This week I ordered the seeds for the year! I’m always so excited when it’s time to order! So many hopes and expectations, dreams and memories!
New seeds
There’s a lot of seeds to order every year. As you can read below I’m planning on getting better at growing my own seed, but so far I’m dependent on buying. To get all the seeds I need I have a spreadsheet in google drive where I have written down everything that we want grow. It started with a list of things we often eat and then it has been filled in when we come across interesting crops or crops that is easy to grow in our climate but we don’t eat so much yet.
I started the seed order process by going through what seeds we still have from last year and made a mark in the list. Then I went to my favorite seed store online and ordered the rest. A few new things got into the list. Mostly flowers but also turnip and marrowfat pea.
Seeds from last year
We have a lot of seeds left from last year. Some are probably even from the year before. Since we are not a big, industrial farm some seed bags last a long time and as long as you keep your seeds in a dark, cool and dry space there’s often no problem. What can happen is that the germination goes down but that’s not a big issue for us. We can always buy new seeds or plant some more if we notice that too few seeds have grown. Worst case, we miss that kind of crop one year and either we don’t eat it or we buy it.
Growing seeds
One of my goals for this years gardening is to grow some seeds. I haven’t done that before except from taking seeds from paprika, chili and tomatoes. I believe that’s some of the easiest seeds to collect. I don’t know how it is with chili and paprika but tomatoes can cross pollinate which means that if you have different kinds of tomatoes in your garden and take seeds from them you don’t know what you will get. Well, it will of course be a tomato! 🙂 I think, even if you take seeds from a store bought tomato you don’t know exactly what you will get. It has to do with the way they cross different kinds of tomatoes to get certain characteristics. It’s a whole science and I’m just starting to learn more about it. Anyway I’m gonna try to take seeds from my beans, carrots (you take seeds the second year so I will replant some carrots we grew last year), peas and squash.
Grounded gardens 