I grow most everything from seed. It’s a pain, and it takes up a lot of time, but… I dunno… it just feels more like I did something if I raise as much as I can from itsy-bitsy seeds. It’s, theoretically, cheaper, though I’m not sure how well that pencils out when you consider the lighting, heating, potting soil, greenhouse, etc. Also, I end up with seed packets all over everything:
Seed Pile
And my house looks like a nursery exploded outside it on any given sunny day.
Snazzy Plant Collage
The good news is that I’ve learned a lot about how to do it over the years, and now it’s usually successful (except shiso… WHY WON’T YOU GROW, SHISO?! WHY?!!!) I remember when I first started trying to start seeds. Eesh… if they made it past the damping off phase, which they usually didn’t, they’d end up all long and stringy or chlorotic (i.e., yellow) or some depressing combination of characteristics.
No, now, the only problem I have is that my eyes are bigger than my greenhouse. I’m terrible at euthanizing seedlings, and so when I plant a couple of seeds in a pot, instead of clipping one off, I separate them into pots– voila, two plants. Or four. It gets a little crazy. Gotta have variety, of course, so… you get the idea. Lots of plants.
And the kid comes home from “bring a plant to school day” with the Biggest Vegetable Plant Award, cuz his dad’s nuts.
Biggest Vegetable Plant Award!
You thought I was kidding.
Anyway… let me start by saying that I do not receive compensation of any kind from Annie’s Annuals. I think I should. I would totally accept it. Annie? I would TOTALLY ACCEPT it. But at the time of this writing, I don’t.
So, the one place that I love to buy plants from is Annie’s Annuals. I’ve mentioned before that I’ve tried buying some plants from Territorial, Gurney’s, etc. and have had bad luck. Dinky little twigs showed up in dinky little pots, half dead, and I felt like I’d been taken.
So far, everything I’ve gotten from Annie’s has looked like this:
Today's Annie's Delivery
The plants are healthy, they’re a nice big plantable size, and they’re packed really well. Add to that the ever-shifting variety of stuff that Annie’s carries, and there’s always room for just one or two… or six… new plants. Price-wise, I think they’re pretty reasonable, though it adds up fast. But, in terms of general satisfaction with what they describe vs. what they deliver, I’ve been really pleased. So, I keep sending her money. See how that works, plant sellers?
In case you’re curious, I got these:
- Dianthus barbatus nigrescens ‘Sooty’
- Eriogonum grande rubescens “Red Buckwheat”
- Fragaria vesca ‘White Delight’
- Gorteria diffusia “Beetle Daisy”
- Heliotropium arborescens ‘Alba’
- Impatiens tinctoria
Check out that last one. Hooboy. Apparently, it gets huge. Maybe I’ll take some pictures later in the summer to show how these do. I have high hopes. The plants all looked good, not over-fertilized (too bushy, too green), and had healthy root systems that weren’t all root bound.
OK? Annie’s gets the Urban Hayseed Seal of Approval. The first one, actually. Gurney’s gets the Urban Hayseed Mark of Shame. First one of those, too. Might have to break out Illustrator and make those.
Speaking of shame… Foony delivered this to us yesterday:
No Idea
That… is… well, it came out of where eggs usually come out of. Firstly, it was huge– about the size of one of the full-sized birds bigger eggs. Foony’s a bantam. What’s more, it has no shell. It’s only got that disgusting intestiney thing on it. When I cut it open, it had eggy like innards, but they were not… right, either. I don’t know what happened.
She’s been getting her ass kicked several times a day by the others for months now. She insists on going into the egg box, and Shirley runs right in the henhouse, and beats the crap out of her. Sometimes Ethel gets in on it. So, Foony flies away, waits a few minutes, and heads right back in there. She’s dumb, even for a chicken.
OK, I’ve got more (bee status, pestilence report, and more REVIEWS!) but I have to actually do some stuff instead of just writing about doing stuff.
Like supervising the watering:
WATER, DAMMIT!
It’s going to take him forever at that rate. Why do I keep hiring these people?
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Nice healthy seedlings. Icky looking egg. Cute water boy.
Shiso never grows for me either. Last year 2 seeds germinated out of 24 and this year, a big fat zero. I’m going to try again though because now I’m mad.
What is shiso? It sounds like miso’s smelly little brother.
OK, shiso… is considered by many to be a weed… called perilla or beefsteak plant here. In Japan, it’s used a lot. It has a flavor like… basil crossed with mint, sort of. Combined with pickled plums, it has this really nice refreshing flavor. It’s also really good as a chiffonade in salad dressings or even in sandwiches. There’s nothing quite like it, really.
Howwwwwever, it takes a long time to germinate, and it must be exposed to the light. Apparently, there’s some benefit to chilling the seeds before germination, but nobody seems to know for sure.
Anyway, if you DON’T want shiso, it will grow everywhere– they self-seed, but only if you don’t want them to. If you want it, you won’t be able to germinate more than a couple out of a hundred.
And those will die. All that will remain will be a little stick that looks strangely like someone’s middle finger.
Here’s a picture of some of mine.
I wish I could find out more on this bee thing going on in your yard.
pat
OK, allow me to provide a few pointers to entries about the bee thing.
http://www.urbanhayseed.com/2009/02/14/mason-bees-part-oh-i-dont-know-65/
http://www.urbanhayseed.com/2009/02/15/mason-bee-block-design-2009/
http://www.urbanhayseed.com/2009/02/23/honey-bees-the-beginning/
http://www.urbanhayseed.com/2009/02/26/are-you-allergic-to-bee-stings/
http://www.urbanhayseed.com/2009/03/12/be-free-little-bees/
http://www.urbanhayseed.com/2009/03/16/there-are-bees-in-my-fridge/
http://www.urbanhayseed.com/2009/03/18/reason-to-live-and-mason-bees/
http://www.urbanhayseed.com/2009/04/06/i-am-a-beekeeper/
http://www.urbanhayseed.com/2009/04/10/long-live-the-queen/
http://www.urbanhayseed.com/2009/04/23/irony-possibly/
If you get through all of those, there’s a free tomato plant in it for you.
For Danni:
I asked Rian about Shiso in an earlier blog post and he told me that I could buy Shiso seeds (and a whole bunch of other cool stuff) from Kitazawa Seed Company, http://www.kitazawaseed.com
I explored their website and had them send me a catalog. I haven’t tried anything from them yet, but they have a wonderful selection of Asian veggies and other things.
Thanks again Rian!
That icky egg thingee…As Foony is probably geting pecked on when she eats as well, so her diet is probably not top-notch, so a mineral deficiency, I’m thinking. That and the stress gets you icky. Probably all your hens are a tad mineral distressed, especially if you cooped them. I think they probably pick up minerals from the soil when peck for bugs, grit, and whatnot. Are the other eggs you get a bit thin-shelled? I think I have seen this somewhere before. My thoughtful reasoning tells me calcium deficient, but my intuition says some memory is nagging at me that it is magnesium or selenium or potassium, some trace…
Hiya Rachelle… we’re going to the wayback file here. Well, that thing with Foony… dunno, probably just been the stress. We got rid of her not too much later because the big girls wouldn’t stop abusing her, and I was tired of her escaping all the time. She went to a lovely home with a bunch of mini-chickens, and I was told that she adapted almost immediately. Problem solved. That kid still doesn’t water worth a fart.