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| Pinetree Seeds Order |
The first seeds arrived today! Sixty (yes, 60, and this isn't even half of what I ordered. Did I overdo it?) packages arrived in two envelopes this afternoon. I was outside with the dogs when I saw the mailman pull up to the mailbox, and got excited when I saw him struggling to get everything inside. Kerouac & I trudged through the wet (it's an absolute necessity to wear knee-high muck boots when walking outside in the yard now, there is so much water) driveway and across the small river of the ditch to the mailbox, and fetched the first seeds of year (as well as a new Entertainment Weekly and a letter from my friend, Ruthie)! I spent this morning reading up on starting seeds, and realize with some dread that I am somewhat behind already: our average last freeze date here is April 14, which is six weeks away. Before then, I can have some stuff in the ground, but should have some other stuff started. So I've got to get my act together! Luckily, there's a sale at Rural King this week and I'm going to buy more seeding flats as well as the medium in which to grow these seeds in. I expect to have seeds started early in the week.
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| Seed Savers Order |
So what arrived, you ask? Well...so many things! I got 38 packets from Pinetree, which my new friends in the Charleston Growers Association said was a good company to order from. They're located in main, and sell mostly heirloom and hard-to-find seeds from around the world. Four kinds of beans, two kinds of peas, two kinds of broccoli, beets, cabbage, two kinds of carrots, lettuce, dandelion (I know...this is a large Italian variety that I hope will be like the delicious dandelion served in Greece), purslane (another weed, and another variety for the table), lettuce, spinach, two kinds of cucumbers, four kinds of tomatoes, six kinds of peppers, squash, radish, collard, and the following herbs: chervil, thyme, savory, lavender, oregano, brown mustard, & cilantro. (I'd sworn off growing cilantro two years ago. It always bolted before I get a chance to eat it. But last year, I tried it again, and got a few snacks from it. But this year, I'm growing a Mexican heirloom variety that is said to be slow-to-bolt, since it's primary use there is for its leaves, not its seed. I hope it works out!)
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| The garden this morning. |
I first heard about the Seed Savers Exchange this past Saturday, from the Growers Association. They're a company based in Iowa that are preserving and selling heirloom and open-pollinated varieties of seeds, as well as working against corporate ownership of seeds. Their online catalog was gorgeous, and I had a hard time not going completely crazy ordering from them. In the end, I ordered 22 varieties from them: two kinds of tomatoes, yellow onions, one kind of bean, one kind of melon, an Italian variety of broccoli, two kinds of cabbage, okra, corn, radish, turnip, sweet pepper, lettuce, huckleberry, and the herbs: sweet mace, spearmint, basil, borage, lemon balm, and cumin. Their seeds were a little more expensive than some of the other companies I ordered from, but was told that the germination rate is very high for these high-quality seeds. I'm very excited they arrived so quickly.
I have four more seed orders coming, as well as one more yet to place (tomorrow in the mail). The next step is to get them started, and get the garden bushhogged and tilled. I am so excited!
One final piece of business: 100% of respondents thought Three Persimmon Farm is a good name (Thank you, Darcie!), so that looks settled! Thank you!
Exciting!
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