How to Organize a Seed Swap

1. Find a group of seed geeks who want to trade seeds.
2. Pick an appropriate location based on the size of your group.
3. Give each participant one ticket per pack of seeds they bring to trade.
4. Organize seeds into 3 groups, Vegetables/Fruits, Flowers, Herbs/Other.
5. Give the participants time to browse the available seeds/socialize/drink wine & beer/eat delicious snacks.
6. Allow each person to choose one pack of seeds in return for one ticket.
7. Repeat #6 until all tickets are used.

Last night I attended my first seed swap. I was pretty unsure of how this thing would go down but then arrived to find that everybody else felt the same apprehension as me. There were about 7 of us. One of the girls who participated said she was a little intimidated and didn't know if her seeds were "cool enough" to bring for trade. Then she likened the seed swap to a "seed prom!" We informally decided the seed prom queen was someone who showed up with seeds she brought home from Italy in lovely homemade packaging.

It was really incredible to sit around talking seeds and gardening with these folks. They really knew their stuff! Plus, I met 3 new people. One of them was a male who again shattered the male gardener stereotype floating around in my head. Before we knew it, it was 10:30. A seed swap until 10:30! That's crazy! Obviously we all had a very enjoyable time and we're already plotting our next swap.

If you grow stuff from seed, chances are that you've got a whole bunch of seeds you'll never use. I encourage you to get together with your other seed geek friends for an informal seed swap. It's great fun and I brought home some really cool stuff that I would never think to buy.

Happy Swapping!

How Your Botanical Interests Seed Order Can Help Chicago Area Community Garden

For most hardcore gardeners, winter time means time for browsing seed catalogs, agonizing over what to grow in the garden come spring and finally making that seed order from your favorite vendor(s). It is fun, stressful and exhilarating all balled up into one.

This year, the Forest Park Community Garden has teamed up with Botanical Interests for a fundraiser. Order seeds from Botanical Interests using this link and 25% of your purchase helps provide an on-sight water collection system for the Forest Park Community Garden. Our plot renters hauled jugs of water to their gardens all season last year. This year we are committed to providing water at the garden. With your help, I know we can do it.

Botanical Interests is one of my favorite seed companies. I appreciate what they stand for, and I've had great success with every pack of seeds I've bought from them. For 2010, Botanical Interests has a seed catalog available. I'm glad they finally made this move. Half the fun of ordering seeds is browsing through and marking up your catalog. If you'd like to order one, go here.

PLEASE FEEL FREE TO PASS THIS LINK ALONG TO YOUR SEED ORDERING FRIENDS!

Note when you click the link you will see Forest Park Community Garden in the upper right hand corner after you have started searching for seeds.

Spinach Correnta: How Monsanto Can Improve Their Reputation with Home Gardeners

The other day, I had a great conversation with Botanical Interest's seed buyer, Janis Kieft about the seed buying business. I found Janis to be very knowledgeable and transparent about the company she works for and the seed buying/selling industry in general and I appreciated that.

When I asked Janis if Botanical Interests still sells Seminis/Monsanto seeds, she flipped through a few papers then told me without hesitation that they still get the Celebrity Tomato seeds from them. "Celebrity is a very popular tomato for home gardeners." Then Janis went on to explain why Botanical Interests has ended up buying fewer and fewer seeds from Seminis/Monsanto over the years.

"I've been in the seed buying business for over 15 years. Years ago, Seminis had a division devoted to home gardens. They looked for varieties with great flavor and production rather than their shipability." As time goes on, Seminis, under Monsanto, has stopped producing some of these. Like Spinach Correnta, which Botanical Interests found out would no longer be produced when Janis called to place an order last year. Seminis/Monsanto owns the parent plants used to make the F1 hybrid Spinach Correnta. Spinach Correnta is favored by home gardeners because of it's heat resistance and great production.

As Janis explains one possible reason for Monsanto's decision to not continuing producing this particular variety, "Spinach Correnta may have only been one of ten spinach varieties that Seminis carried, but under Monsanto, maybe it was one of fifty." We both agreed that Monsanto probably just thinks that we should pick another variety of spinach. Maybe they've even produced a way better one! But I know that one of the strongest traits of home gardeners is our individuality. We grow things that we love. Things that work for us in our gardens. Besides scale, I think that's the biggest difference between us and big time farmers. Seven years ago Botanical Interests was buying 8-10 varieties from Seminis. They now only buy one because the others have been dropped from their product line and are no longer for sale.

Where I get on a soap box then make Monsanto an offer they can't refuse:

I completely understand and appreciate Monsanto's decision to stop looking for and producing seeds favored by home gardeners in order to focus on their target market. It's probably an excellent business move on their part. After all, us home gardeners are never going to make them rich. I get it - it's not their deal. But what I don't understand is why they decide to stop producing the variety and at the same time refuse to allow other growers to produce it. If we (home gardeners) are not their target market, seed companies we buy from can't possibly be considered their competition. It seems rather mean spirited to me. In fact, this bothers me more than anything else I've read about Monsanto. Because it reeks of bad intentions.

We may not be Monsanto's target market, but we home gardeners are working professionals, writers, business owners and much more. The CEO at the large metropolitan hospital where I work is an avid gardener. I imagine that any Monsanto rants he might go on would be in the presence of some pretty important people. See, Botanical Interests won me over with a short phone conversation and here I am writing a blog post about it that will reach any person who reads this blog. In short, we probably end up significantly contributing to their bad public persona and they don't get that. It's time for Monsanto to do some damage control and I think we home gardeners are the perfect place to start.

The offer:

Dear Monsanto - give us back Spinach Correnta and I'll wear an "I Heart Monsanto" shirt for a day. Look at it this way, it won't cost you anything to allow another grower to produce this popular home garden seed, and I'll be out the cost of the t-shirt. I'll even make a promise to rebut any bad Monsanto talk with the story about how you so kindly gave up the rights to this popular seed for no other reason than, you're nice. That kind of crap goes a long way with people. Before you know it, folks will be saying all sorts of nice stuff about you. Maybe you could even make this into a big marketing campaign to show people just how nice you really are by offering up these popular seeds. Like every year you'll give us another popular home garden variety that you don't want to produce anymore. I'd be glad to help with that. Call me.

Wordless Wednesday: The Lone Luffa Gourd

More Wordless Wednesday

Technorati Tags: wordless wednesday,luffa gourd

The Garden Cave: Getting ready for seed starting

Just imagine the room below even more scary with crap everywhere and millions of spider webs - that's what I started with today. Behold my new Garden Cave!

My house is small and indoor space is pretty darn limited. I have no rooms with south facing windows other than my bedroom, which barely accommodates the king bed. Not only do I need a place to store all my gardening crap, I need a place to work on my seed starting. So, with no other choice, I've been banished to the gloomy dirty basement.

This is the room immediately below the bathroom. It's really the only "room" in the basement - the rest is just wide open space. Besides the washer and dryer, we have mostly exercise equipment and unpacked boxes down there. This room seems to have been somebodies work area and this work table was here when we moved in, along with a saw and some left over paint and supplies.

I think this room should be perfect for seed starting, don't you? I mean I'll need to buy shop lights and a timer for the lights but other than that, I bet I can get some seeds going down here. The basement is vented and has electricity so it doesn't get cold. Here's the work table that was here when we moved in. I'm hoping I can mount the shop lights under the 2 shelves and have my seeds right under them. As they come up I'll need to move them.

Now it's time to start getting my containers ready for winter sowing. Between the seeds I start indoors and the ones I wintersow, I should be off to a great spring start.

I'm curious where all you gardeners start your seeds? Is your house big and sunny enough that you have a proper room for this?

I'm In Tomato Seed Heaven

The folks over at wintersown.org have done it again!

I'm participating in the Garden Blogger Seed exchange that Colleen organized and I was so thrilled to see that Trudi from wintersown.org had posted an offer to choose tomato seeds. I love tomatoes! Remember??

You may remember that I already received my free seeds from wintersown and they actually sent me 10 packs to try, rather than the 6 that they promised. So now, in addition to those, I have the following tomato seeds to try.

Tomato Blend

Large Red Grape (Ind)

Cononaut Volkvov (Det)

San Marzano Plum (Ind)

Brandywine (Ind)

Heinz 1439 (Det)

Beefsteak Tomato (Ind)

Martian Giant (Ind)

Blondkopfchen (Ind)

Others

Hot Pepper Mix

Mammoth Sunflower

So, from the looks of things, I won't be buying any actual tomato plants this year! Imagine how exciting it'll be if I can grow all my tomatoes from seeds!

I noticed these packs have a number with the "DTM" beside it - what the heck does that mean please??

Thanks, Trudi! You Rock!

I'm a Winner - AGAIN!

I won my football pool again last week! Here are my options:

Big Pot - they should be on sale now, right?

Dirt - I suppose I need to cover the new beds in the front that now just have leaves and newspaper.

Start a patio fund - I'd like to get a patio done at the earliest possible time next spring so maybe I should start saving now?

On the subject of neighbors:
I noticed that, this time when my neighbors on either side raked their leaves, they piled them at the side of their property line closest to mine. I think they are doing this so I can use them for my garden since they saw me out there vacuuming them up last weekend. Isn't that nice!! So, I'm off to take advantage of them. Is 8:45 too early for the loud leaf blower?

On the subject of seeds:
I'm participating in the Garden Bloggers Seed Trade that Colleen organized (see link on my blog) and I'm making my 3rd trade this week! I'm pretty excited about this! I really can't wait till next spring. I think I'm going to turn my basement into a greenhouse (or whatever it's called) so that I can start some seeds indoors. Coupled with the Winter Sowing I plan to try, I should be off to a great start on plants next spring, huh?

Seeds And Stuff...

I received my lettuce seeds today!

I ordered these seeds after reading Farmgirl's detailed instruction about growing lettuce from seed. I was so impressed I ordered them straight off the website that she orders from. I'll be planting them sometime in in the next month or so in the soon to be built planter boxes. The nice people at the seed store also sent me a free pack of Common Thyme. Thanks nice seed store people!

Here's my dwarf snapdragon that I bought a while back. It's another plant that started blooming after I added the woodchip mulch. Notice the bastard weed in the background. I hate that stuff!

In other gardening news I finally cut the scary cracked Big Boy tomatoes. Mom (and everybody else) was right! They were not all gross inside at all! I had a couple of slices on my veggie burger and it was AWESOME! Guess who's having a tomato sandwich for lunch tomorrow??

I have another busy weekend planned. Here's what I'm hoping to get done.

1. Paint awesome freecycle table and chairs (I finished de-rusting it. YAY)
2. Deadhead 26 hedge roses AGAIN. These things are blooming like crazy!
3. Dig up evil purslane
4. Spray more skinny weedkiller on bastard weeds
5. Return ugly plastic planter boxes
6. Scrape paint off old window and find place to hang. I think I want to get rid of the glass in this thing and use it as a trellis for a climbing rose
7. Turn compost in homemade composter
8. Divide Iris

Cute things I saw in my garden today

This thing nearly made me pee my pants, in a bad way. I know it's very very cute and all but that whole Cicada incident has really got me on edge. Every time I hear any kind of rustling going on I jump and spin around expecting to see a big swarm of Cicadas ready to eat my eyeballs out. I was bent over looking at the Lavender that I planted near these dead Iris and I heard something. I spun around scared to death and this is what I saw. Do you know how stupid I felt???? My little sister thought it was hilarious that I was so startled by a baby rabbit and I thought she might be a little more sympathetic once I explained how I was almost killed by a ban of Cicadas but she was unimpressed. Then again, the people down the road from her have Emus. If you are not familiar with these, just imagine big dirty Ostrich. I have no clue what they do from the farm animal standpoint, but they are very ugly and way scarier than this little guy.Just when I started to get worried that my Cantaloupe wasn't going to bloom, BAM!

I wanted to document this bloom on one of my 2 strawberry plants. The other plant had a bloom that lasted about 2 hours before it was eaten by something. I do not expect this one to survive, they must be very tasty, even in floral form.

This is a tomato on one of my 2 Big Boys. Is it just me or does this look two-toned?

This is a baby tomato on my one Roma plant. I think these are so cute because they are oblong and I never get to use that word "oblong" so I thought I'd better seize this opportunity. Plus, I LOVE ROMAS and I LOVE MARINARA and you know what that means!

That's it for the pictures. In other news, I'm going on my first Garden Walk on Saturday with garden buddy and I have been planting seeds like crazy. In addition to the last seeds I told you about, I have now planted Double Hollyhock, Zinnias and Scabiosa. I also have Moon Flower (or is it Vine) seeds soaking per the instructions and they will be planted bright and early tomorrow morning. I really excited about the moon ones!

LOV Passalong

Yesterday I scored these Lily of the Valley plants from someone in my area who needed to thin hers. Thanks nice Freecycle.org lady! I split them and ended up with 6 plants!

I know what you're thinking - "WOW! That green looks spectacular up against that lovely straw colored background!" Hey, it's the best I can do for now. I planted these this morning before work but unfortunately the other unknown plant the nice lady gave me doesn't look so good.

I have no clue what this plant is, and from the looks of things, I never will. It was very close to the LOV so the lady told me to go ahead and take it. Since it is unlikely that I'll be able to fill my gardens with passalong plants, I've come up with another plan for my barren gardens and empty wallet - SEEDS! I read this great article on HGTV.com about how stupid everyone is for not just planting seeds. The article talked about how much more economical seeds are and how the selection is so much better because garden centers can really only sell what is IN BLOOM and that limits them. I'm sure it's not THAT simple but it was all I needed to hear. I'm grasping at straws here! (pun intended)

So, I planted 3 packs of seeds this morning! Giant Delphiniums, Canterbury Bells, and Columbine. Unfortunately, AFTER I planted the seeds I read on the inside of the Columbine seed packet that you should sow them outside before it gets cold, and fertilize them with something special, and call the preacher to bless them etc. I'm kidding about the preacher but DANG there were lots of stipulations with this stuff! Oh well, at least its only a couple of bucks down the drain.

So my plan for MSG 08? Plant millions of seeds. Direct sow because I'm too lazy to do pots, indoors, under lights, in the fridge, or anything along those lines. I'm not chasing off birds or squirrels or any other varmints. If they don't make it, they are not for me!

If anybody has any suggestions on things that I can plant NOW in Zone 5, please let me know.