Buying Seeds

Let me confess, first of all, that as a gardener, my eyes are bigger than my stomach. In other words, I bought far more seeds than I have room for in my rather modest garden space.

Never mind that I created a vegetable garden in the sky in my backyard: a structure that was once Younger Son's fort is now a little retreat for me with pots of vegetables and two folding lawn chairs. I drink my coffee there on summer mornings, and having the plants up high keeps them safe (mostly) from slugs and snails.

When my friend Laurie and I visited a couple of plant nurseries on Tuesday, this is what I bought:

Hungarian Breadseed Poppy
So that I can grow my own poppy seeds for cooking. I've tried these before and didn't succeed. I'm trying again.

Edamame
These are Japanese-style soybeans. You cook the green pods in salted water and then eat them cold (slit open the pods and eat the beans inside) with beer on summer evenings.

Alpine Strawberries Mignonette
A tiny, very flavorful French strawberry. I grew these successfully a couple of years ago, but lost the plants to winter cold.

Tricolor Pole Beans: Green, Yellow, and Purple
These delicious beans are really fun and easy to grow. The seeds are a mixture that produces beans of three colors. Unfortunately, they all turn green when cooked.

Heirloom Runner Bean, Painted Lady
This is a new one for me. I think I'm going to plant them on my trellis on the front porch, because the beans have coral and white blossoms which are edible and the plants should climb eight to 10 feet. This bean dates to the 19th century, according to the seed packet.

All of the above are Renee's Garden seeds, a brand that I've had good luck with in the past. And they have such interesting seeds. Look for them at specialty nurseries.

I got some hollyhock seeds too. We had these in our garden at home when I was a kid, and I want to plant them up against my front porch so that they will be at head height when I'm sitting on the porch. These seeds are from Burpee.

I also have some Ranbow Blend carrots (Ed Hume seeds) left from last year that I'm going to plant again. As advertised, these carrots were white, pink, orange, yellow, and red, and were really delicious.

And I have some bush peas (Ed Hume) that I'll plant again. Older Son and I both love sauteed pea pods in fried rice.

I've tried growing tomato plants from seed, but have given up on that. Now I buy young plants at the nursery. I usually get lots of cherry tomatoes and a roma or two. Larger tomatoes don't ripen well in Seattle's mild climate. And I'll look for eggplants and peppers as well, and a zucchini or two.

Younger Son ate zucchini last year and loved it--which I count as a real parenting success since he is such a picky eater!

Once I'm over my cold, I'll start all of these seeds inside, and then move them outdoors as things warm up and we move toward summer. Anticipation!

See also:

Pushing Spring

What I'm Eating 4

Carrots for Breakfast

The Cancer Garden

Bamboo: Eat It, Grow It, Wear It

Paradise in a Pot

@ Jeanne Sather 2008.

Comments

[Carver]

That all sounds great Jeanne. I've always tended to go for more garden than I can keep up with so even though I have a pretty big space, I understand about buying too many seeds. I still think too many seed beats not enough.

Hollyhocks are one of my favorites. I grow black beauty hollyhocks as well as more conventional colors. Your garden where your son's old fort was reminds me of my swing set garden. I have raised bed boxes built around my daughters old swing set and lines going up to the monkey bars part so peas and beans can climb.

I'm not sure what I'll do this year as our drought means that no irrigation is allowed period, but I collect water when it does rain so I may take a chance on a few vegetables. We've had some rain lately and I've collected about 100 gallons of water in containers under the areas where the gutters have run off.

Happy gardening to you!

[jeanne]

Carver--the swing set garden sounds fantastic. I really like that idea.

I once saw a garden "bed" in a magazine that was an old metal bed frame set into the two ends of a 6-foot garden bed so that plants could climb. I've always wanted to try that, but no spare bedframes around here.

I didn't realize your water shortage was so serious! I'm glad you're collecting water, as it would be a shame not to be able to grow anything.

[Amorette]

I'm still trying to come to terms with my inability to vegetable garden this year. I'm thinking of sowing the beds with alyssum and cosmos just so there'll be *something* there.

I like all of your ideas, except my fingernails wince at opening edamame ;)