2014 Seeds Ordered

[hendi_alex]

Bought some tomato seeds. Am trying a couple of the extremely resistant varieties this year. Also expanded my stock of various blacks. Two years ago I received a mislabeled pack that turned out to be a small yellow or golden variety. They produced in abundance, were very sweet crackling when bitten, and after picked lasted a long time of well over two weeks. So this year I'm ordering a few yellows to either try to find that unknown variety or to get one that gives a similar experience. In that attempt, Golden Sweet Hybrid and Beam's Yellow Pear have been added.

Also expanded my selection of Asian greens from Kitazawa Seed Company. Ordered an assortment from Seed Savers Exchange. Will fill in any other needs from Lowes this spring, as their selection is decent and seeds are quite a bit cheaper than from the mail order suppliers.

If anyone has a guess as to the yellow variety, please take a stab. The fruit was more golden than yellow. They were very sweet and as noted above, had a slight crackle when bitten. The shape was most often oval and about 1 1/2 inches long and 3/4 to 1 inch diameter, but some of the fruit were somewhat pear shaped. The plants fruited heavily from spring until very late in the season. Wish I had saved some of the seeds. Wouldn't you know it, even though many fruit dropped to the ground, I didn't get one volunteer the next year. I'm sure that I have some of the seeds in my salad mixed bag, but last year didn't get a single golden in my random planting of the mix. Maybe this year!

[Ohio Tiller]

I don't know if I am going to order any this year I was looking through what I have saved from last year and the Heirloom seed packs I have I maybe good.

All I need to order is onion sets and seed potatos and thats about it. I did find a hardware store near me that sells only Heirloom seeds so I might go circle that rack to see if they have something I might want to try this year.

Carrot seeds yeah I am going to plant alot more carrots this year so I will grad some of those for sure.

[hendi_alex]

I've never had good luck with carrots. They grow just fine and make good roots, but..... They always have somewhat of a chemical taste with almost no sweetness. I find that commercial carrots from midwest are similar, though slightly better flavored than what I've been able to grow, grown for several seasons always with the same result. California carrots are what we always buy, their flavor is consistently great and ever so sweet.

I do keep my old seeds and plants them over a period of years, though when new seeds are purchased, they are just dumped into the bag with the old seeds. I've never had a germination problem with anything except spinach and cilantro. We keep our old seeds stored in the freezer.

[jal_ut]

Carrots? I like the Royal Chantenay type. They are rather short which is good in my soil. I can't get the long ones out of the ground. As for seed, I keep a couple of roots in the cellar over winter and plant them out in the spring. They bloom and make loads of seed. In fact if you want to try them an SASE will get you some seed. hendi_alex, we do garden in entirely different climates though .............. Perhaps carrots don't like the climate?

I keep a few beet roots too for the same reason. The beet is biennial.

Radish, spinach, lettuce, and broccoli will bloom the first year and make seed if you let some go.

With the price of seeds going sky high, I think it is good if we can grow some of our own seeds.

I did order a couple of packets of a special squash online, but most of the seed I buy I get locally from the local garden center.

I am ready to get started, and here it is 28 degrees with a breeze and snowing.

[lakngulf]

Hendi, have you started any seed yet? I know you continue planting throughout the season to always have new plants ready to go, but did not know when you start.

My plan was to get a jump start on pepper this year, so tried them a couple weeks back in flat with heating pad under. Did get germination from one tomato plant, BUT, two nights of 10 degree weather (which is COLD for us) took care of anything I had in the green house. More cold due this weekend but I think I may fill a flat or two today and see what happens under the grow lights.

[JayPoc]

Not sure if I need to buy much if any seed this year. I guess maybe some peas. Everything else I should have covered from seeds left over from last year or seeds I produced last year. Whenever I do decide I need some seed I don't have, our local grocery store always has a spinning burpee kiosk with all packs being a dollar each. That's always been good enough for me.

[hendi_alex]

I started my earliest tomato plants about three weeks ago. This week I'll expand the tomato seeds planted, plus will plant pepper seeds and egg plant seeds. Transplants usually go into the garden around the 20th of April. Earliest tomato transplants are now about two inches tall and most have a nice set of true leaves. I have been able to put them outside in the direct sunlight for three of the past five days. The plants are in clear plastic boxes for now. I'm giving them about 12-14 hours of light per day.

[lakngulf]

I checked on my plants yesterday and was surprised to find some plants sprouting in two flats and four tomato plants came back to life. Plans are to start more after this next cold spell.

[littlelizzy123]

I just ordered my seeds from FedCo. So excited! I ordered
Yellowstone, Purple Haze, White Satin, Shin Kuroda, and Nelson carrots
Ventura celery
Sweet Meat winter squash
Luscious sweet corn
Rattlesnake and Blue Coco dry beans
Provider and Golden Gate bush beans
Kentucky Wonder pole beans
Fiesta broccoli
Red Marble Cippolini and Varsity onions
Lincoln leeks
Early Frosty and Aldermann peas
Space spinach
Winter mix, New Red Fire, Jericho, and Kraganer Sommer lettuces
Purple Top White Globe turnip
Eight Ball zucchini
General Lee cucumber
Golden Star sweet pepper
Czech Black hot pepper
Honeydrop and Jubilee tomato

Really looking forward to this year!

[hendi_alex]

Nice looking list. Includes a few items that may eventually make it into one of my orders.

[digitS']

I wish I had a good idea on your orange tomato, Alex. It seems a little different from the yellow/orange tomatoes that I have been growing the last few years. Early maturity is needed here and it almost seems that this quality with the yellows has gone with quick ripening and that goes with limited keeping quality. It's okay, I have others that will stay on the counter for a good long time. Based on your description and the catalog description, my guess is Illini Gold (link). I have no experience with this tomato, however.

Organizing a seed order gets to be a bit of work . The fun part is looking thru the catalogs!

I was given a good deal of seed by a gardener who moved from Montana to California. I think he realized that his growing environment there is quite a bit different from what it was in Montana. That and he is a generous fellow. I will have to go thru his tomato seed carefully because he did some hybridizing and there are a number of packets marked "F2" & "F3" & such .

I have "inventoried" all my seed except the tomatoes and peppers. I'd better get those all squared away over this weekend. The stash has grown a lot after several years of growing a couple dozen tomato varieties each year and saving seed. It's a good thing there were only a handful of new varieties each year! At the very least, the onion and pepper seed will have to be ordered soon .

Steve

[ReptileAddiction]

I REALLY need to get my seeds bought and planted. Pretty soon I am just going to end up buying plants. I am going to have to put in at least one seed order though because there are some varieties I highly doubt I will be able to find locally. I will probably order from Park Seed because they have good sales. There is no way I am paying 3-8 dollars for a packet of seed, every year I have noticed they get even higher. I do not know how some of the places sell any packets for north of $5.