I Am A Seed Hoarder

[baymule]

My name is Baymule and I am a seed hoarder. Watching the TV Hoarders show this morning while I perused the Whole Seed Catalog from Baker Creek, an inch thick book of glossy, colorful, I want everything, and I snapped. I realized that I had 2 buckets of seed packets and I needed to go through them. So I dragged them out.....and a basket......and a seed flat......and another basket-all full of seed packets.

I started going through them, making piles of packets. I have enough squash and tomato seeds for the rest of my life......but I desperately NEED Brad's Atomic Grape tomato seeds. I've got everything BUT yellow crookneck summer squash. Herb seeds.....I have enough to start my own seed store. I really NEED to make that herb garden in 2019!!!

Corn-I'm good. I have plenty of my Painted Mountain and a generous bag of seed from @thistlebloom that I WILL get planted in the 2019 garden! And I found a packet of Anasazi corn that will get planted after the possibility of cross pollination is past. I found a packet of that purpley-black Morado corn that I was about to order.....I must plant that too-maybe for a fall crop.

Carrots. WHY do I have so darned many packets of carrots? I am a carrot failure…..I must be an eternal optimist because I got a crap load of seed. Maybe I'll just toss them ALL out and see what happens. Maybe I'll even get a carrot or two to snack on.

English peas. YAY! I found two packets and some yellow sugar peas too. Those are DEFINATELY getting planted in mid February 2019!! I found a baggie of brown crowder peas and a bag of purple hull peas. I planted purple hull peas last year and had a good crop. A friend called yesterday to tell us that they were feasting on purple hull peas with lots of onion and ham chunks in it. I gave them a dozen bags of frozen peas and they were thrilled. I will plant them again!

I didn't find any of my very, very favorite mustard green seeds, the Giant Red (that are really purple) so I get to order MORE seed!!! While I'm at it, I can order some of that purple leafed Baby Bok Choy that looks so scrumptious. I did find a baggie of turnip seeds I saved so don't need to order any.

Beets! I have been quite the failure at beets, although last year I got enough to can 4 pints. I have plenty of seed of several different varieties, so 2019 is the year they ALL get planted. They will grow or they wont.

Cucumber seeds, yeah, I got those too. I planted some for 2018 and got a respectable amount, enough to make my favorite pickles and to give to a friend and teach her how to make pickles too. I still have enough seed for the next few years. Maybe......since the seeds are getting a little old I should plant them all and feed the extra to the sheep, horses, chickens, neighbors.....BWA-HA-HA-HA

Beans.….yup, got lots of those too that need planted to keep them fresh. Been wanting some of those fascinating looking winged beans AAAAANNNND I found a packet of those too! I found seed to the 3'long green beans I like to grow, that I didn't grow last year, so they will be planted for 2019. DH LOVES them and I get sick and tired of them. By September or October I think if I eat another dad-burned green bean, I'm gonna toss my cookies. The blamed things are hateful and make oodles of 3' long instruments of stomach torture until a HARD killing frost way up into November or even December.

I have Brussel Sprouts, Broccoli and Cauliflower seeds galore. I love all of those, now all I gotta do is plant and grow them! I haven't been able to figure out the optimum time to plant those since we've been here. My fall gardens that used to thrive at our old house, freeze to mush here and give me nothing.

I even have lots of @seedcorn's favorite, KALE. Why? What was going through my head that I need 8 packets of kale seed, of several different varieties? I have 3 packets of cabbage seed that was "free" for making an order. I suppose I should plant them too, I always bought started plants and planted them in my successful fall garden at the old house. Here, I just got to the point of frozen mush. Maybe spring planting is the answer.

Eggplant, I only have a few, opened and remnants in the packet. WTH, I'll plant them too. Start over on eggplant in 2020. I haven't had much luck with eggplant since moving. Maybe 2019 is the year!

I have enough lettuce seed to turn us into rabbits. I had a good start going last spring, but wonky weather killed them off.

Melons, I am well stocked. The best melons I've grown yet were the 2018 season, from watermelon rinds tossed over the fence to two large hogs we had in the fall of 2017. With no help or care from me, they came up, produced and gave us and neighbors sweet, delicious watermelons. Maybe I have this whole garden thing all wrong? Should I just throw vegetables to pigs for them to plant and fertilize for me? It sure worked for the watermelons!

Okra, I don't grow. It is too easy to buy a half bushel from our friend with a vegetable stand and put them all up at once. He picks it that morning, I have it in the freezer that afternoon. Done.

Peppers, sweet and hot-yup, plenty of those too. Radishes, uh-huh, loaded with them.

That stupid Hoarders TV show.... I was all geared up to go seed shopping. But NOOOOOOO I had to go get all organized. Instead of making a big seed order, I'm scratching to even find something to order. I am looking longingly at that gorgeous Whole Seed Catalog, with all the pretty pictures that for some reason, my paltry efforts never seem to look like.....

Waiting on spring...….

 

[thistlebloom]

Haha! Seed shopping in a bucket!
If you grow even most of that stuff and it's more than you and your friends need, your chickens and sheep should be able to help you out.

I need to look at my seed stash too, because I've been making a list of possibilities, which stretches waaaayyy into the ludicrous for me, and I really need to be more realistic.

 

[Carol Dee]

No one mentioned flowers, my weakness seems to be flowers. I'll let Bob decide what vegetables to plant

 

[thistlebloom]

No one mentioned flowers, my weakness seems to be flowers. I'll let Bob decide what vegetables to plant View attachment 29946 View attachment 29947

Me too!
I do plan on starting a lot of them early this year though.
It's time for a fresh and snappy look in client containers. The old standbys are getting a little tiresome...

 

[seedcorn]

I give seeds away so I get cleaned out every couple of years. Have some I will just throw away.

Kale-America’s answer to cardboard. Why take up valuable garden space when you get it free?

 

[baymule]

I have zinnia and marigold seeds too. And a packet of petunia seeds. I'll plant them too.

 

[digitS']

Something like 12 or 15 years ago, I began growing 25 or more varieties of tomatoes each year. In 2018, there may have been just over 20, the least choices after all those years. It was okay, there was only @Nyboy 's New Yorkers for something new, and the others often feel like old friends.

There aren't that many of some plants - only one of a few of them. That's okay too because I can start several seedlings and have other uses for the extra.

Really, 30 different tomatoes isn't very many for some of the aficionados. Gardeners with an interest may have that many peppers. If I lived in a more melon-friendly climate, I'd like to have LOTS of those!

Bay', you should be in a good location for eggplant ... I would think ...

I even have lots of @seedcorn's favorite, KALE. Why? What was going through my head that I need 8 packets of kale seed, of several different varieties?

As Seed' no doubt knows, there are Siberian varieties of kale that aren't even the same species as the others! Other types may be the same species but Portuguese kale is more like cabbage than Italian or Scotch and there are several of each of these. You need all those varieties!

Steve

 

[Ridgerunner]

Bay. I'm proud of you for having the wherewithal to sort out your seeds, at least for a day. When I do something like that the organisation lasts until I plant some seeds. Good luck on that. I keep a lot of mine in a bucket too. I'm not convinced that means you won't be making substantial seed orders anyway, time will tell. Old habits die hard.

I suggest you start some cauliflower, broccoli, and sprouts seeds indoors today if you can. Try to have transplants ready for your earliest transplanting date. For you that might be mid-February when you do your green peas. That's how I did it in Arkansas where the climate was only a week or so later than yours. I'd start kale seeds too to transplant at the same time. That should give you a head start on the heat and bugs. Besides, how much would you enjoy posting photos of an early kale crop for Seed's benefit?

Down here I have more of your old climate and figure I'll have to rely on a fall garden for most of that cool weather stuff. But you have moved and have to adjust. In Arkansas for me to try a fall garden I'd have to start most cool weather things in August. It was too hot and dry and the bugs were too bad for that to work well. It only took me about five years to give up on a substantial fall garden. How many years have you been trying since you moved?

I think a seed hoarder thread is a good place to do this, I don't think you'll be insulted too badly if I hijack your thread for this. I'll hide the offer down here to see who reads this far. I have a packet of Tromboncini squash seeds I bought in 2017 for last year. I didn't plant them because of the move and I will not plant them here. I don't have the room. They need to be trellised and they take up a lot of room, they may spread as much as watermelon just on a trellis. I also have some Mammoth Basil seeds I won't be growing, also a year old. Both packets are organic and from Southern Exposure Seed Exchange dated fall of 2017. The first person that says on this thread they want them get them, either both packets or just one. I'll pay postage. My only requirement is that you do not send me anything, save the postage. I already know everything I have room to plant. Just do someone else a favor somewhere down the line.

 

[baymule]

@Ridgerunner I don't mind a hijack at all, just have them send you a SAE and you're good! I grew Tromboncino on a cow panel at our old house in my tiny back yard. Sure you don't want to keep 3-4 seeds out of that packet? LOL

At our old house,I could set out plants in September and they would grow all winter, some would make, some waited until early spring. Always had a great winter garden. Thanks for the advice on planting seed now. Think I'll do that. I learned last spring that I can't put brassicas in my fancy-new-fangled porch greenhouse. Guess I'll put them in the bathtub. Will kale live through the summer? And will it be a perennial or will it scorch, die and be an annual? Mid February is when we usually get snow and ice, although we got it in January 2018. How do brassica seedlings do in 20-ish degree weather? Should I keep them in the cozy bathtub a few weeks longer?

I didn't even try a fall garden this year. We have cleaned out the sheep lot and spread on the garden, need to do it again, plus clean out the chicken coops. Have a stack of pumpkin boxes to lay down for weed control, then top with this now well rotted wood chip mulch we have.

Yes, I will STILL make a seed order, just can't help myself. Need to order more peat pellets, love those things!

 

[seedcorn]

Peat pellets. Explain how you use them. When do you transplant out or do they go straight to garden? Never used them.