Dreaming with the Winter Gardening Catalogues-With Pics!

The Kaitlyn Mae Book Blog ^ | 12/28/2004 | Pat Fish

[7.62 x 51mm]

I know your family's nursery, as I used to buy from several places on the MD's eastern shore, years ago. My 20ac garden center and nursery is just north, in Penna.

You have mail.

[Tijeras_Slim]

Nice! It's now run by my Uncle. My Grandfather wrote a column for American Nurseryman for many years too.

Trying to get stuff to grow in the NM mountains is a lot tougher.

[SunkenCiv]

"Nothing tastes more like summer, to this inveterate gardener, than a home-grown, vine-ripened tomato."

Dietary protection against sunburn (with recipe)
Janet Raloff
Science News
Week of May 26, 2001; Vol. 159, No. 21
http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20010526/food.asp

[SunkenCiv]

Nick, I'm glad you seed these two stories and posted them as topics:

Designer Tomato with Zebra Stripes (Strawberry-Like "Strawmato" Hybrid)
Asian News International | June 5, 2005
Posted on 06/05/2005 6:06:50 PM PDT by nickcarraway
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1417169/posts

Thought gone, a flower's in the pink (‘Extinct’ wildflower found in California)
Newsday | May 30, 2005
Posted on 06/01/2005 11:50:21 PM PDT by nickcarraway
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1414931/posts

[SunkenCiv]

Sustainable Living
me
Posted on 09/28/2005 2:57:16 PM PDT by cyborg
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1493121/posts

[SunkenCiv]

A FReepathon is under way!

---

FR Lexicon·Posting Guidelines·Excerpt, or Link only?·Ultimate Sidebar Management·Headlines
Donate Here By Secure Server·Eating our own -- Time to make a new start in Free Republic
PDF to HTML translation·Translation page·Wayback Machine·My Links·FreeMail Me
Gods, Graves, Glyphs topic·and group·Books, Magazines, Movies, Music

---

[SunkenCiv]

Gardening, reading and praying can help stave off Alzheimer's disease
Israel21c
Posted on 01/01/2006 10:03:02 AM PST by ddtorquee
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/1550243/posts

Of course, you'll have to get used to losing the book in the garden, and forgetting what page you were on, and which garden is yours, and...

[dead time in purgatory for laughing at that joke, and for telling it]

[SunkenCiv]

I got my first 2006 seed catalog sometime in November I think, but it was definitely in December when most of them started to arrive. I got the latest one on Tuesday, and got a couple over the weekend.

Today I used up a Xmas gift card (from the employer) on some gardening stuff on clearance. I got three of those nice domes (about a foot in diameter, with a vent at the top that can be adjusted), all that were left, some Jiffy 7's, and some 99 cent quick attach kits for hoses. Most of the gift card vanished last week when I got one of those electric germination pads.

Why, oh why, is there no gardening ping list?

[Coleus]

what are some good seed companies?

[SunkenCiv]

It can almost be said that there are no *bad* seed companies. ;') I like to try odd, old, and/or open pollinated varieties of things, and some of them over the years have proven to be good to eat. :')

There's a lima type bean called Christmas Bean that has been pretty popular in the family. It's a speckled reddish brown and white bean, that turns a kind of purple color when cooked. And it's yummy. Lake Valley Seed carries that, that's the one I've grown.

More to come...

[SunkenCiv]

I finally got around to looking through the catalogs... seven (so far)...

As always, the Burpee, the Thompson & Morgan, and the Seeds of Change catalogs are the most colorful and stimulating. :') But coming up on the outside is Territorial Seed Company, that's the one I'm going through first. :') I've bought from all of the following sources, over the years, though not necessarily from the online site:

http://www.territorialseed.com/
http://www.thompson-morgan.com/
http://www.burpee.com/
http://www.seedsofchange.com/
http://www.cooksgarden.com/
http://www.superseeds.com/home.htm
http://gardeners.harrisseeds.com/default.asp
http://www.eburgess.com/
http://www.parkseed.com/
http://www.johnnyseeds.com/home.aspx?ct=HG
http://www.stokeseeds.com/cgi-bin/StokesSeeds.storefront
http://www.totallytomato.com/

Here's one I think I've ordered from before, but I don't know for sure:
http://www.vermontbean.com/

and a comment on Vermont Bean:
http://davesgarden.com/gwd/c/98/

Here's one I used to get, it's very old timey, which I like, but I've never ordered from it, shame on me :')

http://www.rhshumway.com/

Another hardcopy catalog I didn't order from, which has no website, and is definitely worth a look:

Orol Ledden & Sons
PO Box 7
Sewell, NJ 08080-0007
Ph 609-468-1000
Fax 609-464-0947
http://davesgarden.com/gwd/companymail.php?compid=574

I also got the Henry Field, the Gurney, and the Jung catalogs, but those are all shipped from the same place I believe. Here are other sites which look cool:

http://www.amishlandseeds.com/
http://www.southernexposure.com/
http://www.rareseeds.com/
http://www.ttseeds.com/
http://www.seedstrust.com/

Lists of online seed sources:
http://www.williamrubel.com/Trescony/TRtresconyseeds.html
http://www.gardenbazaar.com/directory/cz_1E0.html

Not really for gardening (in most climates anyway):
http://www.rareseedsource.com/

Something I've been wanting to grow for a long while, better but obscure relative of Salsify:
http://seeds.thompson-morgan.com/us/en/product/685/1?SA=1113

Here's something that sounds pretty wacky:
http://www.planthomeopathy.com/

[Coleus]

wow, thanks, appreciate it.

[SunkenCiv]

reprise from above, with an updated link:

Tigger The most amazing melon we have grown. The fruit are vibrant yellow with brilliant fire-red, zigzag stripes, (a few fruit may be solid yellow), simply beautiful! They are also the most fragrant melons we have tried, with a rich, sweet intoxicating aroma that will fill a room. The white flesh gets sweeter in dry climates. Small in size the fruits weigh up to 1 lb. - perfect for a single serving. The vigorous plants yield heavily, even in dry conditions. This heirloom came from an Armenian market located in a mountain valley. It was the most popular melon at our Garden Show last August and makes a unique specialty market variety. Pkt. (25 seeds).

---

---

[SunkenCiv]

Black Diamond watermelon (see above) grows well around here, and the melons are nice and sweet. I have the most luck if I thin the herd (no more than two-three melons per vine, the first one gets most of the flavor and size) and just grow more plants. Black Diamond is normally red fleshed, but is also available yellow fleshed, and I'd like to try that this year. I grew some yellow-fleshed variety five or so years ago, and it was fab.

Source for the red (also Moon & Stars, a bunch of others):
http://www.heirloomacres.net/HeirloomAcres/

Source for both:
http://www.rareseeds.com/catlisting.php?cat=32

Christmas lima beans:
http://www.rareseeds.com/catlisting.php?cat=65

Cob Melon (apparently AKA Schweikert's Cob Melon):
http://www.douglasgould.com/amygoldman/New_From_Amy/melons%20book/cobmelon.htm

[SunkenCiv]

My pleasure. I'm going to grow more stuff this year than I did last year. :')

[SunkenCiv]

One more list of seed catalogs:

http://www.douglasgould.com/amygoldman/Bibliography/bibliography.htm

[SunkenCiv]

---

Melons for the Passionate Grower by Amy Goldman photos by Victor Schrager	The Compleat Squash: A Passionate Grower's Guide to Pumpkins, Squashes, and Gourds by Amy Goldman photos by Victor Schrager

---

[SunkenCiv]

this is the variety I've grown before, but not the source of the seed:

Tohono O'odham Yellow Meated watermelon
http://www.nativeseeds.org/v2/prod.php?prodID=G003

[SunkenCiv]

Correction to URL:
http://www.territorial-seed.com/

[SunkenCiv]

Lakota squash (great pies):
http://www.heirloomseed.com/dakota.htm

The family tried this one year, also about five years ago. The seeds were from Burpee, and resulted in a squash which looks like the one seen at the link above. The Burpee version is supposedly a reproduction of the original Lakota open pollinated squash, which supposedly went extinct. Gleckler Seedmen (now, a fond memory, although Territorial Seed Company is carrying at least one of their old varieties of tomato) formerly of Metamora OH used to sell a bunch of heirloom North American squash varieties, not sure if Lakota was one of them. Obviously, named after the Lakota Sioux.

Gleckler's Peron Sprayless Tomato:
http://www.territorial-seed.com/stores/1/Peron_Sprayless_P2644C168.cfm

Here's another page which has a picture of (presumably) an extinction survivor, seed source unknown:

http://davesgarden.com/pf/go/61070/
http://davesgarden.com/pf/showimage/93222/

Dave's Garden looks like a great gardening website, every gardener on FR should join. ;')

May be fun to try, look tasty:

Ojo Caliente Melon
http://www.nativeseeds.org/v2/prod.php?prodID=F008

Guarijio Segualco squash
http://www.nativeseeds.org/v2/prod.php?prodID=EM033

There was once a seed offered by one of the gourmet gardening catalogs (either Cook's Garden or Shepherd's Garden Seeds, which a few years ago merged I think) for a tiny, yellow, almost transparent tomato called Golden Pearl. I think that was the name they made up for it (reported that it came from a restaurant in NM or AZ, where it just grew up the walls, and the fruit was harvested for the salads and whatnot). It's very tasty, grows like bunches of grapes, kinda. It appears that Territorial has the very same plant (hard to tell, there are a claimed 5,000+ varieties of tomatoes).

I've found that it's difficult to bring in a harvest (which is continuous), because they're fun to munch up while still in the garden. A few years ago, the fruit that fell off, were wrecked by birds, or what have you wound up all over the garden; the seed overwintered, and the Golden Pearl seeds germinated all over the place. I've managed to keep a small pile of the dried fruit, which has worked in the past to germinate, and plan to grow a lot of these just to replenish my seed supply.

Google turned up a bunch of references to it... Martha Stewart has it as a fave, but I won't hold that against the tomato.

Discussed:
http://www.sperlingnursery.com/InfoSheets/infotomato.pdf
http://www.ssawg.org/OFN-tomatoes.html
http://www.kellogggarden.com/garden/tomato4.html
http://davesgarden.com/pf/go/88697/index.html

Seed source (the only one, apparently):
http://mariseeds.com/2005catalog/cherries.html

Variety, "Snow White", not the same thing, larger fruit:
http://www.territorial-seed.com/stores/1/Snow_White_P2729.cfm

Plant source:
http://www.burkardnurseries.com/BNSearchDetail.asp?BotanicalID=6374

Not a source for Golden Pearl, but another online catalog:
http://www.tradewindsfruit.com/tomato_seeds.htm