favorite seed companies/garden vegetables

[StinkerBell]

Wanna know something even sadder? My Nana (my great grandma) refused to teach me (btw she was a teacher) how to can (canning), she said I would kill the family with botulism. I am to this day afraid of even trying cause I hear her voice tellin me I will kill my family.





Back to the garden, my best bet will be the front yard in some square foot boxes.

[glenn kangiser]

Not likely you will kill anybody, Stink, but --

We like to freeze stuff.  It's pretty easy -- grow stuff ---- freeze it.  Some like to blanch things but for a lot of things that isn't necessary.  Canning is a lot of work which makes it a bit repulsive when you don't have a lot of spare time or you are a lazy dude like me.

Get your garden growing, Stink.  Get a sack full of stuff out of the garden, then come back here and we can talk about killing stuff.  

Many of the old timers didn't want youngsters to know how to do things, because they didn't want to take the time to teach them or didn't want them to realize it wasn't all that hard.

My ex-BIL had a phobia about talking about how much stuff costs.  That again is to stifle competition or to keep people from learning.  I have no such phobias -- well, when you think about it, I am probably quite near perfect.

[Homegrown Tomatoes]

And did he mention how humble he is?

You won't kill anyone with botulism if you start canning produce.  Start with water bath canning and if you really feel the need, you can move to pressure canning later.  Tomatoes and pickled beets or cucumber pickles are really easy.  Salsa is really easy.  

But before you can do that, you need to grow something...  so start small with something you like to eat and grow from there.  If you like okra, I think it is one of the prettiest garden plants.  It has big hibiscus-like blooms.  However, if it is too wet and cool it won't do well... needs hot dry weather to produce.  A lot of squash (well, cucurbits in general) are susceptible to powdery mildew, but I've found that spraying them with a mixture of powdered milk and water works well to preserve them and fight off the mildew (it looks like a grayish or white powder on the leaves... you just wake up one morning and there it is.)  I also tried dusting them with powdered milk, but that doesn't work as well.  The original study I read used one part whole milk to I think 6 parts water, but that would get mighty costly, especially if you reapply after rain.  So I bought a big generic box of powdered skim milk and have found that it works great... It is cheap, and it works... what more could you ask for?  

I don't even know what a spider mite is... probably some evil creature like the asian beetles I'd never seen until we moved here.  I am having to learn a lot more about pest control here as we no longer have chickens.  In OK, we never had any bug problems because our chickens patrolled and kept them at bay for us.  However, I've been introduced to all sorts of pesteriferous animals here... can you believe I used to think chipmunks were cute???  We have problems with earwigs getting into the napa cabbages and eating them from the inside out here... so much so that I've given up growing them... they also like green cabbages, but seem to leave the chard and lettuce alone.  The evil chipmunks burrow under all my plants and dig wherever they please, and sample each tomato they can get their dirty little paws on... leaving seeds to sprout all over the place.  Sigh.  Life is easier with chickens... not that they would really help the chipmunk problem, I guess.

[MountainDon]

Freezing is much easier than old fashioned canning, and the food tastes better too, IMO.

For those, like myself, who do not garden anymore for one reason or another, I'd like to pass on some info about Tomatoes that are the next best tasting thing to home grown.

They're greenhouse tomatoes, but not at all like what you're likely thinking. There are probably more than one brand around; these are the ones I'm familiar with. You'll know them the moment you see them in the stores because they're the ones still attached to the cut off sections of vine. That makes the big difference. I used to think it was just a gimmick, a way to sucker you into thinking they were fresher, better, whatever. Then I tried some.    They come from AZ.

http://eurofresh.com/

[Homegrown Tomatoes]

I agree that most things taste better frozen than canned... I do admit I like canned tomatoes a little better.  If you have freezer space and you remember to label stuff, it's a good idea.  Some things I blanch before freezing and some I don't.  I also like canned salsa just fine... and of course, pickles.  Another thing we like to do is dry some foods. Dried squash with a little dill, lemon, and salt make a great substitute for chips or crackers...they are crunchy and flavorful, and probably a lot better for you than chips.  My kids like them better, that's for sure.  I blanched and dried a bunch of swiss chard last year.  Some of it I didn't season, and some I seasoned with sesame and salt.   Both were really good.  The plain one we threw in soups and stews and casseroles all year.  The seasoned one we ate as is or sometimes used in Korean food.  However, canning isn't some big mystery... if you ever want to try it out just for your own edification, look up the Ball Blue Book of canning recipes... it has a bunch of good basic recipes and instructions.  Besides, homemade jellies and jams make a great Christmas present.  When we lived in OK, we always gave out pecans and apple butter for Christmas.  

[glenn kangiser]

Sassy made some frozen strawberry jam earlier this year.  It's good.

We like to plant extra and leave some of the plants to go to seed if they are a decent variety.  Letting things reseed themselves gives you tons of seed for free.  If some of the things have cross pollinated you may get a bad variety but still edible.  We had some Kale and broccoli cross and made a rather tough to eat plant but most things do quite well if you let them go to seed and you usually get some neat looking flowers before the seed also.  The birds love to lunch on the seed but if you leave enough there will be plenty for all.

[Sassy]

When I lived in Washington state I canned salmon - we'd give jars of that away for Christmas.  I also froze it & sometimes we'd have some local indian friends smoke it.

I've also dried peaches & nectarines.  They're really good.  I've done the sulfured type but like the ones I didn't sulfur better.  Have also made fruitstrips (can't remember the name - you can buy it in the store) like fruit rollups.  Used to make a lot of different cooked jams but now like the frozen.  Made a marmalade once out of kumquats - cooked, used to pick wild blackberries up north & make lots of cooked jam & pies/cobblers with that - froze a lot of the berries.  We have wild blackberries down here but haven't gotten around to picking them as we don't get a lot of rain & they aren't real big.

Through the years I've mostly frozen stuff.  I need to try & grow some blackeyed peas & sugar snap beans (or peas?).  

Stinkerbell, you could try growing some basil & other herbs in your window sill or a sunny area in the house - do you have house plants?  That's a good test of how well you'll do - my mom always had a lot of house plants & so have I... at 1st they didn't do terrific but over the years I've improved in my ability to keep them alive.  

[glenn kangiser]

That is questionable though-- I put my garden on a hose timer so it always gets watered as needed.  I forget about house plants and they are just one more little thing to do.. :-/

I know -- "But they're pretty."

[Homegrown Tomatoes]

Well, I never judge anyone's ability to garden by their ability to keep houseplants alive... for me, if it isn't edible or medicinal, I end up forgetting about it.  My houseplants are all very forgiving, like MIL's tongue, spider plants and African violets because I don't do so well remembering to water, ect. The food plants, I never forget about.  In fact, I just dug a bunch of sweet potatoes this morning and we plan on eating every last one of them this evening for dessert.  (They're  little and there weren't too many of them... in Oklahoma one year I planted slips from just one sweet potato and grew over 40 lbs. of sweet potatoes... here they don't do nearly so well!)  Carrots are another easy crop for cooler weather, Stink... and they'll reward you fairly quickly.  Fresh homegrown carrots have a lot more flavor than what you get in the store.

[glenn kangiser]

Sassy and I plant flowers in the garden between the vegetables so I know I will get them watered and I consider them secondary to the food crop.  My intent is to be fully self sufficient so that when the government screws up the system in one way or another -- (which is inevitable) we will still have food.

[tanya]

Territorial Seed Company, Seeds of Change, and the Abundant Life Seed Co. are all good seed companys with great advice and selections.  Some things that will grow great in a shady spot- lettuce, spinach, green onions, carrots, broccolli and all those broccli type plants, strawberries and blackberries will do fine too.  Build nice fluffy raised beds and they will be beautiful gardens in no time.  

[Sassy]

Hi Tanya, good to see you back!  You're right about those veggies growing well in cooler, shadier, damper ground.  

[Homegrown Tomatoes]

I grow my carrots in the shade under my tomatoes.  My theory is that the tap roots of the carrot loosen the soil to a greater depth, thereby helping the water get deeper to the tomato roots, and I've also heard that tomatoes help with the root nematodes that sometimes deform carrots.  Sometimes I also grow the basil in between the tomatoes because it smells so wonderful when you reach down to pick a ripe tomato and come up with a handful of fresh tomato-basil smell.    We grew some of the sweet potatoes around in our front (east) flower bed in a mostly shady area.  The vines were gorgeous, and while they didn't produce a lot, they did produce some.  Nothing seems to eat sweet potato leaves, either, so they don't get as chewed up looking as a lot of ornamentals.

[glenn kangiser]

I haven't checked our sweet potatoes - I planted a few slips earlier as they sprouted for some our BIL gave us.  Still real pretty plants in the garden growing well at this time.

Our potatoes don't like what ever I'm doing to them so guess I'll have to study up and see what they may want as far as nutrients that they may not be getting.

[Homegrown Tomatoes]

Sweet potatoes are really pretty.  I can never stand to dig them up until a frost makes the leaves wither... they're easier to get to then, anyway.  This year, I started mine in jars inside during the winter, so they were already growing fast and furious before I risked putting them outdoors.  We went camping for a few days and when we came home the vines had climbed up the insides of the windows and across the curtain rods.

[Homegrown Tomatoes]

This is the time of year I start to wish that Christmas and New Year's would hurry up and be done so that I'd start getting seed catalogues.  Not that I'm generally in a hurry for life  to be hectic and hurried, but I love "catalogue season".  

[glenn kangiser]

Here - an heirloom one you can browse online.  Not the same but may ease the pain of waiting.

http://www.seedsavers.org/departments.asp?dept=8

[tanya]

I wish  they would send out the catalogs before the holidays, then I could just submit my present list.