SEEDS!!

Mostly peas and beans

My first order of seeds arrived today!  Well, most of it.  They will ship my blue potatoes when it's time to plant them. This is my order from the Vermont Bean Seed Company.  Oddly enough they are based in Wisconsin.   They specialize in beans and have many heritage varieties.  From them I got: Peas (Lincoln), bush beans (green, purple and yellow varieties), Scarlet Runner beans, Christmas Lima beans, Bloody Butcher corn (an heritage variety- can be eaten as sweet corn or allowed to dry for flour) and a blend of hybrid broccoli.  I'm not a fan of hybrids but this is my first time growing broccoli and this is a mix of early, mid and late season varieties so it will keep producing over a period of time without replanting.

They also included 3 packets of free seeds.  They are 'experimental' varieties.  I guess they are ones they are trying out to see if they want to carry them- Other than having sweet corn, peas and green bush beans I have no idea what they are. But FREE is always OK in my book.

Experimental seeds!

I also got an email that another of my orders shipped today so it should be arriving soon as well.  It is the one with my heirloom peppers and eggplant seeds.  It also has another variety of potatoes (fingerlings) that won't ship until it's time to plant them. 

While I waited for I11 to have his teeth pulled I sat with my calendar and planned my planting dates for things.  I think I've finally gotten it worked out.  I'm a bit confused with the broccoli, though.  I've been doing my research and can't figure out if it's better to start the seeds inside and transplant, or to direct sow.  Somewhere I read that the yields are better if you direct sow and that the plants are hardier.  But it seems to me that transplanting would allow a better jump on the season.  I don't know: like I said, broccoli is a new experience for me.  But it is something that we eat a lot of (the children all love it) so I thought I'd better figure it out and try to freeze some.  We're also planting more peas this year.  I usually just plant enough for us to eat fresh while they last. This year I hope to store some.  The same thing with green beans.

We got the Bloody Butcher corn because V wants to plant several hills of 'Three Sisters' to see how it works.  We plan to use the Christmas Limas for that as well, as they are climbers.  I will probably plant butternut seeds that I saved for the third sister.  Supposedly the symbiosis of the three works quite well.  We've got enough room to try it.  If it worked for the Native Americans it should work for us.  

This will be a corn year in the field across from the garden- so I won't plan to try to save seeds from the corn (it's not an open pollinated variety) but at least we won't have to contend with as many bean beetles. When it is a field of soybeans they are fierce in the garden and hard to manage.  And we occasionally get overspray from the herbicide (they plant Round-up ready beans- GRRR!!) when it's beans.  Corn isn't as bad- they don't spray it.

I'm still waiting to hear from or receive my order from Totally Tomatoes.  They are the tomato equivalent of Vermont beans and I'm getting lots of heirloom tomatoes (open pollinated) and I plan to save seeds from them.

Oh, I can't wait till Spring!!!