We get 90% of the seeds we buy from FEDCO. They have lots of non-hybrids, let you know which are hybrid and which aren't , ant they tell you how the seeds were produced--whether a giant multi-national corporation grew them, or a local farmer. They offer many organically grown seeds, too, and have a good selection of books and supplies.

Johnny's used to be a favorite, but they now sell mostly hybrids, and keep changing what they have available.

Other companies we deal with include Pinetree, Turtle Tree, Jungs, and the 3 companies that Shannymara mentioned, among others.

I'm ordering from these:

Bountiful Gardens

JL Hudson

Native Seeds

Pinetree Garden Seeds

Territorial Seeds

I'm getting all my seeds locally this year, Pops.

My friend's mother was a real live bona fide commune living hippie in the 60's. She sells seeds, herbal tinctures and eggs, among other things. This woman has enough practical wisdom to fill an encyclopedia. My job is to listen and learn.

She is so sweet, she is choosing each seed especially for me and my little yard!

We had a warm spell here and I started redesigning my beds, then it snowed again and I shoulda known better. Tricked me.

In the UK I get my seeds from here http://www.organiccatalog.com/catalog/
Last year I grew 8 Nektar gold climbing bean plants and had a huge crop of bright yellow beans, we've still got some in the freezer. Their site also has lots of useful information for gardeners.

I get all my seeds from FEDCO. Their many cold adapated verieties help me push the limits of the garden season here in NJ. Plus thier cheaper than all other seed sources.

Yesterday, Feb 18, I picked a salad from the haybale and shower door cold frame. Tatsoi, red sails lettuce, spinich, green oakleaf lettuce, arugala, and Mache.

Bit of a newbie question here. I decided to start tomatoes from seed this year. I got brandywine seeds because I figure if I can make it work this year then next years are free. Anyways I planted them in those jiffy seed trays last wednesday. They are now 4inches tall but really spindly and wanting to fall over. I'm going to rotate them because they are all falling towards the window. I bought 4" pots and some potting soil to transplant them. I'm thinking of burrying them quite low into the new pots to give the stem some support to grow from. Does this sound ok? Any other advice?

I have to say starting in trays kicks butt on directly in the ground. Last year I couldn't locate my spinach and lettuce from the weeds that came up even quicker and I couldn't tell the two apart. Here I'll have a nice little plug to transplant.

In the tray I also through a few seeds from an acorn squash the GF brought home from the grocery store last year. One of them has sprouted and is well ahead of the tomatoes. It will be transplanted tonight because it's roots are out and grabbing the plugs beside it.

Strider I'd say you have two choices. Normally I just plant them deeply in the ground. If one bends over then just pland the roots on the side so the stalk stands straight out of the ground.

Secondly, you could try pinching off the tops. You leave 4 or 5 good leaves (in the middle if you are planting deeply). Since you have time before they go outside, this will force them to start getting bushy instead of growing up spindly.

Being bushy is always considered a good thing. One other thing some gardeners try is to put a fan blowing on them for a few hours a day. this is to simulate wind and will (supposedly) prompt them to get more sturdy or stronger to withstand a good wind. Though this has apparently worked for some, I didn't have much success with this idea.

Let me know what you do and how it works out eh?

At this point I've unplugged the heating pad that I started with in an effort to slow down the growth. It appears to have worked, they are no longer putting on an inch a day.

I'm thinking of replanting the stronger ones really deep in the pots and see how that goes, at this point most of them are about 4-5 inches tall but they all only have two tiny little leaves at the top. I will pinch the tops once there is more to them.

I had read about the fan thing online and tried it but that really just removed some of the weaker ones from the running as they all just withered and died the next day. It looks like it was too hard on their stems in some cases.

At this point you are way ahead of the game. I usually wait until they are a foot tall before I worry about whether they are too tall and thin (but I'm a lazy gardener too .)

Nitrogen is what makes your plants get leafy and bushy. You might want to give them a feeding of nitrogen fertilizer at the 6-8 week point. After that I usually switch to a higher amoung in the phosphrus and the other one (can't remember this morning). in the fertilizer mix the other two numbers are what give you good blooms and fruit. I'd feed them again close to when theya re supposed to hit maturity.

Some tomato growers pluck off any early blooms so the plant has to put its energy into growing instead of wasting energy and nutrients on weak, or small early fruits. I've found this to be true in my experience. the ones I pick blooms off of usually wind up bearing quite heavily. (that depends also on whether you have and pick off any suckers as needed).

I did container gardening in the city and never planted more than three bushes because I quit counting each year after 100 tomatoes. We always had more than we could handle. This year (even though I have a garden) I am going to try this.

I am going to try a tiny tim tomato by the door step to temp people into eating them as they come and go. I have 4 other crops I am going to try as I don't have the garden space. Are you going to try the potato garbvage can thinbg this year?

Those fake earthboxes look quite useful. I've been thinking about turning most of my regular garden into potatoes, pumpkins/squash and strawberries since they all seemed to do fine out there in semicrappy soil outrunning the weeds. This will allow me to do greens, herbs and my onions in those boxes.

Tomatoes will mostly be container grown this year. Some will still end up in the ground since I have a tendancy to find a sunny spot, dig a hole fill it with compost and then plant something and see how it does there. I'm far from nice to my "extra" plants

Here are my Spanish onions i grew last summer.

June 9


Aug 23


The only problems i had last summer was the full grown indetereminates i tried growing in 5 gallon buckets, IT DIDN'T WORK! They were stressed way to much from lack of room for the roots and lack of water/nutrients. I think i'll stick to lettuce/onions/peppers in containers. Last summer my peppers did awesome in just one 20 gallon container, i bet i harvested close to a 100 good sized, WAY HOT, peppers.

Good soil/water/some all purpose fertilizer.

On coming summer I'm going to try squarefoot gardening at our cottage with different layers of mulch. We have plenty of

this (what it is in english) growing on our lakebeach. It's a nuisance, blocking the boatway, and has grown expotentially in last decades because of all the extra minerals which flow from farms to lake. We have to reap boatway/swimming area clear every summer, should be done several times to prevent it from growing back. I wonder if these reeds could be used as layers in the mulch, do you think it would be beneficial/nutritive?

Could you folks make those images smaller? they make the frame huge and pretty well kill the thread for we of little bandwidth.

Thanks!

I can remember years ago when Squarefoot Gardening was on public tv. I was very impressed with it and bought the book for a disabled friend and even set up a 4'x4' in his backyard using 2"x12"s.
I even set up wire fencing 4' high in the back for growing tomatoes. He half-heartedly used it for one season and it sat for years before being torn down.
It was a beautiful setup and got sun all day. I'll have to get the book back from him. As I remember, you can produce far more per square foot than any other method.

I am using only 2- 4'x4' beds this summer for 2 adults using Square Foot Gardening. No weeds. Even lazy people like me can get a good yield right in my narrow rocky little yard.

I use raised beds filled with a 1/3 organic compost, 1/3 peat moss and 1/3 vermiculite. I live on a mountainside and my yard is solid rock with just a few inches of soil over it to grow some grass on. In the fall I cover the beds right before the first snow, I keep them covered during the thawing part of spring to prevent weeds. All weeds and pests are removed manually, I use no chemicals at all, nor do I use any plant food products. Sometimes beer and vermiculite for the slugs, but thats about it. The beds are watered daily, after the heat of the day and before sundown. 4-6pm ish, dinnertime.

I plan to add a greenhouse because I find the 2 southwest facing beds are adequate for my summer crops. I thought about storage for the extra beds, but I think I'll plant some compost crops and rotate the soil mix to the SW veggie beds next season.

The Sq Ft gardening has been so easy. I'm ready to tackle 4 season crops as soon as I get a greenhouse going.