I was hoping to recap the varieties of produce I had grown last year but since last years invoice is currently missing I think I'll wait and do that at a later date. I made my list of seeds to order awhile back and decided today was the perfect day so I went ahead and placed my order. First, I sorted through the seeds left from last year.
Here is what I have left from 2008 (all purchased seeds):
Dill - Bouquet: never opened, never did make pickles anyway
Golden Bantam 8-Row Sweet Corn: After sweet talking my hubby in to rototilling the main garden (breaking sod for the first time) I decided not to push it and try for an extra patch for sweet corn. Maybe this year tho!
Connecticut Field Pumpkin: Again, I didn't have a separate patch for them. I think I'm going to plant these at my Mom's house if she'll let me since they're relatively low maintenance and she has lots of room.
Long Purple Eggplant: among my seed starting failures, a lot left
Danvers 126 Half Long carrot: LOTS left!
Marketmore 76 cukes: a few seeds left, not very happy with their performance
Short Stuff sunflowers: never got around to it
Zucchini - Black Beauty: Enough left for 2009 plus a great crop for 2008
Waltham 29 Broccoli: Again, starting indoors failed and I didn't attempt a later crop
Dishcloth or Luffa Angled Gourd: sounds very cool, never took the time to find a good spot for them
Chelsea, Sugar Baby, and Moon & Stars Watermelon: the watermelons didn't fare very well against the puppy who liked to eat them, even the few that survived didn't ripen in time. I'm trying an earlier variety this year.
This year I tried to get a lot of the things we use the most which are peas, green beans, and tomatoes.
Here is my 2009 order, placed today:
- Contender (Buff Valentine) (bush bean) $1.75 x 3 $5.25
- Country Gentleman Sweet Corn $3.00
- Boston Pickling (cukes) $1.50
- Black Diamond (cukes) $2.00
- Ping Tung (eggplant) $2.00
- Baby Doll (flowers, hopefully for Mother's Day) $1.45
- Hungarian Blue Breadseed (poppy seed) $3.00
- Laxton's Progress No. 9 (peas) $2.25 x 3 $6.75
- Tall Telephone Pea $2.25
- Victoria Rhubarb $1.50
- Sugar Ann (peas) $2.50
- Rouge Vif d' Etampes ("Cinderella" pumpkins) $2.75
- Butternut Rogosa Violina Gioia (squash) $2.50
- Green Zebra (tomatoes, a gift for a friend) $2.00
- Amish Paste (tomatoes) $2.00 x 2 $4.00
- Blacktail Mountain Watermelon $2.50
Total Cost w/ $3 S & H: $47.95
I'll have to refer back to my seed-saving book to see what my options are for cutting back on the cost next year. My goal is to narrow it down to one or two varieties that I really like and then begin to save seed. I saved carrots for seed this year for the first time.
Now that the seeds are ordered I'll be working on my seed starting setup. I feel much better prepared now thanks to some great advice from Abbie and Farm Mom and a little online research. I'll keep you posted on that.
So, have you ordered seed yet? What are your favorite varieties? Any new things you're excited to grow for the first time?
4 comments:
Sugar Baby watermelons are really good. Dark green with bright pink flesh, really sweet. All of our customers at the farm market love these, but they're always disappointed that they have seeds.
I ordered seeds already... lots of different lettuces, mostly buttercrunch and Boston, since that's what we really like, plum tomatoes, different colored heirloom tomatoes, beefsteak tomatoes, snap peas, carrots. I still have a lot of seeds left over, but I'll be getting new botany students at the end of January so I'll most likely bring those in for them.
I also ordered a bunch of different berries so we can put in a berry patch this year. I'm actually going to write a post about that soon, hopefully today!
Mmm watermelon sounds so good! I forgot to order lettuce. Brian's idea of a salad is covered in croutons and dressing but I like munching on a few pieces of lettuce for a fresh, crisp snack. I bet it is a neat experience teaching your students about growing food. I stuck to all the animal related classes in HS and now wish I had taken a few on plants!
I'll be watching for your berry post!
Great selection there. Glad to see you are saving seeds as you go. I had great success last year with tomatoes, bush beans(the ones the four-legged critters didn't eat), peppers, and especially cucumbers.
I saved about 50-60 tomato seeds from last year, and am checking their germination rates now.
I have decided to go with all heirloom's from Victory Seeds so I can work on my seed saving abilities this fall. Also, I have chosen all new vegetables I've never grown before:
Pole Bean-Kentucky Wonder
Cabbage-All Seasons
Corn-Pencil Cob
Cucumber-Straight Eight
Lettuce-Salad Bowl, Red
Pepper-Golden California Wonder Bell Pepper-Hungarian Sweet
Pepper-Ancho (Poblano) Hot
Arugula
Sunflower-Giant Greystripe
Tomato-Extreme Bush
Tomato-Glamour
Tomato-Tiny Tim
Cucumber-Boston Pickling Improved
Some of these are totally new vegs for me to grow (i.e. arugula) and I have increased my garden size by 4 times. I just got my seeds in the mail Friday and I can't wait to get started.
---Good luck, and great blog!
mradam -
Welcome to the blog and thanks for the comment! Glad to hear you're enjoying it. I did grow the kentucky wonder pole bean last year with moderate success. I used some step-in plastic posts that I had as the poles and the beans didn't seem to want to climb up them, at least not like I had pictured. I think next year I will try poles with string between them like peas. Part of the problem may have been that the beans were the most neglected thing in the garden and didn't get weeded as well as the rest.
I really liked the Boston picking cucumbers. I bought them to use for pickles and the Marketmores for slicing. I ended up not making pickles but ate all of the Boston picklers sliced fresh with a little salt. The Marketmore didn't do well for me at all.
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