Adventures in seed buying....

Well, went out some time last week to purchase more seeds. What I found out:

---Apparently, there is a difference between "organic" and "heirloom" seeds. Since I was lookng at a single brand at the time, the most striking difference I was able to detect was the difference in color on the packaging.... :) Well, I did manage to purchase the last heirloom package of pumpkin seeds that I saw, and that was truly what I was after, so mission accomplished.

---The seeds I saw that were marked "organic", "heirloom", or otherwise were remarkably well labeled by that company. Otherwise, labeling was hard to impossible to find. There were the occasional packages that were clearly marked as hybrids, but if memory serves, for the most part there was some kind of name or number on the package, and no indication of whether the seeds were hybrid or not. There was plenty of information on how, when, etc. to plant the seeds, but no indication if the resulting plants would have seeds you could use to grow the same kind of plants next year. Either they have a code I just plain don't understand, or they don't feel it necessary to share such information with the general seed-buying population. When I give them the benefit of the doubt, it is probably just a case of me needing to find more information...

---Just because someone is working in the gardening section of a store, it doesn't mean that they know if seeds are non-hybrid or not either. Asked someone there, and they had no idea, making me feel better about myself information-wise, but also leaving me unclear on whether or not the cucumber seeds I was purchasing were exactly what I wanted. Oh well. We can grow cucumbers this year, but I'll have to look elsewhere for non-hybrid seeds for storage.

Do you have seeds? When I saw the packages from the company previously mentioned that were clearly marked "heirloom", I actually picked up a couple of seed varieties that we don't usually grow just so we would have some on hand. I don't know if we will end up using them this year, but it's good to have them and not need them than the other way around. (Seems like I've written that before. Quite possibly more than once... :)

We got our corn and beans in in between rain showers, but still have quite a ways to go to finish planting our garden. Hope everyone else's gardens are prospering....

Trying something new...

Well, after much encouragement from my best source, (Mom) I have decided to try some late season planting. My first challenge was to find some seeds to plant. I called two stores, and no, they had no seeds left. The third store had some vegetable seeds in stock, so off I went. I bought 5 varieties: lettuce, radishes, onions, peas, and carrots.
The garden is really more of my husband's domain, so I asked if he could expand it. He said there was probably room in the existing area if he cleared out a space near our still oh-so-short corn, and our yet-to-arrive pumpkins. So while I was out chasing down seeds, he was out clearing the garden. To be fair, when I say that I have decided to try some planting, I am using the "I" in much the same way that I sometimes use the "we" when talking with my husband. Here is a probably-not-verbatim, close facsimile of the conversation we had this morning:

Me: So what did you clear out of the garden to make room?
Him: Mostly weeds.
Me: So will there be enough room to plant everything, do you think?
Him: We'll see.
Me: So can we plant them tonight? ( My thinking: after all, according to the information I have, I have until the end of July to plant these, so I am on a timetable here. :)
Him: (Laughing) You're funny.
Me: Ok, will you plant them tonight?
Him: Yes.

So that is the plan. Some of the produce I have chosen to start with supposedly has more time--August 15--to get into the ground, but I don't plan to wait. If something arises, and we (he) can't plant them until tomorrow, hopefully there is a little leeway--as my husband reminded me, there was snow on the ground last month where we live, so sometimes the weather isn't what you expect. I guess you can only do what you can do, and hope for the best.
Now, after having given my husband credit where credit is due, I will officially go back to using "we" when referring to our garden. I'm pretty excited, even though the weather around here had been interesting lately. I'm especially hoping that the "over-winter" (I think that's the terminology) crops turn out, since I don't recall having tried anything like that before. My suggestion to you: try it. Hey, if I can try it, anyone can. I'll let you know how it goes.
By the way, Homesteading Hickory Hills is back, and Johnson Family Farm has some recommendations for planting in their June 28th post. ( I know I mention these blogs a lot, but these people know how to grow gardens!) They live in a different area of the country than we do, so you will probably have to check out what is best for your area. But for procrastinators such as myself, with the "end of July" being the key date mentioned, today is actually the best day for this post... :)