Something exciting in the mail

Yesterday, something exciting came to us via USPS---- our Wintersown SASE seeds! You can see this post to read more about what that is.


Pretty exciting! I couldn't wait to open it.

Inside was a bounty of heirloom seeds. All we asked for, and more.

Apricot Brandywine
Black Cherry
Purple Tomatillo
Gartenperle
Green Zebra
Italian Salad Blend
Oxheart
Ornamental Mixed Gourds
Luther Burbank's Wonderberries


I'm really excited about the Wonderberries, which are also known as Sunberries or Garden Huckleberries.


Supposedly they're not very sweet, but have a very-berry flavor that's wonderful for jams, preserves, and pies. The growing requirements are somewhat like tomatoes, but less picky.



We won't be starting these seeds for a few months, but we're excited to have them.

Radish seeds

Earlier this week I mentioned that I was expecting a few things in the mail, and I'd post about them when I got them. One of the three packages I was expecting came today.


We now have over 700 Cherry Belle radish seeds.

This is my first experience buying seeds from somewhere other than SeedSavers.org or Home Depot. They were pretty cheap ($1.49 and free shipping), and I got them on Ebay, so I'm definitely unsure about how this will turn out. I can't really plant them yet, because I think these radishes will be better of sown directly into the garden in Sarasota, but I did plant six to see what kind of a germination rate I'm working with.

The great thing about radishes is that they're so quick to mature. This particular variety should be ready to pick 21 days past planting. I don't know any other kind of vegetable that moves from seed packet to table that quickly.

Our hopes for these radishes? Maybe making some "potato" chips by slicing them thinly and baking, or putting them in salad.

Heirloom Tomatoes

People are so eager to give away heirloom vegetable seeds. Big, modern, hybrid, GMO companies (Monsanto comes to mind) never ever want to give away their seeds--- in fact, they've sued many farmers for growing their crops accidentally without paying to possess Monsanto's intellectual property.
But, back to the original point: Heirlooms are often up for grabs. Garden enthusiasts are eager to preserve these historic varieties, and often set up seed exchanges. In these exchanges, fellow gardeners can swap some of their heirloom saved seeds in exchange for other varieties. Wintersown.org has been highlighted on plenty of other gardening blogs for their wonderful seed exchange. For nothing more than the cost of a self-addressed envelope, they will send you six varieties of heirlooms, and there's dozens to choose from.

We decided to ship off for some seeds, and see what kind of awesome tomatoes we could grow. It's not going to be tomato season for quite some time, but we were too excited to wait to get our seeds.
Wintersown gives you the option to pick six varieties you'd like, and four backups. What were our choices?

Cherokee Purple
Black Cherry
Gartenperle
Green Zebra
Luther Burbank's WonderBerries
Tomatillo, Purple

Backups: Wildcard, Oxheart, Goji Faranji


We should get our seeds back in three weeks, and we plan on sending back some of our own saved seeds once we get a chance.

A new seedling tray

For some reason, I haven't been able to find seedling trays anywhere around here. I tried a local nursery, Home Depot, Lowes... and nothing. I finally went to a local Ace Hardware, and lo and behold! A seedling tray. It even came with one of those super-duper plastic covers to keep in moisture. I also picked up a new hose attachment to gently water new seedlings.


Some of our seeds in the new seedling tray. The butternut seeds normally come up pretty quick, right along with the beans and peas.

Anyways, we planted a seedling tray with six cells each of peas, eggplant, limas, lettuce, butternut squash, red cabbage, melons, and Seminole Pumpkin.
The Seminole Pumpkin seeds I received at a small local lecture kind of thing about native plants. The lecture was okay, but the seeds were definitely the highlight. Supposedly it's a native species of climbing pumpkin grown by the Seminoles that was trained to grow up oak trees to keep the fruits from rotting on the wet ground. Because it originally grew under trees, it's pretty shade tolerant, and supposedly it's a delicious cooking pumpkin. The seeds are a little old, but I'm hoping for at least one of the seven I received to give me a pumpkin plant.


I'm normally pretty bad about labeling my seeds, but seedling trays make it a lot easier. I used some Popsicle sticks and a sharpie, so hopefully I'll know what comes up (and perhaps be able to identify some of our other confused seedlings by how these look).


I've never had a seedling tray with a cover before, so I'm hoping for good things. I always have problems with my seeds being over or under watered, so maybe this will fix that kink. I think the tray cost $4.99, which is a little pricy, but worth it.

Oh, and last night I ordered two really cool things online for the garden. More on that when they show up in the mail.

Some of our seeds are up!

I'm always so excited right after I plant a bunch of seeds. It's like right before Christmas--- something good is coming, but you never know just what it is. I went out yesterday, and saw a bunch of our new seeds reaching up towards the sun.



Most of the bigger seedlings are for our Arrow Peas and Henderson Limas.

After our beans, our red cabbage was next to come up. Our little lettuce seedlings weren't too far behind.


This is an oakleaf lettuce, which grows in loose bunches, rather than heads.

Today I purchased an actual seedling tray (which are hard to find around here! I went to a couple of different places before anybody had some. In addition, I got a new attachment for my hose, which will make watering tender baby plants much less risky.

A New Blog For A New Garden

College is a blast, minus one thing--- there's nowhere for a garden. While my campus is very "green" and interested in sustainable agriculture, student gardens do get vandalized, and ripened veggies get stolen. Not a very conducive environment for gardening.

I spent my first year at school tending a garden over two hours away. Using a combination of timed sprinklers, coercing family members to tend the plants, and occasionally swinging by to perform damage control, I managed to hold up a fairly respectable garden for about a semester before someone moved the sprinkler for a week, and everything dried up and died. In addition, most of the veggies were gobbled up by hungry family members before I could reap in any of the goods.


Our newly planted seedlings last March. I'm on the right, Taylor's in the middle, and one of my closest friends, Stephanie, is on the left. She and her boyfriend run a great Certified Naturally Grown farm. It's unbelievable.

However, my boyfriend and co-blogger Taylor has an in with two very nice, very generous family members (who also happen to be his landlords) who have given us access to over two acres of gorgeous land just miles from my dorm room. Starting August 19, when I can move back in, we will be able to have a garden, chickens, rabbits, and all sorts of wonderful sustainable food sources at our fingertips.

We've just finished building four 8x4 raised beds, which we hope to fill with wonderful, rich soil, gorgeous plants, and all kinds of delicious vegetables. We've just recently started a bunch of heirloom seedlings ordered from SeedSavers.org.


Heirloom seeds are my absolute favorite. They're totally different from anything in a grocery store, and seem to fare better than conventional seeds.


Sadly, seedling flats (or trays) are hard to come by around here. We improvised, using Dixie cups with holes poked in the bottom.


I used a corn-cob holder to punch through the bottoms.

We planted just under a hundred little baby plants. They should be coming up pretty soon. Then we just have to transport them on the three hour drive to their new home right near my school.


Our new babies, nestled in their dark, damp nests. There was one more tray of about thirty seeds in addition to these.

Now we just need to get the soil for their beds in good shape. So much to do.