I got my stokes and nothing more yet...I am sure they are coming though..

They seem to get earlier every year, but I think that's a good thing. I like to order seeds and have them here as early as possible. In most cases, I have all my seeds here for next spring before the end of the current year. There is nothing worse than ordering seeds and having them arrive late which gets you off to a late start. The exception is that sometimes I'll see something new I want to try in a catalog that arrives in December or January.

It used to be that I'd have 10 or 12 seed catalogs in the mailbox on December 26th or 27th, with more to follow in the days after that. Now, though, they seem to start coming a couple of months earlier than that. HPS always is first and it tends to arrive in August, although it might have been even earlier than that this year.

Some of my favorite seed companies, like Renee's Garden Seeds, Victory Seeds and Nichols Garden Nursery don't even send out printed catalogs any more. I have to remember to go to their websites in late fall to see if they've updated for the next year yet. It gives me something to do on cold days when I cannot be out in the garden.

I already have 80-90% of my seeds for 2013, but I bet I find a few things in the coming flood of seed catalogs that I just cannot resist.

I still need to go in a sort my seeds. I have a ton of packets in there, and don't even know what I got anymore. LOL! But the seed catalogs I not only get valuable information from, I drool over all the different varieties of things. :)

Before I ordered any seed for 2013, I went through my seed boxes and organized everything and listed the seed by type and variety. I do that every year so I know exactly what I have. That prevents me from ordering something I already have. By the time I was through making a list of everything I already had, I could see I did not need to order much of anything. However, being a seed junkie, I didn't let that stop me from ordering a bunch of seeds.

Some garden catalogs are so incredibly detailed that they are as good as any 'how to' book written about gardening. Included in this category are the catalogs from Dixondale, Twilley, HPS, High Mowing Seeds, Johnny's Selected Seeds and Southern Exposure Seed Exchange. I especially like the detailed seed-germination descriptions in some of these catalogs that tell you if the seeds in question (particularly with flower seeds) need any stratification, and if so, how much and for how long. Lots of the catalogs tell you the best temperature for germination, and whether the seeds need light to germinate or, conversely, if the flats need to be covered with black plastic to give them a period of total darkness in order to induce germination. I've learned so much about how to germinate flower seed in the minimal possible amount of time by reading the seed catalogs.

Today more catalogs came in the mail---High Mowing Seeds and Lee Valley Tools' Christms catalog. I spent most of my 'catalog' time on Remy's website (Sample Seed Shop) working on an order there. I ordered more than I intended, but that's pretty typical for me.

I drool over all of it whether I am looking at catalogs or websites, and that's especially true after two tough summers where all the plants struggled, and the flowers really suffered because most of the water was going to trees, shrubs, fruits and veggies.

I am determined to have more flowers in 2013, no matter what the weather does. In the good years (when we have them), we have oodles of flowers, but in the bad drought years, about the only flowers that survive the drought are the ones in the flower bed beside the front porch and the ones in the veggie gardens' border. Everything else looks good (and lives) only as long as rain is falling. I am really ready to have a flower-filled year in 2013, even though I fear the drought will continue. I planted tons of flowers every year until the droughts of 2003 and 2005 started weeding out the ones that are less heat-tolerant and drought-tolerant. Nothing like a few years of recurring drought to weed out the weaker plants and leave you with only the strongest, toughest survivors.

Dawn I did receive my Twilley catalog this week. The only other catalog I've received this year was the HPS catalog last Friday. So far I haven't received near as many yet. I haven't done much online searching yet as I don't plan on ordering many seeds. I have most of what I will plant next year. I will place an order with Native Seeds, probably Burrell's Seeds and possibly a couple of more in the next few weeks. I want to try another bean variety or two from Native seeds. Overall I plan on cutting back on the amount of varieties I grow and mainly use seeds I've saved that have proven to at least tolerate the recent conditions we are experiencing. I will check out at least a few of the sites after they update for 013. I had been thinking about why I hadn't received many catalogs this year. Did receive the Dixondale catalog this week also. Jay

Received my catalog today, very impressive.

Charlie

All this talk about seed catalogs made me restless.

I went to Twilley's site, filled out the form to order the catalog But I knew there would be a wait - a week, more likely two weeks since Thanksgiving is this week. I clicked the online catalog and was able to download and save it on my computer - I have a good catalog to obsess over until the paper one arrives.

Dawn, this year I finally got all my seeds organized. Used Excel to make a master list of crops from Artichokes to Winter Squash, with columns for variety, source, description and growing advice from the seed company, then a column for my thoughts about those I grew in 2012 - and was the variety a keeper or not?

After making the vegetable list and another master list of flower seeds, I realized that I have enough seeds to last for a few lifetimes. Knowing that hasn't deterred me from looking for more. It's an obsession, and probably not a magnificent one.

My husband looks at the bags of seeds, envelopes from seed companies, shakes his head, cracks a little smile. I tell him to count his blessings ... he eats like a king (and I could be addicted to drugs or gambling)!

Have you grown any of the disease resistant varieties from Twilley? Several look very promising ....

I have scanned it briefly. I see they have Mt Whitney onion. Johnny's was the only source last year and sold out early. They have another intermediate variety I might try. I kept waiting to see what new varieties Dixondale might add but Bruce posted on another site that they wouldn't be adding anything for my area. I will order the Mt Whitney seeds in the next few days. Wish they had their 2013 catalog up online. I'm sure I will add a few things when I order. Jay

Pam, I don't think I've grown many of Twilley's varieties, but I intend to start trying some of them every year. For 2013, I'm thinking of trying a couple of their broccoli varieties (Castle Dome and Coronado Crown) that have received very good reviews from Farmerdill on the Cornell website. I figure if they do well for him in Georgia, they ought to grow well here as well. I might try a couple of the lettuce varieties they carry too. I'm always on the hunt for lettuce varieties that can ignore the early 90-degree-plus days that hit us randomly in March and April some years. I hate it when early hot days cause the lettuce to bolt earlier than it should. That happened both in 2011 and 2012 because we were hitting the 90s before Easter, which is just ridiculous. One reason I've posted only my 2013 tomato grow list and not the grow list of all other veggies is that I'm still trying to decide which Twilley varieties I'll try this year.

As for the seed addiction.....Tim is just happy it is not a shoe, purse or diamond addiction. Seeds are a lot more affordable and don't require much storage space in the closet.

Jay, The catalogs and the updated websites seem a little slow this year. I did go to Sample Seed Shop's website last week and order a bunch of seeds from Remy that "Santa Tim" is giving me for Christmas. I also have looked at Peaceful Valley Farm Supply's website, which has updated for 2013. However, a few weeks ago I went to their website and ordered 2012 seed that was on sale for, I think, 50% off, so I don't really need any of their new 2013 seeds. Burpee has updated their website and sends e-mails constantly, but they are pricing themselves right out of my price range. I don't care how promising anything in their catalog sounds--I am not going to pay $5.95 or $6.95 per packet to try a variety that is unproven to me. I try to order Brandy Boy and 4th of July every 3 or 4 years and then not order again until those two are used up. Then, if there is something at Burpee I want to try, I order it when I'm ordering those two tomato varieties.

Dixondale did add two new short-day varieties that I'll try this year, but I noticed they didn't add any intermediate or long day types. Of course, they really don't add new ones at a very fast rate.

SESE's latest newsletter said they're getting ready to ship the catalog in December. Well, I sure hope it is in early December. I usually get impatient and order online before the catalog gets here which also means the website isn't completely updated yet, and then there's always something in the catalog I wish I'd ordered. The Johnny's Selected Seeds catalog is a special favorite of mine too, as is Baker Creek. I can spend the whole winter looking through the catalogs from Johnny's, SESE and Baker Creek until I practically have them memorized. Forget coffee table books, I love these three coffee table catalogs.

I try really hard to get all my seeds ordered and received before the end of the year. There's nothing worse than ordering in January with the expectation the seeds will arrive in a couple of weeks, and then having them back-ordered and not getting them until March or even later.

If this drought hangs on, I will push hard to plant everything I can as early as I can in the hope that I can get a good harvest before the heat sets in, and without spending a fortune watering the garden. Last year, the early planting strategy worked incredibly well because we warmed up early, but I didn't plant everything early--only about half. I planted Waltham Butternut transplants from Wal-Mart in March, and was harvesting winter squash by the end of June. That's never happened before (and might never happen again). This year, I'm aiming to improve my harvest of all crops by planting everything as early as is humanly possible. You know, I'd plant the cool-season stuff tomorrow if I thought I could get away with it. : )

Actually, all of the fall cool-season crops are producing very well still which makes it hard for me to think about planting more in mid-winter, but we usually are hitting the teens intermittently for overnight lows by early to mid-December, so the cool-season crops won't keep going indefinitely. Well, except for the kale and chard. I don't know how cold it has to get to really hurt kale or Swiss chard because even when they have freeze damage, they bounce right back. I'm not sure I've had anything hurt them until we got down into the single digit temperatures, and even that only froze them to the ground and then they instantly regrew.

I'm ready to sow seeds now, but it is too early. (Way too early!) Every day now I say to myself that I ought to dust off the light shelf, plug it all in and check the bulbs and replace any that seem weak, sterilize a couple of flats and start some seeds, but then I talk myself out of it. This week I noticed some very tiny volunteer tomato plants are growing in the cattle trough with the lettuce. I grew dwarf and cascading tomato varieties in that trough until October when I replaced them with lettuce, kale and chard. I suppose the leaves of the taller greens have protected the baby tomato plants from the frost and freezing temperatures. I think today I might dig up a few of those volunteers, pot them up and put them in the greenhouse if for no other reason than to see how long they last in there before they freeze. On most nights so far this fall the greenhouse is staying consistently 2 to 5 degrees warmer than the outside air. It will stay 5 degrees warmer as opposed to 2 degrees warmer if I had the doors and vents closed by 3 p.m. so the heat can buildup before sunset. If I don't close the vents and doors until just before sunset, it only stays a couple of degrees warmer than the outside air. I also think part of the reason for this is that the days are still pretty warm and the ground isn't real cold yet. I expect that sometime in December I'll see that the greenhouse is going exactly as low as the outside temperature at night.

Dawn

Gee, you guys are early planners. I am just starting to get catalogs but haven't had time to look at them. Just got home from Utah this morning and haven't even unpacked. I have way to many seeds, and ordered a Willhite order early, but nothing else so far. The only thing that I know I don't have is Sugar Snap Peas, but that doesn't mean that is all I will order. I spend days looking at Baker Creek's catalog when it comes, then go over there and buy what I need (and dozens more, LOL).

Carol,

Well that's because you've been gallivating around the country like the seasoned world traveler you are. We were stuck at home where our 'escape' is to work on garden planning.

I used to do the same thing with Willhite since it was only about an hour west of Fort Worth. I'd look at the catalog, decide what I wanted and then drive over there to order it at the counter. They weren't set up, really, as a retail store with seed packets hanging on the walls, but you could turn in your order at the counter and someone would go to the warehouse, pull the packets and bring them to you. I only had to wait a few minutes to get them.

One local store carried their seeds in our early years here and it was fun to be able to walk into the store and get them. I haven't been in that store in a long time because it is off the beaten path and we really don't go to that part of Ardmore much, so I haven't been in there at seed-shopping time in years and don't know if they still carry Willhite Seeds.

There's nothing wrong with buying too many seeds. When you have extra, you can sometimes share them with someone who's had a seed germination issue, or trade them with friends, or even plant too early because even if those seeds sprout and freeze, you have plenty more as back-up. I feel like having seeds is kinda like having money in the bank.

Dawn

I agree Dawn. My Willhite order was for more of a 'seed bank' type order for the common things plus some onion seed I want to start early. I also traded a few onion types with Larry so I have more kinds to try.

I picked radishes and several types of lettuce today, so we will have a nice salad tonight. It looks like I had some chewing insects living under my low tunnel so I see some damage there, but probably not enough to cause a problem. I had lettuce under the tunnel and in a container out in the open and both are lovely with no damage.

I say I will get garlic in every Fall and I rarely do, but at least I didn't buy any this year, so none is going to waste. I had planned to plant some from my pantry but didn't even get that done. I hope to start serious garden clean-up in a couple of days. Today is just laundry day from the trip. I have one corner of the garden fairly cleaned and the neighbors brought me lots of leaves while I was gone, so I will start moving those into the garden also. My pepper plants were still green when I left, with only damage on the top of the plant, but they are dead and ready to pull now. My asparagus is still green so it will be awhile before I can get those 'wintered in'.

The OSU dates seem to work well for me if I stay right in the middle of the 2 dates.

Al and Eddie can't stop talking about Front Sight in Nevada and how much fun they had, so I am sure they will go many times. I didn't do a lot of things except visit with the family. My SIL had emptied their kitchen to the bare walls and was doing a total new kitchen about twice the size of the old one, so I spent a lot of time talking to him and watching him work. LOL It is a huge house, but had a tiny kitchen which just didn't fit the house. Both my daughter and SIL are fabulous cooks, so they needed a new one. I think their new appliances cost more than my new kitchen did, but I love my kitchen. I did manage to get to the Bosch store and buy a few more accessories for my new mixer while I was out there (like I needed more).

I ate some fantastic bread while I was gone and can't wait to try and duplicate it. It was a mild sourdough with green onions and Asiago cheese. I looked at my nice stand of walking onions today and knew I would be cutting some of those green tops in the next few days to give that a try.

Carol,

Tim is the big lettuce eater here, and he just loves the lettuce in the cattle trough. It has grown extra-well this fall, so there's far more than we can eat, but we just cut it and give it to the chickens every day. I planted Sea of Red and Merlot for the dark red lettuces in the fall, and I believe it is Sea of Red that is so dark red that it is sort of maroonish-black. It looks striking against green lettuce and speckled red and green lettuce. We cycle through the lettuce growing in various spots. For a couple of weeks we cut from the tubs in the greenhouse, then while those are regrowing, we cut from the cattle trough, and then when we've used the cut-and-come-again method to harvest from that for a couple of weeks, we cycle back to the greenhouse tubs. We aren't using the lettuce in the big garden much yet, but I cut some of it fairly regularly for the chickens. As long as we're able to protect the lettuce on really cold nights, we'll be able to harvest it endlessly. Every now and then I remember to harvest from the lettuce and southern red mustard growing in the wheelbarrow.

Something is eating holes in my Swiss Chard big time. I think it is grasshoppers. As incredible as this will seem, even though we have had many freezing nights and frosty mornings, this week we have a new hatch of grasshoppers that are about 1/8 of an inch long. I simply cannot believe it. Little hungry grasshoppers are the last thing we need!

Later this week I need to harvest a bunch of turnips and beets, kale and mustard greens.

I have to go to a funeral tomorrow which sort of rearranged my plans for this week. The good thing about gardening is that it is flexible----if I can't do it tomorrow, I can do it the next day or in a couple of days or whenever.

Today was a spectacularly lovely day with a high at our house of 75. It is supposed to be 78 degrees tomorrow. While many trees have lost their leaves, some have not. The red oaks are about to peak and they are so gorgeous right now. Oddly, while most of the blackjack oaks have boring brown leaves this year, one of them is also a brilliant red. Some of the post oaks are brown, but others are a lovely golden brown. Most of these trees will peak in color, and then their leaves will fade a bit and fall. I always feel like it is such a bittersweet time when the red oaks peak and begin fading. That's sort of a sign here that autumn is drawing to a close and winter is approaching, despite the fact that the temperature will be near 80 degrees tomorrow.

That bread sounds yummy and I know you'll have fun trying to duplicate it. My perennial onions are nice and green now too, so they're having a really good fall after a pretty hot, dry summer.

I am not a garlic specialist like Jay. I just plant grocery store garlic every year in the fall and harvest it in June. Even when I forget to plant it, we often get sprouts from some bulbs or bulblets I missed when digging the garlic back in the summer.

That sounds like a fantastic trip, and it was a lot more fun than being home working in the garden, which you can do any old time you choose.

Tim cut the grass with the riding mower today and used the big triple tub grasscatcher to pick up all the clippings and chopped leaves. I was busy in the house so he dumped the clippings into molasses feed tubs. I have 15 molasses feed tubs of chopped/shredded leaves mixed with grass clippings to dump into the garden beds on Wed if I have time, or on Friday if I don't get to it on Wednesday.

We went to the grocery store today and it was a madhouse. I think (and hope) that was the last time this week we'll step foot in a store. We try to avoid getting caught in the huge crowds in the stores on that last day or two before a major holiday, and there is no way on this earth I ever willingly go shopping on Black Friday. I'd rather be any place else. I've already just about finished my Christmas shopping, so it will be easy to avoid the stores and the huge hordes of shoppers.

Tonight while we're watching the second part of "The Dust Bowl", I'm going to work on my Twilley Seed order.

Dawn

I got my Twilley Seed catalog yesterday. Has anyone tried any of these personal size melons on page 16? Or any varieties not sold by Twilley? I'd like to try one, but I haven't been able to find very many reviews. I've never even noticed them before but I guess it's because most companies don't give them their own category.

Leslie