20200328_220100My seed are here!

That’s was my YouTube video for today, talking about seeds.

I purchase my seeds (probably wrote about this before, but oh well) from two companies:

Baker Seed (www.rareseeds.com)

Seed Savers (www.seedsavers.com)

There’s a place in California that I used to purchase my seeds from (Bountiful Harvest), but they “fulfilled their mission” on getting people to understand what open-pollinated seed are, and so they’ve gone into more the education and creation of better gardens, both here and across the world. Part of their seed orders when to educational purposes, and that’s a price I was willing to pay! I wish them well, but man they had good product!

These two are no slouches either. Seed Savers (about 45 minutes from my house!) does a great job of putting on workshops, along with their center just north of Decorah where you can visit, purchase your seeds, seedlings, and just walk around to see what they have grown. It’s a great place, quirky, but I appreciate quirky! 🙂

Baker Seed has this magnificent catalog every year. They take the most amazing pictures and do a great job of finding “old timey” (my words not theirs), heirloom seeds.

If you are someone who doesn’t know what the heck I’m talking about here’s the difference:

Hybrid seeds are just that, they are a cross between one type of plant and another. They create great fruit and veggies, but they are a one time shot kind of plant. If I save those seeds and try to replant them, I will not get the same kind of fruit the next time. They lose something, not sure, but the great tomato you had one year is not so great the next.

Open-pollinated or heirloom seeds will give you the same fruit year after year. The Amish Paste roma tomatoes that I saved seed from last year will give me the same tomatoes this year with very little if any variance. So, that’s what I purchase and why I save my seeds. I’ve saved tomato, basil, peppers, flowers, and beans in particular, but am always looking for something new to try.

So this year, our garden will be much bigger. We’d planned on maybe going on a longer vacation, but with your friend and mine, the coronavirus running around, this probably won’t work. So, we are planning on something much bigger than in the past, and possibly doing something with a farm’s market or just selling directly to people from our home. Either way, we’ll not be lacking for work! 🙂

Both places still have seeds in stock, but shipping from Seed Savers was a little bit slower and from what I’ve heard, they are swamped with orders. A good thing, but it also shows people are planning right now, which is another good thing.

My hope, we have a ton of gardens this year, that people reconnect with what makes us human. Getting into the dirt, feeling the energy of the ground beneath us, and using our angry energy to pick weeds, all connects us together.

And that’s what we need right now anyway, isn’t it?? 🙂