garden seeds

For some time gardening has been on the decline.

At the same time there has been a consolidation of the seed houses. Vermont Bean is now located in Wisconsin. One company owns a dozen or so of the venerable seed houses from Randolph Wisconsin.

Cooks Garden, the wonderful source for hundreds of lettuce and salad varieties is not in New England any longer, but is a part of the Burpee group. The list goes on and on.

But at the same time I have discovered regional seed houses I did not know existed. This year I bought seeds from Victory Seeds from Oregon, a company that specializes in heirloom varieties. Those are the kinds, usually open pollinated (not hybrids) from which you can save seeds. They may also be the varieties that grandma grew in her garden in Nebraska.

Territorial Seeds is another good Oregon seed house.

With the opening of the Easter block, some houses have a good variety of heirloom seeds from that source, some of have been grown for generations.

My favorite eating tomato is Brandywine, a variety that was developed by the Amish a hundred and fifty years ago.

The heirlooms often do not bear as big a crop, and they are not ripe at the same time, and they are usually way too delicate to ship a couple of thousand miles, which is to say they are ideal for the home gardner.

Gardening is always an experiment. I grew some turnips last year, but did not find they added a whole lot to my soups and stews.

I grew 4 or 5 kinds of beans hoping for a good crop of dry beans for soups, but did not get a good crop, so this year I will change my method a bit and give it another try.

My potato crop was superb, mostly, but way more than we could possibly eat in a winter. I'll grow a fewer.

As I said, gardening is an experiment.