Garden seed.

[Homesteader]

Hello all. It`s been a long while since I posted anything as it has been a very, very busy season for us here.
I have some heirloom seed to give away this season. All grown without chems. of any kind.
At this time we have lots of swiss chard seed. This is a mix of Fordhook giant and Luculus as we like both cooked together. Also have some Bonnie best as well New Yorker tomato seed. A small amount of Boston pickler cucumber, and if anyone is interested I also have tobacco seed available. Put in 65 plants and they did very well for us. I will post what all else is available as it is picked and processed.
All I will require is an S.A.S.E. along with a note letting me know how many seeds of what you are wanting, within reason of course. Most of the seed is for northern short season growing. As seed suppiles are exhausted I will post that info.
Hoping all had a great gardening season this year.

[scyther]

Hi,

Lucullus is superb, isn't it? Cooks like spinach, so I don't even bother with spinach anymore.

[Homesteader]

Scyther:
We like both the Lucullus and the Fordhook giant. Swiss chard is also so much easier to grow than the spinach. No bolting and the chard keeps producing all the way to frost. I am putting some in the greenhouse this fall along with some lettuce, onion for scallions and a few radishes. I pile a huge amount of fresh manure and compost materials against the back of the greenhouse and it keeps it warm enough for stuff to keep growing for quite a while in there.

[scyther]

I guess you have animals for the manure? That's handy.

Speaking of scallions, do you have walking onion? Don't even have to bring them in, they freeze solid and thaw unfazed like parsnip. I can send you some bulbils if you don't.

[Homesteader]

Hello Pat. No we don`t have walking onions and would dearly love a few bulbils.
And no we don`t have animals as we are vegetarian and actually closer to vegan, and our best source of manure was a friend who took very ill this spring and so our source is gone from there. We do however have a friend with a couple of horses and I have been hauling from there. We also do a lot of composting. Our garden is about 9,000 square feet so it takes a lot of compost and manure to keep it going.
If there is any seed that we have available that you would like let me know and we can swap addresses for trade. I have sent you my address by PM.

[scyther]

I'm vegetarian too, lacto. Since age 9.

I used to haul a lot of animal manure but not so much lately. I save urine to use diluted for foliar and soil drench. Humanure goes in the compost pile.

[Homesteader]

It`s nice to communicate with someone that there is common ground with.
So tell me, do you store, can, or dehydrate much of your garden produce. I do most all of our canning and preserving from the garden. I really enjoy it and it just seems to make good since especially in these uncertain times.
Our soil here was quite sandy and poor when I started gardening with it, but with a lot of work and about 30 tons [literally] of manure and compost over three + years it is starting to produce well for us. I have been gardening for about 20 yrs. now I guess and have not tired of it yet. Built a 6 foot x 12 foot greenhouse two years ago and expanded that to 10 x 12 this past early spring and can now produce all of our transplants and that has also made a big difference in harvest production. We grow a lot of drybeans as well as pole greenbeans and I want to put in as large a plot of wheat this next season as I can although I have taken over just about all the ground our little place can offer. I have had the pleasure of grinding fresh organic grain into our own flour and though it wasn`t grown by me it was so much better than anything we could buy that I simply must find a way to grow our own.
Well this is probably a lot longer reply than you were expecting and so will close for now.
Looking forward to hearing back from you.
P.S. I would imagine having been a lacto vegetarian for so long that you would probably have a lot more knowledge as well as recipes in vegetarian cooking than I and look forward to trading recipes as well as knowledge in this area.
Again looking forward to hearing back from you.

[scyther]

We have the sandy soil in common as well. Likewise I have improved it quite a lot over 12 years.

This year the home garden had bad infestations of squash bugs which eliminated the late-summer cucurbits and mexican bean beetle which nearly wiped out the pole-bean crop. Fortunately I had beans at two other locations. I would like to ramp up to produce enough pole beans for dry through the winter. I have been freezing some snap stage.

I grow a southern dent field corn variety - hickory king - which grows well here on rainfall and makes a good grain for grinding and hominy. I have tried wheat various times and it is very clear why the pioneers breaded themselves on maize rather than wheat - the latter requires much more time and more advanced technology.

[Homesteader]

We didn`t have much of a bug problem this season but did have some disease problems in our cukes, still managed to get a good harvest of picklers. Beans all did fairly well other than some late mold problems in the drybeans.
I`ve made hominy in the past as well as grinding our own cornmeal. I also dried the hominy for grinding masa harina for corn tortillas. Part of my teen years I lived with a mexican family and so got very used to mexican cooking and still do a lot of mexican dishes.
If you have never grown beans for dry use I would say to try it as it can be rewarding during the winter months. Also the beans will be the very best you have ever eaten. The beans in the stores even health food stores may be several years old by the time they are sold and simply cannot compare with the quality of first season beans.
I grew up in central Washington state and worked on farms where wheat was a major crop and so have some experiance in growing it and yes it can be very problematic. Most common problem is wheat rust which can decimate a crop. Isolation from other grain crops is one of the best preventitives but does not mean you will not still get rust.
Am getting ready to can up this seasons sauerkraut. I make it every other season as we don`t use as much of it as other canned and dried goods.
Last year we lost all our tomatoes to late blight . this season however they did outstanding and so we have lots of canned tomatoes as well as my beloved salsa. Also did bar-b-que sauce, tomato sauce and juice.
We are still not quite where I would like to be on our larder but are getting ever closer to being able to feed ourselves and have to give to family and friends.
Grew about 450 lbs. of potatoes this season and so will have a good amount in storage. We have such a problem with both moles and gophers that we have to grow them in a row of split half barrels. This however has worked out well.
Am just finishing up drying our bell peppers and am going to try dehydrating a few potatoes to see how well we like them.
I`m always trying new dehydrated veggies. I make a dehydrated refried beans that is a very easy and quick item to work with and they taste great. Have also dehydrated cooked whole drybeans with success. Easy and quick to throw into a bean soup or chili.
Well I have about a 100 things needing to be done so will close for now. Look forward to more correspondence with you.
Have a great day.

[I Try]

I really enjoyed this thread. Thank you both!