Welcome to Cranky Puppy Farm!

This blog belongs to two Gen X-er's smackdab in downtown Kansas City where we've been renovating and decorating two old Victorians built in the 1890's. Our life is filled with 3 demanding Pomeranians (1 of them cranky, of course), honking cars, noisy neighbors and the hustle and bustle of city life but we dream of the day when we can move to our 40-acre farm and hear nothing but the wind and the cows next door. Until then, we're chronicling our triumphs and mishaps here as we try to garden and preserve on 2 city lots, raise chickens, and learn all those things we should have learned from our grandparents. Welcome to our world - we hope you'll stay awhile!

Dreaming of My Garden

Wednesday, February 22, 2012


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:

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.

10 comments:

  1. I love to look through seed catalogs and dream of the perfect garden too :-)

    Thanks for linking up with Rural Thursday today!

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  2. Forgive me you have already but I am having a seed give away that is about ready to close, all you have to do to enter is come follow and leave a comment!
    http://theredeemedgardener.blogspot.com/2012/02/2-great-give-aways.html

    ReplyDelete
  3. i used to get some good seed catalogs and one being baker creek, we used to live outside of springfield in a little town called willard! i'll have to check out your links and get back on some mailing lists! i'm ready to start digging!

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  4. I generally have seeds left over from the year past and try to use up what I can -- otherwise, I'll buy from our local farm store.

    Love that Landreth catalog -- would be fun to look through. :)

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  5. I got Landreths (and bought seeds) but I did not get Baker Creek this year, I'm sure because we did not buy last year. I'd like to go to their festival, too. We just aren't planting as many exotic things that they carry. We got Stark's too, and I have bought from them many times in the past.

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  6. Hi, Clint! I'm a fan of yours and regularly swing by your blog. Thanks for stopping by.

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  7. Tanya: I know Willard is! I've actually been there a couple of times. Did you ever make it over to Baker Creek? J. and I are SOOO excited about going to their planting festival in early May. My plan was to post lots of pictures on here if we can get an Internet connection.

    Thanks for stopping by and I hope you'll do so often in the future!

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  8. Hi, Nancy-

    Just wanted to tell you that you have the most beautiful pictures on your Google+ profile. Just gorgeous! I wish you lived nearby, because I'd hire you to teach me how to use my camera. :-)

    Seed harvesting is something that I need to learn and practice this year. I saved my pumpkin seeds last year and will see if they do OK.

    Thanks for stopping by!

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  9. Mary Ann: I just left you a comment over at Calamity Acres re: the Farm Show this weekend in Kansas City. Maybe we'll run into each other there.

    I just picked up the Stark's catalog and saw that they have Purple Passion asparagus. And some gorgeous climbing roses. There might be a Stark order in my future.

    Do you have any good sources for organic seed here in the KC region?

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  10. Our farm uses Baker Creek almost exclusively for our seeds! We love their customer service and have been pleased with germination rates.

    We also use a soil block maker for all of our seedlings...I wrote a post about it a while back https://beewenchfarm.com/2011/02/17/plantings/
    They are very easy to make and allow for less waste in seed starting.

    -=Sarah
    www.beewenchfarm.com

    ReplyDelete

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