Thursday, January 15, 2009

Seeds for 2009

The seed catalogs have been rolling in ever since Christmas. I finally broke down last night and ordered some because there were two things I really wanted for my garden in 2009: golden beets and red dragon carrots.

I looked through the catalogs and decided to order from Peaceful Valley because their packets were $1.99, and they the price if you order more than 5 packets, and if you only order seeds, shipping starts at $2. It seemed like everything was meant to be. They had golden beets and dragon carrots from Seeds of Change in the catalogue. I picked out a few other things and then went to order online. Would you believe, that both golden beets and dragon carrots were out of stock! I checked on Seeds of Change, but their note on the dragon carrots says that there is no seed as of 12/31/08. What a bummer.
After seeing the dragon carrots on Dan's site this summer I really wanted to plant them next year. So I paged through the other catalogs at my fingertips and found some Purple Haze Hybrid Carrots, and Burpee's Golden beets. They were more expensive and shipping was more, but I really wanted these two things.

Here are my new seeds for 2009:

Burpee Golden Beet
Purple Haze Carrot
National Pickling Cucumber
Tatsoi
Blue Lake Bush Beans (oops, I meant to order pole!)
Freckles Lettuce
Yellow Chard: Pot of Gold
Arugula

I'll be using these seeds left over from 2008 (and years past)

Bright Lights Rainbow Chard
Dark Green Bush Zucchini
Chantenay Red Core Carrots (though they didn't have a red core)
Danver's Carrots
Oak Leave Lettuce
Longstanding Bloomsdale Spinach
Romano Bush Beans
Lacinato Kale
Santo Cilantro
Bouquet Dill
Ruby Queen Beets
Cherrybelle Radishes
Catskill Long Island Brussels Sprouts
Sugar Daddy Sugar Snap Peas
There maybe more seeds in the jar that never made it on my list and I'll find them tucked in there come spring.

Also this year I saved seeds from my marigolds and nasturtium. I also saved a few tomato seeds from some heirlooms from the store but I'm not sure I have the set up to start them properly. Maybe I'll give it a try anyways. I do plan to have tomatoes and a few hot peppers, but will need seedlings. I'd like broccoli too but probably won't start it from seed either since I only have room for a few plants. The garden plan is still very much up in the air.

P.S. In writing this post I looked back at
Dan's site, and he said he found them on Seed Savers Exchange. I checked there and they are available on that site, but I'd already placed my other orders. I don't really need purple AND red carrots in addition to the orange varieties still in the refrigerator from last year. So I guess Dragon Carrots will have to wait for another year.

2 comments:

Dan said...

I was just going to suggest to look at Seed Savers Exchange but you were already ahead of me. I order most things from them, they charge a little more but at least it goes towards seed saving.

I am interested in the Tatsoi you are going to grow, I have heard good things about it. I am planting bok choi this year so we will have to cross reference to see which one is the best.

Rabia said...

Now you've got me itching to plan out my garden. I've got a couple of raised beds (four by four and six by four) to play with.