Seeds on Their Way

Sometimes I have so much on my mind that I want to blog about that it is terribly hard to pick just one.  Because the moment might have and probably has passed for the ones that I don't choose.  So, you just get left out. 

I received my new seed catalog in the mail several weeks ago.  Which has left me drooling over new varieties of all kinds of vegetables and flowers.  I get a real odd feeling when I don't know what the fruit or vegetable is going to taste like because the hybrid is NEW.  Frankly, it scares me.  Is it suitable for this area?  Will I have to do something weird to the soil?  Am I paying too much for something I don't know will work? 

I like to save seeds from our garden that I know have done well and that we have tested and approve of.  Those seeds become heirloom seeds.  I learned today that you shouldn't save hybrid seeds from year to year because they can loose something and go back to their parent state.  Meaning if you bought a flower hybrid seed that is red with white stripes down the middle and save the seeds from it, the next year's crop may only be red and loose the concocted stripe that made it a hybrid.  I don't totally understand how they cross them up in the first place... well I sort of do but I could be wrong.  I saw them cross up orchids on channel eight one time. 

I didn't get my seeds from the big commercial catalog that I had to buy my garlic from last year.  Honestly, they are just too expensive.  So I decided to check with a gal who's blog I visit from time to time and fellow gardener to see where she has bought her seeds in the past because I trust her....even though she doesn't know me.  OK I just totally got stuck on her blog going to get the link.

 She wound up sending me to Renees Garden.  I found a ton of seeds, pictures of the results, growing instructions and all for a not so bad price.  Actually the price was half of what the big time catalog was charging and the flowers that I chose are going to be beautiful.  I mainly bought flowers that I am familiar with.  I got Zinnias and Cosmos in different colors than I have grown in the past, Portulaca which I have planted in the past but never from seed, Dahlias because I couldn't resist and have to have something new to grow, and Hidcote Lavender... please wish me luck.  I have never done well with lavender and I don't know why.  But I keep trying.  I would show you pictures but I won't swipe without permission so I promise to share when the flowers are gracing me with their beauty this summer!

I'd like to let you in on a book I happened upon in the library yesterday.  I actually put it down twice because it was not the subject I came in there to search for.  I gave in and geez I have been attached to this book ever since!  It is The Barefoot Farmer by Jeff Poppen.  It seems more like journal entries about gardening and homesteading for real and the best part is that this fellow is local.  I say local... it would probably take 45 minutes to get there from here but it would be mostly back roads.  Anyway, I have learned so much from this book already and he has given me the confidence to... wait for it... compost.  I have such a farm girl plan for this weekend.  While I was reading the compost pages last night, I got up out of bed, got my journal and a pen and started making a list of resources that I already have on our farm.  Rotten hay, pig poo, chicken poo, decaying leaves, corn stalks.  For the first time I felt silly for having all the goods right here that I need to fertilize my own garden and plants with.  Why am I holding back?  I can't wait to dig my hands into some pig poo on Saturday!  With gloves on ofcourse!