Carol,

If ever there was an understatement, "I have lots of seeds" might be it. I'm beginning to think that in another year or two, you'll have collected one packet of each variety BCHS sells. : )

I bet lots of people are getting seeds for Christmas and that the seed companies are really busy. I know I'm getting seeds for Christmas (big surprise, huh?), and the ones I ordered from Victory Seeds last Wednesday arrived yesterday which seems like pretty fast handling/shipping at this time of year.

I wonder if the Gettle family might have stopped by Comstock,Ferre & Company (a very old seed company now owned by BCHS for those who are not familiar with it) on business and then traveled on to NYC since they were fairly close? More likely, they might be doing a PR tour for their new vegan cookbook. Sasha probably is a seasoned world traveler already, and I always enjoy the photos of her in the catalog.

I have almost all the seeds accumulated in my seed box that I intend to plant this coming year. I only have to sit still long enough to do 2 or 3 more seed orders and I'm "done", or at least I am done until more catalogs arrive with varieties I cannot live without.

After 3 Christmas parties in the last 3 days, I'm just about all Christmas'd out and hope to start the tomato seeds tomorrow that I had intended to start in November for February container plantings. I knew I wouldn't get to it in November because of all the fires and holiday shopping, decorating and other preparations, but tomorrow should work. If something prevents me from getting those seeds started tomorrow, I'll probably just drop the idea of raising my own seedlings to transplant to pots in mid-February, and just buy BP transplants again. Then I'll start my regular season seeds in January for March transplants.

It's going to be a beautiful day outside today with a high here this afternoon in the 70s (near our record for the day, but not expected to tie or break it), so I intend to spend some time working in the yard and garden.

I'm going to link Comstock Ferre& Co's website for folks who are not familiar with it. You might notice that their website is starting to bear a resemblance to BC's for obvious reasons.

Dawn

Here is a link that might be useful: Comstock, Ferre & Co. Website

Oh, you got tepary beans! I'm planning to grow tepary beans in an unimproved area of my yard as well!

Tracy, that was a last minute choice and I don't know where I am going to plant them, but if we do have drought all summer that may be the only thing we can grow. LOL

Dawn, It is interesting WHO commented on "I have lots of seeds". Guess I'm helping on the Gettle vacation fund. LOL Maybe we will see the folks at Willhite traveling soon with the way you and I both order from them.

Of course, we can't discuss this topic without mentioning Jay. I still remember when he offered to send some tomato seeds to someone and we ask what varieties he had. I think the list was around 450, wasn't it? If I am in the running for largest seed stash, I am sure I am not higher than third place.

The Purple Podded Beans are your fault, because I planted the ones you gave me last year and loved them. I thought the plant was pretty and produced a nice bean. I saved a few seeds from those last year, but was afraid I didn't have enough. Rattlesnake produced heavily for me and the gold bean is new. I usually only plant bush beans one time in early Spring to get those first beans of the season and after that I depend on the pole beans which will produce until a freeze. They work so much better for me since they are easy to weed and I can pick standing up. My plan is to plant a lot of different types, each type on a tomato cage, so I was looking for beans that would stand out from the rest, with different colors and distinctions.

The pepper is one of my favorites and planted every year, but I have not grown either of the tomatoes. I had Riesentraube on my list for another year and it was out of stock when I tried to buy it, then I forgot about it.

Of course, you know the story about the Seminole Pumpkin. I had trouble getting it to germinate, but finally got one plant. Well, I still don't know what the seed was, but that one plant produced four winter squash about 4-5 times the size of the Seminole I was expecting, so I am trying again.

I have never grown Quinoa, but we eat it, so I thought I would plant a few just to see if I could grow it. Sugar Snaps are a staple crop for us and our favorite garden snack in the Spring. The other two are new to me and 'new' colors for the garden.

See...I have a reason for buying more seeds. HaHa. And...just how many seeds has Miss Dawn bought? Don't try to hide behind the "Santa" excuse when you answer.

Carol, Of course, I would comment on your seed collection, if only to draw attention away from my own seed problem.

I will concede you're likely in 3rd place, which in this case is better than being in 1st or 2nd place. We all know that Jay is still the King.

Maybe your Seminole is a mutant that hereinafter will be known as Super Seminole or Mammoth Seminole. We'll see what you get with the next batch of seeds. Did the mature ones turn buff like regular Seminole would?

We eat quinoa but I've never tried to grow it because everything I've read said it likes cool temperatures. I have wondered if we could grow it in fall so that at least it would have cool temps when it was forming the seed heads. I'll be watching to see how it does for you there, especially if the weather is more moderate this year and we have anything close to normal spring temperatures.

Miss Dawn the Santa's helper elf has not been keeping track of how many seed packets she has ordered for Santa Claus Tim to put beneath the Christmas tree for her, but I'll guess about 3 dozen (a lot of them were purchased during Peaceful Valley Farm Supply's season-ending, 50% off sale and a lot of those are for next fall's garden), and I still have three small seed orders to complete. Not all of those are veggies, some are for herbs and quite a few are for flowers since not much has survived long enough the last two summers to reseed themselves.

My Christmas shopping and grocery shopping is done and I hope that now I can stay home and not step foot into a store again until after Christmas. Is that likely? Maybe not....I just remembered we need to buy hen scratch and deer corn sometime soon. At least that requires only a trip to the feed store which, in just about 2 or 3 weeks, will be putting out the seeds, onion plants and tubers as well as bare root fruit trees and berries. I guess if there's anything else I've forgotten, I might have to force myself to go into a store at least one more time between now and Christmas, but the only shopping I have left to do is online seed shopping....and you know that I'll be doing plenty of that because I always do.

Dawn

Dawn,
Three of the squash were starting to turn in the garden and have totally changed color, but it is more orange than buff. The 4th was big but not as mature. It is now both green and orange, but the skin isn't hard so I plan to use it soon.

Carol, Between the size, shape and color of your winter squash, it seems likely we can rule out Seminole. So, I wonder what they sent you? Crossed seed? Maybe just an incorrect variety that somehow was mispackaged/mislabeled while being processed and packaged? I've been trying to come up with something that would be as large as the squash you harvested with that long neck and which also would be orange, and which also likely is a C. moschata since it grew and performed similar to other moschatas. Maybe Greek Sweet Red if they carried that in the same year you purchased your seed.

Even though Seminole Pumpkin is widely known to produce variable shapes, I've always found it to be fairly consistent in terms of size and color. I will get smaller ones if they develop during extreme or exceptional drought, but I won't get real big fruit like you did even if we are getting tons of rain.

Let us know about the flavor once you try one. You never know, it might have incredible flavor.

Dawn

Carol:

Thanks for posting your Baker Creek seed list. I've been thinking about peppers and beans. My preliminary pepper list is ridiculous. I've been waiting to see lists posted by the experts so I thank you.

I had good luck with bush beans last year - planted a new row of seeds every 2-3 weeks thru Sept. I planned to plant pole beans, got swamped, dithered about what to order until the window of opportunity slammed shut.

I need to make these decisions now, not wait until life gets crazy busy. I'll check out your beans and peas. Never heard of tepary beans.

In early December, I planted English peas - Green Arrow (farmerdill's advice). I've never planted peas in December but I trust farmerdill, so it should be fine. We love Sugar Snaps but I don't know if they would survive being planted this early.

Dawn - your seed orders are coming in! I'm green. I needed a nudge - thank you.

Pam

I grew a little bit of chia last year. It was supposed to like cooler weather but that stuff went nuts on into early summer. I didn't see anything " cool" about it. It was a big plant!
I wonder if quinoa would be like growing winter wheat or oats? Plant in fall, germinate, then it grows in early spring?
Have you grown Armenian cucumbers before? They're the zuchinni of cucumbers! They're not really a cucumber but they're sweet and never bitter, even when you miss one and they end up 10 pound monsters! I'd only plant about 2 plants, unless you're sharing with an army.
I found mine were really, really happy in almost full shade this year, much happier then ever before. That and flood irrigation every two weeks, about 6-10 inches of standing water on it really made it grow like crazy. We have insanely cheap irrigation water here so I try to plant what I can in the irrigated areas.

Pam-check out Native Seed Search for tepary beans. They are native to the sonoran desert and require very little water. If anything could survive a drought and heat, they could. They also have more nutrition than most beans and very delicious. The only problem is that they can carry a disease that won't effect them but could effect other beans. This is why I'm going to put mine in a n unimproved area of my yard. I figure, they grow in a desert, I can grow them outside my garden.

Tracy, I've wondered for years if we could grow quinoa the way we grow winter rye and oats. Maybe I'll try that in 2013.

I do grow Armenian cucumber every now and then, though not always every year. In 2012, I grew huge numbers of these cukes so that I could give them to the chickens on hot days. Our chickens love them, and when I began walking to their coop area with a big Armenian cucumber in my hands, no matter how far they were away from the coop free-ranging, they came running like little maniacs so they could devour the cukes. I always let the ones for the chickens grow huge before I harvest them. For kitchen use, I harvest them while they are much smaller. Now that the chickens are used to having them, I'll likely have to grow some for them every summer.

I grew Armenian cukes this year in two locations. The main crop was on the fence on the western end of the garden, where they had full sun until about noon and then heavily dappled shade thereafter. I grew a smaller crop on a portion of the southern garden fence, with the driveway just outside that fence. They produced more heavily, but also were more heat-stressed since they were in full sun from sunrise to sunset and were attacked more by spider mites late in the season and by blister beetles in late July or early August.

I did plant a huge number of Armenian cucumber plants for a small family, but that's because I intended to use the extras for the chickens. It worked out really well. Once the blister beetles had decimated the Armenian cukes, we had an extreme number of cantaloupes (muskmelons) and watermelons as well, so I gave the chickens a watermelon or a muskmelon just about every day. It was a great way to ensure they were getting enough moisture on those extremely hot July and August days.

I made pickles from some of the smaller Armenian cukes, but since I made tons of pickles from regular cukes as well, I have not yet opened one of the jars made from Armenian cukes.

I love Native Seeds/SEARCH and at the rate things are going in terms of summer heat and drought, I want to start growing more of the varieties they carry that are from hot, dry areas that have hot nights. Some of their beans have grown really well for me in precious drought years earlier in the 2000s.

Those of you who are new to Native Seeds/SEARCH, be sure you read the descriptions and choose varieties that would match your climate. Some of Native Seed's varieties were collected from high altitude areas that have cool nights even when their days are very hot. Those varieties might not perform as well here as the ones from areas that have hot days and hot nights.

For anyone looking for seeds of Devil's Claw, they carry several different ones.

Dawn

Here is a link that might be useful: Native Seeds/SEARCH

I pickled Armenian melons this summer and they did ok. I found the striped, deeply ridged ones kept a better crunch than the solid green ones.

I got Riesentraube seeds as a free sample last year. The fruit wasn't memorable but I was very happy with how strong and healthy the plant was.

Never heard of tepary beans, I'll look those up right now!

Betty, Thanks for the info on the Armenian cukes. I did use the light green ones and I guess I need to open a jar and sample them and see how they did before I decide which kind of Armenian cukes to plant this year. The problem is I made several dozen jars of pickles and pickle relish and I didn't label which ones were made from Armenican cukes instead of pickling cukes. Hopefully I can tell by looking at the jars!

Riesentraube was one of the first heirloom cherry type tomatoes I ever planted. What I liked about it was that it tasted more like a full-sized tomato and not extra-sweet like SunGold (although I do love SunGold). I haven't grown it in several years now and have kind of missed it. Truthfully, though, once you're used to SunGold and Black Cherry, all the other bite-sized ones taste pretty much the same as in "not quite as good" as those two. : )

Dawn

Dawn, I agree on the cherry size tomatoes and no matter what else I may try, they will be replacing something else besides Black Cherry and Sungold. Those two make the grow list every year.

Speaking of Baker Creek, did anyone grow the Jing Orange Okra last year, and if so, what is your opinion of it?

Susan

Susan,

I grew Jing Orange okra last year. It grew fine, tasted fine and was a good producer as long as I kept it well-watered. When I stopped watering, it was the first okra variety to die. The other two or three varieties I grew lived another month after I stopped watering. Was there anything special about Jing Orange? No. It was just your typical red okra, and if we are talking about only red okras, I much prefer Hill Country Red. For flavor and tenderness in 2012, I preferred the Mammoth Green Okra because the pods stayed tender even when they were twice as long as those from Jing Orange, and I like to grow Beck's Big Buck because its pods are easily 3 or 4 times as big around as regular okra and it freaks people out when they see them. I always enjoy freaking out my friends when they visit my garden. : )

Dawn

I grew one Jing from the 2011 spring fling. I struggled to keep it watered enough, so it stayed about 6" tall and produced one adorable little pod. Granted, I'm on the opposite end of the gardening-skill spectrum from Dawn, but there are better choices. Pretty plant though.

Almost every seed I started indoors this year came from Baker Creek. I am super impressed with the viability of the seeds so far, every single seed I started has germinated. Looking forward to seeing how the mature plants do.