for those who garden and can
- Thread starter hunter1959
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try and find suppliers closest to your growing zone
Baker Creek has been my primary mail order company for a few years. But as listed above, its always a great idea to go local as best you can. Find a farm co-op and stop by and chat. If its a good one, they'll have tobacco stained wood floors and old fellas wearing overalls.
Talk up gardening to your neighbor until they like the idea and plant their own, proceed to mooch off their hard work in secret. Follow me for more life hacks
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If you don’t need subtitles they don’t know shit.
The best source for heirloom seeds is your Grandpa's garden because he grew what worked in his environment, year after year.
This suggestion is too late for this spring planting = Go to the county fair and see who is winning the blue ribbons, year after year. Talk with them. they would love to talk gardening with you.
Another place is your local Farmer's Market. However you will have to qualify with the vendor that you are looking for heirloom seeds.
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Tell the guy's here where your location is and some may have some seeds that would thrive in your environment. I am in Montana and get some seeds from Johnny's Seeds because they are in a northern environment. Get seeds from suppliers in a similar environment.
I would shy away from Ebay and online sellers that have no catalog. Many of those seeds have come from China and do not thrive well.
It is going to take you at least 3 growing seasons to begin to sort out what works for you. Too many factors to cover here.
Best of luck.
This suggestion is too late for this spring planting = Go to the county fair and see who is winning the blue ribbons, year after year. Talk with them. they would love to talk gardening with you.
Another place is your local Farmer's Market. However you will have to qualify with the vendor that you are looking for heirloom seeds.
_________________
Tell the guy's here where your location is and some may have some seeds that would thrive in your environment. I am in Montana and get some seeds from Johnny's Seeds because they are in a northern environment. Get seeds from suppliers in a similar environment.
I would shy away from Ebay and online sellers that have no catalog. Many of those seeds have come from China and do not thrive well.
It is going to take you at least 3 growing seasons to begin to sort out what works for you. Too many factors to cover here.
Best of luck.
Those that can grow food or fortunate. For me unless I have raised beds or a hot house I'm pretty much limited to onions potatoes and cabbage but then what else does a guy need?
Well... Historically those Russian's got by on potatoes for a lot of years.
And survived
The issue most will find themselves in will be if weather can provide them with enough moisture/ Frost free temperatures to raise their crop.
The issue most will find themselves in will be if weather can provide them with enough moisture/ Frost free temperatures to raise their crop.
Nothing pairs with a potato quite like your own children. I read it in a cook book called Holodomor Meals Made Easy.
Potatoes should be an absolute stable in any garden you are trying to feed yourself with. Sweet potatoes will make many pounds of food that are easy to store for a long time without any special attention attention also. You can double down and eat the greens from sweet potatoes also while they are growing.
Why heirloom? When dealing with heirlooms you will likely give up yield and disease resistance. Same if you use the seeds grandpa had all those years ago. If you are wanting to save seeds, and use those seeds next year and have them grow the same type of fruit, that is what self pollinated heirlooms will give you. If you plant open pollinated heirloom varieties together. You will end up with a bunch of hybrid seeds the next year. If you grow hybrid varieties the seeds will do that no matter what. That is the main difference. Most hybrids don't have stable genetics and will not grow true to seed.
Why heirloom? When dealing with heirlooms you will likely give up yield and disease resistance. Same if you use the seeds grandpa had all those years ago. If you are wanting to save seeds, and use those seeds next year and have them grow the same type of fruit, that is what self pollinated heirlooms will give you. If you plant open pollinated heirloom varieties together. You will end up with a bunch of hybrid seeds the next year. If you grow hybrid varieties the seeds will do that no matter what. That is the main difference. Most hybrids don't have stable genetics and will not grow true to seed.
Also much of the country isn't even past the cool weather crop planing time. Let alone Tomatoes, Corn, Pepers, Okra, Sweet potatoes, and on and on.
We grew most of our vegetables growing up, I don’t know why but home grown peppers always turn out hotter.
Also grow tomatoes in cut off bucket bottoms and never have one burn up again. Easy to move out of the sun. We did that for years and I feel like the yield was always as good or better.
Mine always turn out sweeter. Plus I can let them get nice and red {ripe} on the plant. Probably one of my favorite smells.
I have about a dozen of several different varieties growing in my basement. I didn't get any New Mexico Scott Parker chillies this year. They are about the best sweet/hot anaheim type chill I have ever tried. I hate to call them Anaheim type since a fella named Ortega took the new Mexico #9 to Anaheim California and changed its name, but he did the best job of marketing.
I have about a dozen of several different varieties growing in my basement. I didn't get any New Mexico Scott Parker chillies this year. They are about the best sweet/hot anaheim type chill I have ever tried. I hate to call them Anaheim type since a fella named Ortega took the new Mexico #9 to Anaheim California and changed its name, but he did the best job of marketing.
Easy to control the water and nutrients too, doesn’t all drain down and not get used up. Ours would get huge doing them like that.
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There’s a few. Lots out there with just a little looking.
Heirloom and Open Pollinated Seeds - St. Clare Heirloom Seeds - Heirloom and Open Pollinated Vegetable, Flower, and Herb Garden Seeds
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They are in WI and that's why I used them. I've successfully harvested/planted 2 or 3 generations of some of their seeds. Works well for me. I think they even had the planting chart I use. Huge selection.
I have had good luck with
www.rareseeds.com
Bring Your Garden to Life with Rare and Heirloom Seeds
Discover a collection of 1000+ pure, natural, and non-GMO heirloom seeds for your garden. Grow a variety of flowers, vegetables, and herbs with ease!
www.rareseeds.com
Your local Co-op will have what you need. Onion sets and potatoes are probably gone by now. We plant some hybrids and some of the heirloom seeds that we have grown for years. The wife starts them every year in a spare room until the weather breaks and then they get moved to the greenhouse. This past weekend we had a hard freeze so all the plants came back inside because I didn't feel like hooking up the heater. I call it the Jumanji room.
Garden report:
Bad year for potatoes. Reading more of how spuds are treated with a "retarder" to keep them from sprouting eyes while on the grocers shelve. Cold wet spring and many of mine never made a start.
Great year for squash. Had squash climbing my corn and leaving squash 3' off the ground in the corn.
Corn is the "Wild Card". Planted several varieties. Two that look the best are Golden Bantam and Bodacious. Corn takes a lot of water here in the West.
Pole beans cane out tough and stringy. Probably due to weather that made them grow slow.
Onions were smaller that grocery store but healthy.
Good year for garlic.
Broccoli just won't grow here. Done trying.
Cauliflower does poor here.
Not many strawberries. May get some when this smoke clears.
Bad year for potatoes. Reading more of how spuds are treated with a "retarder" to keep them from sprouting eyes while on the grocers shelve. Cold wet spring and many of mine never made a start.
Great year for squash. Had squash climbing my corn and leaving squash 3' off the ground in the corn.
Corn is the "Wild Card". Planted several varieties. Two that look the best are Golden Bantam and Bodacious. Corn takes a lot of water here in the West.
Pole beans cane out tough and stringy. Probably due to weather that made them grow slow.
Onions were smaller that grocery store but healthy.
Good year for garlic.
Broccoli just won't grow here. Done trying.
Cauliflower does poor here.
Not many strawberries. May get some when this smoke clears.
My potatoes did pretty good, as did my corn.
Then I had a locust swarm come in, ate all the green from both corn and potatoes.....so I had to pull them to get at least something.
*Maybe* 100 lbs of medium sized potatoes and 200'ish smaller ears of corn
Okra is killing it, pulling 2 lbs every day at least with another 2 months to go....at least.
Cantaloupe are killing it, have pulled about a dozen so far and probably 2-3 dozen more still on vines.
Onions did OK...not overly good, not overly bad.
Looking for 3rd crop off the broccoli plants, yes I have done 2 full harvests and they just keep going....so I let them (I always thought they were a 1 time charlie plant, guess not).
Only squash I have is zucchini, got tired of all the crookneck and shit like that...they are doing good. Oh, and cucumbers too...I guess they are squash ?
Tomatoes got off to a slow start but are really kicking into gear now, 3-5 lbs a day, going strong.
I couldn't get beans or peas to go this year, dunno, seeded a few times, they start growing then die ???
Loads of chilies, serrano, thai, ghost, shishito, de arbol, etc etc etc, all doing great.
Expecting tomatoes to get up over 10 lbs a day any day now.
Then I had a locust swarm come in, ate all the green from both corn and potatoes.....so I had to pull them to get at least something.
*Maybe* 100 lbs of medium sized potatoes and 200'ish smaller ears of corn
Okra is killing it, pulling 2 lbs every day at least with another 2 months to go....at least.
Cantaloupe are killing it, have pulled about a dozen so far and probably 2-3 dozen more still on vines.
Onions did OK...not overly good, not overly bad.
Looking for 3rd crop off the broccoli plants, yes I have done 2 full harvests and they just keep going....so I let them (I always thought they were a 1 time charlie plant, guess not).
Only squash I have is zucchini, got tired of all the crookneck and shit like that...they are doing good. Oh, and cucumbers too...I guess they are squash ?
Tomatoes got off to a slow start but are really kicking into gear now, 3-5 lbs a day, going strong.
I couldn't get beans or peas to go this year, dunno, seeded a few times, they start growing then die ???
Loads of chilies, serrano, thai, ghost, shishito, de arbol, etc etc etc, all doing great.
Expecting tomatoes to get up over 10 lbs a day any day now.
Vegetables
Melons growing in the foreground, deeply planted blue corn behind - the many stalks able to hold up one another in the wind. Plantings widely spaced to get enough water. We must remember ways to dryland garden. (Photo of Sam Shingoitewas by Milton Snow, 1944) No GMOs here! Let some of each of...
plantsofthesouthwest.com
It takes a couple to three years or more for a strawberry patch to get going. I have 4 or 5 different varieties of strawberries, a couple are june bearing and a couple are ever bearing but tend to put out a big crop in spring just before the june bearers. Then they fruit again through august and the cool part of fall.
Brassicas are not the easiest plants to crop, they don't like hot weather. They form associations with actinobacteria , so that don't always like the soil that your row crops and tomatoes and stuff that forms mycorrhysal associations like.
Beans are usually tough when you leave them on the plant too long. They start finishing the seeds inside and the outer husk starts to get fibrous. You can dry those ones to plant next year. You can by the inoculant for legume seeds on its own to pout some nitrogen sequestering bactria on your beans. That should help speed up and increase bean production. The plants form associations with bacteria that store N for the fruiting process.
You might be suprirside how well corn builds soil if you leave the root in the ground, don't monocrop it, and leave the residue on the surface. Being a C4 grass it puts lots of carbon in the ground with its large root system.
Nice looking wallas wallas. We had hail early on that bent all my onion greens when the onions were just bulbing up. Bruised and marked lots of apples and pears too. A block north of us everyones gardens were razed to the ground so we were lucky anyway.
Did you plant hedge rows of asparagus yet? You will thank me in three years when your garden springs forth from the barley thawed ground without having to do anything. Annual vegetable gardens take way more work to feed you than perennial vegetable gardens. You can set up your perennial garden to help your annual garden.
Thanks for the good info. I'm in the Bitterroot Valley of Montana, South of Missoula. Environment is a big challenge... Long winters and cold, wet springs. I'd like to cultivate things that do not need a green house. I have a small one used to start seeds.
We are about a month and half our from first frost here. I just put in beds of radishes {27 days} and kohlrabi {50 days} and carrots and lettuce in some other beds as they will take some frost. I may do some peas too since they will take a little frost or I may just plant the beds into their winter cover and wait for next year. Probably both honestly because the sweat pees winter kill real nice here. The frost may get them all before harvest, but it was less than 10 dollars worth of seeds.
The frost wont get the radishes, or shouldn't anyway.
The frost wont get the radishes, or shouldn't anyway.
Some years back we had Beautiful broccoli, tried some, were elated! Planned to pick it the following morning.
Stupid doe got in there and beat me to it! Ate bites out of all of it. My wife was pretty upset.
Well, I did get my broccoli back….And it was tasty and tender!
Yeah I waited till statute of limitations for ‘doe out of season’ was past to tell the story.
Oh, you have nice looking garden pickings though!
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