Our Garden Seed Order Arrived Today!

We are so excited that our 2020 garden seed order arrived in the mail today!  This year we ordered our seeds online from Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds (their website is rareseeds.com).  Many of my favorite homestead families who vlog are using Baker Creek seeds (Living Traditions Homestead, Melissa K. Norris and Roots and Refuge Farm are the homesteaders who have inspired me the most). Based on their recommendations, I wanted to give Baker Creek a try this year.  I was pleased that their prices are actually lower for many of the seeds I was looking for in comparison to several other heirloom seed companies that I was considering.

Above is the pile of seed packets that we received in our shipment.  Here's a list of what is included:

• Martino's Roma Tomato
• Long Island Improved Brussels Sprouts
• Green Globe Artichoke
• Russian Red / Ragged Jack Kale
• Tall Telephone Peas
• Mary Washington Asparagus
• Swiss Chard Perpetual Spinach
• Baby Blue Hubbard Squash
• Golden Batam 12-Row Corn
• Utah Tall Celery
• Sugar Baby Watermelon
• Orange Flesh Honeydew Melon
• Amazing Cauliflower
• Titan Sunflower
• Marvelous Mix Mint (I plan to plant this all around the perimeter of the chicken coop to deter mice)
• Lemon Balm (this will go around the back of the house, where the edge of it can be mowed down to control it from spreading too far)
• German Chamomile
• Cactus Chrysanthemum Mix Zinnia
• Scabiosa Zinnia

Baker Creek also sent the following free seed packets with our order:

• Cosmic Purple Carrots
• Cinnamon Basil
• Bee Balm Lemon

The above constitutes only part of what we will be planting this year.  As you may recall from an earlier blog article, we saved seeds from last year's garden.  We saved so many seeds that we ended up putting them into a big plastic tote box.  I've taken the top layer out of the tote so you can see all the bags and packets full of seeds that we saved.  If we had to buy all these seeds, I think there would be over $500 in seeds here!  Flower seeds were especially gathered in great abundance.  There's also a few store-bought packets leftover that we've kept for using in the coming year.

Last year's flowers were amazing in our garden. The flowers not only made the garden beautiful and fragrant, they also attracted pollinators and other beneficial insects that helped the vegetables do better than ever before.This year, I plan to plant a row of flowers in between each row of vegetables.  I'll also plant flowers around the entire perimeter of the garden so that flowers are the first thing you see.

Unfortunately I didn't keep very good track of the specific varieties of each plant for which seeds were saved, but I can provide you with a list of the types of plants.  All are heirloom or non-GMO seeds, and our intent is to plant some of everything this year, for a very diverse garden:

• Lettuce - Bibb, Red Leaf, Green Leaf
• Broccoli
• Carrots
• Tomato - Matt's Wild Cherry Tomato and Pear Tomato
• Butternut Squash
• Serrano Peppers
• Sugar Pie Pumpkin
• Marigolds
• Cosmos
• Red Poppies
• Nasturium
• Sweet Peas
• Black Eyed Susans
• Coneflower
• Yellow Daisy
• Quinoa
• Green Beans - both pole and bush
• Basil

There is nothing quite like growing, preserving and then eating home-grown produce throughout the year.  We just finished up the last of our home canned tomatoes in a spaghetti sauce I made the other night.  It had onion in it from our garden as well, which I had used a food processor to dice and then froze in portion-sized freezer safe bags for ease of use and longer-term storage. The tomatoes had a bright, fresh taste that reminded us of summer.  We also pulled out frozen berries the other day and ate them right from the container.  We've got green beans, pumpkin, kale, spinach, hot peppers, and a variety of other vegetables in our freezer and canned in the pantry for enjoyment through the rest of winter and spring.  I wish we had saved even more as frozen and plan to increase the amount stored for next year.

I've been out looking at the plants already growing in our garden that will carry over. These include:

• Garlic
• Rosemary
• Cilantro
• Sage
• Dill
• Thyme
• Oregano
• Parsley
• Red Raspberries
• Blueberries
• Strawberries

This morning, I fertilized the garlic and blueberries with an organic nitrogen fertilizer.  The garlic was given to us by our good friends Dan and Debbie, who have an incredible garden every year.

We also have fruit trees growing on our land:

• Winter Apple
• Pear
• Sour Cherry
• Bing Cherry
• Rainier Cherry
• Plum

I'm looking forward to pressing cherries into a juice using our apple press this coming spring.  We'll try making cherry wine, which will be our very first attempt at wine making.

The leftover seed packets from last year that I wasn't able to get around to planting are all flowers. I can't wait until it's time to start them inside:

• Johnny Jump Ups
• Butterfly Weed
• Forget Me Not
• Borage
• Echinacea

Lastly, the public library is another source of heirloom seeds that I plan to check out again this year.  Seeds I'll be looking for include:

• More hot pepper varieties
• Radish
• Tomatillo
• Bok Choi or Pac Choi

It will be a busy year of gardening and preserving, and we're looking forward to it!