Dreaming of My Garden

Guess what I'm up to tonight?

I promised to do a post on seeds and garden planning.  But forgive me, it's going to be late because I've gotten wrapped up in the Republican debate and paying bills.  *sigh*  If only we didn't have those, right?

But I am now knee-deep in catalogs (both printed and online) as you can see and pinky promise to have some detailed plans for you by Friday at the latest.  (I'd say tomorrow, but I have quilting class tomorrow.  Yeah!)

In the meantime, I thought I would tell you about some of my favorite catalogs.

Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds:  Turns out this company is located just a couple of hours south of us near Springfield, Missouri.  They carry over 1400 heirloom and organic seeds (that's all they carry) from the 19th century.  In addition, they host several festivals each year aimed to bring gardeners together to exchange seeds, learn about variets they may not have grown before, and explore the oldtime feel of their pioneer village.  Their spring planting festival is May 6th and 7th this year and J. and I are planning on going.  This is a stunningly beautiful catalog with huge colorful pictures of different veggie varieties, including some very exotic ones.  The catalog is free, but they are out of the 2012 print copies; however, you can download it in PDF version or request their 2013 catalog for next year.

Johnny's Seeds.  Popular purveyor of organic veggie and flower seeds, but not everything they sell is organic or heirloom.  Their catalog is available for free (request it here) or you can view it online and it's provides tons of information including creative ways to grow\plant.  They also sell a dizzying array of gardening items such as hoop houses, grow lights, pots, heat mats and soil block makers (something I'd like to experiment with at some point.)  Their website has a really handly seed calculator that will help you with how much seed to purchase.  This catalog is new for me this year, and I'm looking forward to trying out some of their seeds.  (Maybe their purple asparagus!)

Print from the D. Landreth Seed Company catalog.  Beautiful!

D. Landreth Seed Company:  Landreth is the oldest seed company in America, dating all the way back to 1784.  For goodness sake, George Washington got his seed from Landreth!  Their catalog isn't free ($5.45), but it's chock full of information and vintage ads and prints - the kind you could rip out of the catalog and frame on your wall (if you didn't feel so bad afterward about ripping up such a beautiful catalog.)  They were in some dire straits financially earlier in 2011 and were asking for folks to purchase their catalog to save the company, so I bought the catalog and several packets of seed from them and was very impressed with the quick shipping.  They sell items other than seeds on their website, including some very cool historic weather instruments.  Definitely worth the money spent to preserve such a historic company.  You can read about their history here.

Those are my favorites so far, but here are some others that are worth your while to check out:

• Seed Savers Exchange (non-profit devoted to saving and sharing heirloom seeds).  Catalog is free by mail or available online here.
• Abundant Life
• Bountiful Gardens
• Heirloom Acres Seeds
• Stark Bros (heirloom fruit trees, since 1816!)
• Seeds of Change
• Territorial Seed Company

Are you planning a garden?  Are there any other seed sources that you think are great?  I'd love to hear about your garden plans!

Interested in everything gardening, homesteading, etc? Then go check out other posts like these over on the Rural Thursday Blog Hop.