings sprouted, some didn't. I had no lettuce in the heat of the summer, so I'm trying the Heatwave Mix from The Cook's Garden this year. This order has 4 packs of lettuce seeds, as well as escarole and endive for cool weather.

This order has 25 packs of seeds. Too much! But all look like fun to grow. I can always share the seeds with my parents. They always like extra seeds and plants.

buttercup squash seeds
I'm also collecting some seeds. I saved some tomatillo seeds the other day. And I saved some buttercup squash seeds this week (above). I think I'll try planting them in the back of my flower garden. There were empty spaces with full sun there last year.

S&P

7 comments:

Knitters Notebook said...

I'm glad you mentioned Johnny's Selected Seeds. I used to buy from them years ago but have sort of forgotten about them. I plan to check out their site again and buy from them again this year. They have some great unique varieties. I really like your blog. Keep up the great work and happy gardening!

Carol Michel said...

You certainly get a lot of variety into your garden, if it is the size you indicated in a previous post. And I'm impressed by how long you keep plants growing into the fall. What are Skippy's secrets?

kathy said...

I think I may need to trim my seed list abit, though I'm like to try all of those plants. I really did get out my tape measure and measure exactly 189 square feet of vegetable garden space. If I order everything, I'll just plant half rows, parts of seed packs.

One of my best space savers is to grow UP. I put as much as I can on trellises. I grow my tomatoes tall (they were close to 10 ft tall this year), cukes on trellis.

Another trick is to fill all those little spaces with something. If I see dirt in one of my "arial photos", I stick in a small row of bean or lettuce seeds. Or some marigolds!

I used to let things (especially squash vines) grow all over the lawn and pathways, but unfortunately I have a lawn service this year and probably next also. I may grow squashes up onto my shrubs this summer.

I am working to figure out the best ways to extend my gardening season. Especially since its been so mild recently into the fall/winter in the Boston area. At this time of year next year, I'm hoping to have a garden full of endive, lettuce, escarole, carrots, maybe broccoli. My tiny patch of lettuce and endive was still OK as of yesterday (last night was 10 degrees, so that may have killed them.)

Anonymous said...

Your order is so much bigger than the one I'm planning. That is so exciting. I'm brand new to this. You seem to know more about gardening than I do. I've just just made my first seed purchase and I've been trying to find someone to give me some tips. I'm a novice to gardening and the Internet, so please excuse me if my etiquette is off.

Alisa Keimel said...

Thank you to all who consider Johnny's Selected Seeds. We appreciate your business more than you can know!

Alisa Keimel
Marketing & PR Manager
Johnny's Selected Seeds

Anonymous said...

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kathy said...

Thanks for noticing the spam. I was wondering who would have left that sort of comment. Not the best etiquette...