Seeds

[Gardening with Rabbits]

I noticed a lot of seeds already out of stock at Baker Creek, especially lettuce and summer squash. I remember last year and how seeds were being bought up and it might be happening again.

 

[digitS']

As usual for this time of year, my mailbox has a new seed catalog about every other day .

The RH Shumway catalog has arrived. That may have been the first seed catalog that I ever saw 50+ years ago. The company was then headquartered in the hometown of the lady who lived across the street when I was in high school. She might have grown up looking at it .

That seed company was bought by another outfit, I'd guess, about 1980. They still offer many of the varieties and have tried to keep the catalog itself looking much the same. I mean, if customers are buying the available product in sufficient numbers, why bother to change the original version of the ad ?

For me, the paper catalogs give some consistency to the long winter hours of study. There are those "oh yeah, that one!" moments with Shumway .

As an alternative there is also this @Gardening with Rabbits : Seed Saving with a Pepper Plant, time lapse .

Steve

 

[baymule]

You may have to hop around from company to company to find what you want.

 

[Gardening with Rabbits]

I have orders from Johnny's Seeds N Such, Baker Creek, and Park. Getting ready to look for more and order the sunflower seeds. I like Skyscraper, but I think Kong is just magnificent, so I am going to plant both. I may also order strawberry plants and asparagus.

 

[Pulsegleaner]

Hard to say what I'll get. Between the backlog of seed I have, and the track record of actually getting things to grow, there's a pretty good argument for not buying ANY seed at all. Of course, there is nearly a good an argument for not PLANTING anything either, and I know I won't listen to that one.

I may get another packet of Silver Yamato watermelons and try those again (they came up just fine last time, it's simply a matter of planting them a bit later so the frost doesn't get them.)

May order something from Experimental Farm network when it comes back online (have to see what they have)

Probably WON'T order from Baker Creek this year by now I've basically tapped the Seed Zoo out.

Some more greenberry nightshade from Solana might be nice (if I can figure out how to sterilize the soil so I can tell it from the American Nightshade that grows wild all over here and tends to get into everything.

 

[Zeedman]

Because I don't grow hybrids (except for sweet corn & occasionally watermelon) and save my own seed, I don't order much, so the annual deluge of seed catalogs has slowed to a trickle. I finally got off the Jungs mailing list. I've contacted some others that I respect & asked them to reduce their mailing costs by dropping me. The only catalogs I still get are from Baker Creek, SSE, Territorial, and D.V. Burrell, all companies I occasionally order from. When I do order something new & unusual, it is usually from a website.

 

[Gardening with Rabbits]

I like catalogs and get a lot, but my eyesight is not that great. My reading glasses to see on the computer are not good enough to read print and when I used stronger glasses it makes me feel off some how, but I have to use them for sewing sometimes, so I order from their websites. I am going to try to sprout some of my 1998 longterm storage seeds. I got some to sprout about 10 years ago.

 

[Gardening with Rabbits]

As usual for this time of year, my mailbox has a new seed catalog about every other day .

The RH Shumway catalog has arrived. That may have been the first seed catalog that I ever saw 50+ years ago. The company was then headquartered in the hometown of the lady who lived across the street when I was in high school. She might have grown up looking at it .

That seed company was bought by another outfit, I'd guess, about 1980. They still offer many of the varieties and have tried to keep the catalog itself looking much the same. I mean, if customers are buying the available product in sufficient numbers, why bother to change the original version of the ad ?

For me, the paper catalogs give some consistency to the long winter hours of study. There are those "oh yeah, that one!" moments with Shumway .

As an alternative there is also this @Gardening with Rabbits : Seed Saving with a Pepper Plant, time lapse .

Steve

Curiosity had me go check the RH Shumway website and I ordered a catalog. lol

 

[Artichoke Lover]

I noticed a lot of seeds already out of stock at Baker Creek, especially lettuce and summer squash. I remember last year and how seeds were being bought up and it might be happening again.

It’s happening again. Everyone is scared after last year and is buying early there’s also a lot of gardeners that have started this past year so demand is higher than before the pandemic. My local farm store said that they don’t know if they’ll be able to get any in this year. Luckily I ordered online this fall.

 

[flowerbug]

check your local area for seed libraries. the one at the local library here doesn't seem to be used much yet, but it is just starting out.

i could give them a few hundred samples that i've already had made up, but that would overwhelm the space they have and i don't want to repackage things. what i was hoping to do was to have a local seed swap last summer or fall but that was cancelled and i'm not sure what is going on with the seed swap that was normally held a few months from now. it doesn't look like it will be held this year.

other places to check besides the big box stores are greenhouses, grain elevators and feed supply stores.