Yes!!! I now have the maize morado corn I thought I was getting from Baker Creek, based on the description and video they had at the time. Their name for the corn even changed at some point. It took quite a bit of searching, and I was very happy to find a source for these seeds. Since there were only 25 seeds per pack, I ordered four of them. For our purposes, planting only 25 seeds seems almost pointless. ;-) Plus, it was the only thing I was ordering from them, and with the cost of shipping, adding a few extra packets made it more worthwhile. Especially with ordering from the US and the dollar difference. I’m trying to focus more on Canadian sources, but none of them carry these seeds.
Last year, we started the Montana Morado/Mountain Morado corn indoors, then transplanting, and that ended up working very well. We will be doing that again. This year, however, we will work in making sure they are protected from critters, as much as we can, right from the start! I hope to be able to save seeds and, over time, acclimate them to our growing zone. This might take a few years, but I am determined! :-D
The corn was not the only thing in the package, though.
They also included some free seeds! :-) Dill Dukat. It’s not a variety I’ve heard of before. We’ve got dill seeds from plants my SIL gave us, but I’m more than happy to have another variety! From the description, these look like a good variety for harvesting more greens than the flowers or seeds, and I love dill greens!
I also really appreciate that they included the information insert for starting seeds. That was going the extra mile. :-)
While I am working towards ordering seeds from within Canada more, if I do need to order from the US for something, this company is definitely staying at the top of my list. I’m quite happy with them!
The US postal service, on the other hand, seemed to be having difficulties. :-D
With all but one order of seeds having arrived, I decided to do an inventory of what we have, including what we have left over from this past year’s garden.
I was a bit surprised by some of them.
One surprise was the Spoon tomatoes. We had two packets of those, and while I thought we had planted all the seeds, I found a surprising number of seeds at the bottom of each packet. So I combined them into one. There isn’t a huge amount, but it does mean we could start some indoors, if we felt like it. I don’t think we will, since we have so many other tomatoes. Plus, I wouldn’t be surprised if a bunch showed up on their own in the bed we grew them in this past summer!
I didn’t think we had any kohl rabi left, either. One of my daughters had done a second planting of those, and I thought she’d used the last of the seeds. The White Vienna is actually from the year before. We got two free packets of the Early Purple Vienne, and both got opened for some reason; my daughter probably missed the one I’d opened to do an early planting. We had no luck at all with kohl rabi this year and I plan on starting them indoors instead of direct sowing.
For the gourds, I want to do the Tennessee Dancing Gourds again. They did really well. I want to try the Ozark Nest Egg again; were it not for the drought delaying their development, we would have had lots of those. I also want to try the luffa again, because I’m a sucker for punishment, but will probably skip the Birdhouse and Thai Bottle gourds.
Though we still have seeds left from the summer squash collection, we also still have the other two collections I’d ordered by accident. I like having a good variety, and this year we’ll have green patty pan squash, too, so we’ll start just a few seeds of each. The Baby Pam pumpkin never germinated at all, but I think that had more to do with growing conditions. We have so many others, I don’t know that we’ll try them again. There are still Halona melon seeds left, but I also saved seeds from both the Halona and the Pixie, both of which did very well, plus some other seeds I saved from other melons we enjoyed.
I will happily grow more of the Teddy and Red Kuri (Little Gem) winter squash again, along with the new varieties we ordered. They may have had a hard time with the drought, but they were quite good, and they are much smaller varieties that – in more ideal conditions – are supposed to be prolific producers.
Not in the photo are the varieties of spinach and lettuce we still have lots of. They, and the chard, are for spring and fall planting, so we’ll have to plan those out – if we try growing chard again. We didn’t really eat them much. As for the radishes, I want to plant a just a few of each, much earlier, and leave them, as it’s the pods I’m after, not the root.
The carrots here are pelleted seeds, and there are still quite a lot. It’s easier to space the pelleted seeds when planting. With thinning not as much of a concern, I don’t think I used even half of each variety this past year. I will happily plant them again, along with the new varieties we got.
I was surprised to find the Merlin beets. I thought I’d mixed all the remaining beet seeds together to plant into the L shaped bed, but I guess I missed these. We were planning to plant only one variety next year, but it won’t hurt to have two. :-)
We have quite a bit of the green and gold bush beans left, but that packet of King Tut purple peas only has about 5 seeds in it, and those are seeds I’d saved myself. If I do plant those, they will be only for seed saving. I didn’t order any other peas this time, but those are something I can easily buy locally in the spring. As for the beans, we do have several varieties of pole beans, but bush beans tend to mature faster, so I might go ahead and do both.
These are all our new seeds, except for the Kulli corn that is still on the way. It seems like a lot, but for things like the squash and gourds in particular, we will only be starting a few seeds indoors for each. I would rather plant fewer of many varieties and see how they do, than have lots of one variety then discover it doesn’t like growing here. That, and it would get pretty boring eating the same variety of vegetable all year! For things like the onions… well, I’m finding we just can’t have too many of those!
The beginnings of our culinary herb garden is something I need to think about. We already have a mint that we found in the old kitchen garden, but I don’t know what kind they are. Not spearmint, is the most I can say for sure. Probably peppermint. I want to have permanent places for our culinary herbs, and the old kitchen garden makes the most sense, since it’s right at the house, but unless we start taking out the ornamental crab apple trees, and the double lilacs, roses and honeysuckles – which I have no intention of doing – there’s not a lot of well lit space left in there. I might try growing them in buried pots at first, so that as we build raised beds in there, they will be easy to transplant, and things like the mint will be contained.
One of the things about the squash is that, with their spreading habit, we can use them to reclaim more garden area. We’ll be growing potatoes using the Ruth Stout heavy mulching method again, for much the same reason. With so many climbers this year, we’ll need to build more trellises, too.
I’ve been talking to quite a few people who are looking to start gardening for the first time, out of necessity. There is a lot to consider. Especially in our Zone 3 growing zone. So if it seems like I’m spending an inordinate amount of time talking about gardening of late, that is partly way. I’ll be writing a post specifically for those who are suddenly finding themselves having to grow their own food, so if you have something specific you’d like me to include on that, or experiences you’d like to share, please feel free to mention it in the comments.
You can read about what we ordered from Baker Creek, and why, here.
The free seeds we got this time are an interesting addition! I was looking at them on the website, and had heard from people in local gardening groups that successfully grew them this past year. I decided against ordering them, since I was already ordering the Black Nebula carrots, and we still have seed left over from this year’s garden. However, now that we have them anyway, I’ll be happy to try them!
The delectable, lemon-yellow roots have a unique shape! These carrots have a fine-grained texture that is crispy and juicy with plenty of natural sugar. This variety hails from Uzbekistan and is popular across central Asia. Widely adaptable, this variety produced sweet roots even in the hot summer months during our Missouri greenhouse trials, but it is equally vigorous and tasty when grown in cool weather. Called “Mshak” in Uzbek, this variety is easy to grow in a range of soils and temperatures and the flavor is superb. We love this as a snacking or cooking carrot, and in Uzbekistan and Central Asia it is an essential ingredient in plov, or pilaf, a signature dish of that region.
Sounds like something that should grow all right in our region. The reviews for it are good, too.
At this point, we have only one more seed order still en route; the Kulli corn. Our next orders will be perishable stock, such as tubers, saplings and root stock. Those tend not to be shipped until ready for planting in our zone, but I still want to order them as early as I can!
It’s a good thing we’re planning to continually expand our garden over the years! We’re going to need more beds for everything we plan to grow this coming year, above taking into account the areas we grew in last summer will be used for planting berry hedges instead of vegetables next year. And we won’t even be planting everything I ordered this year! We still have a lot of work ahead of us before we reach our goal of growing sufficient vegetables and fruit to feed the four of us through the winter and spring, until the following year’s garden starts producing, with enough to share, too. I think we’re off to a pretty good start, though! As long as the weather co-operates. As much as I enjoy our relatively mild temperatures, we need more snow to help the water table recover in the spring, from this past summer’s drought!
We dropped from 0C/32F yesterday, to -16C/3F today – with a wind chill of -27C/-16F! I did NOT want to do a dump run today, that’s for sure, but we weren’t able to get it done on Saturday, since that’s when my awesome brother came over to mount our Starlink dish on the roof. So today, it was!
Since we were out anyhow, we swung by the post office. I am expecting my Baker Creek order in tomorrow, but I still got seeds, today! My second order from Heritage Seeds was in! That was really fast. :-D You can read about our first order, here, and our second order here.
There was an extra packet of seeds in there – and this time, I noticed the “free gift” sticker. I went back to our first order and, sure enough, the extra packet of seeds we’d found last time did have the sticker, too. I just missed it entirely!
Of course, I had to look up what it was they sent us! This is their description for “Gold Ball Turnip”.
Gold Ball Turnip (1854) (aka Orange Jelly)
Introduced around 1854, this wonderful heirloom turnip has yellow fine grained flesh and reaches peak flavor when harvested at 3” although the yellow globes will reach 4-5” at maturity. Great storage variety. One of the best tasting turnips. (45 days to maturity)
I had been considering turnips as a good storage vegetable. It’s not something we normally buy, but not because we don’t like it. We just like other things better, and I usually get rutabagas instead, because they tend to be smaller. However, no grocery store carries this turnip variety! I look forward to trying them. It certainly meets what we look for when deciding what to grow.
This order coming in was just the thing I needed to cheer me up on a chilly day!
Among the packages we got in the mail today was our seed order from Heritage Harvest!
I felt like a kid in a candy store, opening this up, even though I knew exactly what’s in there!
Or not!
I didn’t remember ordering two types of tomato.
I double checked my order, and the shipping notification and no, I did not order two types of tomato!
The extra packet is the Sophie’s Choice tomato, so of course I had to look it up.
The first thing I noticed is that the website has been redone, and it looks fabulous! The next thing I noticed that their new-for-22 items are now up – and then I saw that stuff I was interested in that were out of stock are now in stock!
Dangit. I’m going to have to make another order.
Oh, the tragedy… :-D
As for the mystery tomatoes, I found their listing. They are a determinate, short season variety and described as extremely rare! So I sent them an email mentioning the extra seeds, offering to pay for them, since I’m more than happy to plant a rare variety to help keep them going.
Now I’m going to have to go back there and do some shopping! :-D
I was really excited to find Heritage Harvest Seed. First because it is a company from Fisher Branch, Manitoba. They are even further north than we are. Which means we can be confident that anything we order from them will grow here!
Also, they specialize in rare and endangered seeds. I love going through the site and reading the descriptions, which include things like the history of a particular plant, or the efforts made to find seeds, and so on. Quite a few things ended up on my wish list the moment I saw “extremely rare” added to the description!
There’s no way we could possibly order everything on my wishlist! However, when I placed my order, I did include things we will not be able to plant this year, but which I hope to plant in the future.
It was so hard not to order more than I did!
Here is what I settled on. All photos belong to Heritage Harvest Seeds.
Here we have a very different corn than I’m used to; Tom Thumb Popcorn. It is a small variety, growing to about 2 feet high, that produces many cobs that are only 2 or 3 inches long. They make an excellent popcorn, and are a short season corn. Popcorn is one of our few regular snack foods, and we’re always running out, so if we can grow our own, that would be awesome. :-)
This is the one variety of tomato that we are growing, not as a snack food for my husband and older daughter, but as something to preserve in the larder. I’ve been looking for a paste tomato to try, and settled on Cup of Moldova. It is listed as extremely rare. It is an indeterminate variety that is good for making sauce, which means it should also be good for making tomato paste. That is what I am growing them for. As it is a rare variety, we will definitely be keeping seeds, too.
Here is another red onion I decided to try. Tropeana Lunga. The Baker Creek onion I ordered is similar to this, and this one is also an Italian variety.
This makes a total of five different varieties of onions we have seeds for, but I don’t mind. We use onions a LOT. The hard part will be finding the space needed to start them indoors.
We’ll figure something out!
Last time, I ordered these seeds from Baker Creek. They failed completely, and we don’t know why. Perhaps ordering Strawberry Spinach from a Canadian, zone 3, source might make a difference? I don’t know. We will do what we can to improve the bed we’ll be planting them in as well. I do hope they work out this time. I was really looking forward to them!
Though we’ve ordered pole beans, I wanted to have at least one variety for dry beans, rather than fresh eating. These are Blue Grey Speckled Tepary, and were once a staple food in parts of the US and in Mexico. They are also drought resistant and heat tolerant – which, after this past summer, is a big deal!
This is the third variety of hulless pumpkin seeds that I ordered; Styrian hulless. This variety was used to press for oil, and the fruit can reach up to 20 pounds in size! The description noted it as being very productive and dependable.
This is another one I picked when I saw it listed as extremely rare: Boston Marrow Squash. There is an interesting history behind it, but the real selling point was the description including “…makes the best pumpkin pie I have ever tasted!” It’s also a good storage squash. Even if we only grow a couple of plants, I want to make sure to save seeds from it, to keep the variety going.
Yes, I picked a wheat. The historical Marquis wheat, which is supposed to have excellent baking qualities.
We don’t have anywhere to grow wheat right now, but it is something we do want to do, so we can grind our own flour. Wheat seeds can last for a very long time, so I don’t mind getting some now, while we can, for future use.
This one is my wild and crazy purchase. The Zucca Melon; a variety that was saved from near extinction. I highly recommend clicking on the link and reading the story behind it.
These can get massive – anywhere from 60 – 120 pounds, and is described as …“a cross between a vegetable marrow and a hippopotamus”.
How can anyone resist that?
I’ll probably grow only one or two plants, and hopefully will be able to save seeds.
This makes the last of my seed orders for this month’s budget. I may still order things that won’t get shipped – or billed – until spring, but we shall see. For now, I’m done.
The garden will be expanding quite a bit again, and this time we should have more fruit trees and berry bushes. Hopefully, we will have a good growing season, too, and not have to deal with drought and heat waves again!
Last year, we grew the Montana Morado corn, from Baker Creek, which I thought was maize morado, or Kulli, from Peru. They turned out to be a US hybrid.
There was certainly nothing to object to about the corn itself, but once I learned about maize morado, I just got it in me that I really, really want to grow Kulli corn, here in the middle of Canada.
After much searching, I found a source that I could order from: Mary’s Heirloom Seeds.
This image belongs to Mary’s Heirloom seeds.
While the company is based in Texas, the corn itself is from the Andes Highlands. From what I’ve been able to find out, the Highlands have two seasons; summer (dry) and winter (wet). The temperature swings are more moderate than what we have. It’s a mountainous region, filled with microclimates, so it’s hard to know how to compare to the zone system we use in Canada and the US. With how hot and dry our summers can get, it may actually do all right here. It requires 120 days to maturity, so I will be starting them indoors, as we did with the Montana Morado.
The seed packets have only 25 seeds in them, so I ordered four, since I wasn’t ordering anything else. Even so, the cost of shipping wasn’t much less than the cost of the seeds!
As with so many other things, the main issue will be protecting the corn from critters. If we can manage that, I feel we will be able to grow this successfully, here. This is a corn that can be eaten fresh while young as a sweet corn, dried for a flour corn, used as a dye, and of course, used to make chicha morado.
I may not have made my shopping trip to the city today, but that didn’t stop me from shopping!
I have already placed my first seed order for next year’s garden from Vesey’s. That order is in, including a correction. We’ve got a monthly seed budget right now, so we will continue to place orders throughout the winter, for seeds, seedlings, roots and tubers.
For this past year’s garden, we ordered seeds from two places; Vesey’s, which is where we had ordered seeds for the previous year’s garden from, and Baker Creek; Rare Seeds. We were quite happy with both places. This year, I plan to order from other Canadian sources I found, but we still have items we wanted to get from Baker Creek.
This is the order I placed with them last night. All photos belong to Baker Creek.
I had already ordered onions, but did not have a red onion, yet. This is the Red of Florence onion; a long day onion (important when growing onions as far north as we are) that is a rare Italian variety, noted for its “balanced” flavour – whatever that means!
I like its shape, and think it would be a lot easier to cut!
The description says it can be planted in the fall or spring, but I doubt that applies to our zone!
This is the Black Nebula carrot, described as the darkest carrot they’ve ever seen, and it’s supposed to be exceptionally healthy. We already have a couple of other varieties of carrot we can plant, but I enjoy trying new types, and purple things did well for us in our 2021 garden. Plus, I consider carrots a staple food, so the more, the better!
As long as we can keep those groundhogs out!
Here we’re into something rather different – hulless seed pumpkins! I’ve ordered three different varieties, including two from Baker Creek. I really like pumpkin seeds, but hulled pumpkin seeds at the store is pretty expensive, so when I discovered there are hulless varieties, some of which can be eaten straight out of the fruit, I just had to give them a try!
I plan to try growing only a couple of each variety, so we can see which one we like best.
This past year, we got the Giant Rattle bread seed poppy, which we will be growing again from seed we’ve saved. Next year, we will find a spot for these Hungarian Blue, where they can self sow and be treated as a perennial.
Well, I couldn’t resist! Though we still have seeds, when I saw the Crespo squash was back in stock, I ordered a fresh packet. I was really impressed with how vigorously these grew, and how well they recovered after being repeatedly damaged by deer and groundhogs. If there had been enough growing season left after that, I’ve no doubt we would have had quite a few squash. We will try these again, and take precautions from the start, to ensure the critters don’t get to them!
That is it for our Baker Creek order this time. While I have loads of others in my wish list. Since we are ordering from several other places this year, and I am trying to focus on Canadian sources as much as possible, I don’t expect to be making another order from here.
I was happy to find a small package waiting for me at the post office, today. Our replacement seeds from Veseys had come in!
Ginger REALLY wanted to be in the picture! :-D
You can read about our first seed order for 2022, and why we chose what we did, in this post.
This image from the Veseys website is what the mature Winter Sweet squash is supposed to look like. I am really happy with Veseys, and their excellent customer service when we found we got a patty pan squash by mistake.
We will be placing another order at the end of the month or beginning of December. For the next few months, seed orders are part of our budget. With what I’m seeing at various sites right now, I think I will be making a point of ordering seed potatoes from the one place I’ve found where they actually have some in stock again. Everywhere else I’ve looked, potatoes are still marked as sold out. There are a couple of Canadian seed sites and nurseries we’ve never ordered from before that I want to try this year. We really need to be ordering fruit and nut trees and berry bushes this year, as those can take years before they start producing.
The girls and I will have to set ourselves down, go over our plans, see if anything needs to be changed, and make some decisions. :-)
Our first order of seeds from Veseys arrived in the mail today!
You can read about why I ordered what I did in this post.
We got our two types of pole beans and the corn in baggies. There are quite a lot of seeds in each, which is pretty awesome. After this past summer’s gardening, I’ve decided there is no such thing as planting “too many” of anything! The pole beans will be planted at the squash tunnel, and will probably take up the whole thing.
Bulb onions, bunching onions and shallots. I plan to order a variety of red onions I have my eye on, when we place another order next month. For this year’s garden, I plan to start the onions indoors much earlier. In the local gardening groups. many start their onions from see in January!
I’m not sure what happened here. We were supposed to get two varieties of winter squash; the candy roaster, and Winter Sweet Organic squash, not a summer squash! I ordered 40566A, not 40556A.
I will have to contact them about it. The squash I got is a pattypan squash, so I’m actually happy with this, but I do want my Winter Sweet!
We’ve got our two types of turnip to try. I’ve never grown turnip before, nor do I remember my mother ever growing them, either.
And finally, the beets, ground cherry and cucumber.
I’m really looking forward to growing the ground cherry!
Since I also plan to order more peas, and dry bean varieties, on top of the pole beans, cucumbers, and vining squash, we are going to need to build more climbing structures for next year’s garden!
These are still from the 2021 catalogue. A lot of seed companies don’t have their 2022 inventory available yet. I may be jumping the gun, but I’d rather order early. There’s a lot of talk about food shortages coming up and, while that is for the next few months, it is just more incentive to plan ahead for next year, and growing as much of our own food as possible.
The Re-Farmer 