The Durham Organic Gardeners will be hosting their monthly meeting on the evening of Wednesday, January 25th, and this month’s focus is the annual seed exchange. It’s a great way to shake some of the winter blahs. Unfortunately, I won’t be able to attend, but if you’re in the area and need some seeds, you should definitely check it out. Bring a mug!

(You can also follow Durham Organic Gardeners on Twitter to stay up to date with other organic gardening happenings in Durham Region throughout the coming year.)

This is the time of year that I go to the mailbox quite happily because more often than not, lately, there are seed catalogues to be found inside, which makes the arrival of those pesky bills much more tolerable.

So far I have received mailings from Terra Edibles, Renee’s Garden, Richter’s and McFayden. In fact, just a few days ago I sent a tweet saying that I was thinking about starting some seeds.

If I can’t have morning sunlight I can at least having morning grow-light. Got to get some seedlings going soon!

— playinthedirt (@playinthedirt) January 17, 2012

That very day when I went to the mailbox, there was a package from McFayden waiting inside. The package contained a selection of seeds including a variety of Echinacea called “PowWow Wild Berry” along with several vegetables such as Crookneck Early Summer Squash, San Marzano Tomatoes and Corentine Hybrid Pickling Cucumber. Just typing about seeds makes me excited these days. I’m itching to get some going in my little home office where I sit and write about gardening and family life.

The new coating on Jiffy pellets.

There is one other thing that I dislike about Jiffy pellets and that is the fact that they contain peat, which is a non-renewable resource and therefore not terribly environmentally-friendly. However, since they were sent to me and the mesh is gone, I plan to give them a try to see how the plants do, and to determine if the outer coating needs to be removed the way the mesh did.

There is still a lot of garden planning to be done before many seeds are started, but I think I’ll begin with a few that I already have here in the house as a form of horticultural therapy.

What are you growing?

Yesterday morning I started to sort through my stash of seeds in an effort to narrow down my grow list for 2010. I came across a gift certificate for McFayden Seeds that I would like to pass on to one of my Canadian readers!

In order to enter to win this $10.00 gift certificate, redeemable at McFayden Seeds (either via their catalogue or online), there are a couple of things you need to do.

1. Follow @playinthedirt or @McFayden_Seed (or both!) on Twitter.
2. Come on back here and leave a comment to this post letting me know you’ve done so.

I will randomly select a commenter to win (with the help of Random.org)! I will also throw in McKenzie‘s Sweet Pea Cupani (new this season) and their Butternut Squash Bisque Culinary Collections, a three-pack of seeds containing Butternut Squash, Carrot Nantes Touchon and Celery Green Utah seeds. Imagine growing all of the ingredients for butternut squash bisque, and then cooking up a big batch in your kitchen. I can almost smell it now!

Good luck!

It’s that time of year again! Time to start thinking about growing plants from seed. I had hoped to have the time/space/energy to grow some tomatoes in the basement this year but it just isn’t going to happen. I will probably take a couple of trips to some different growers to find some cool heirloom seedlings later in May or June, instead.

The whole shebang. Most of the seeds were either heirloom tomatoes (the trend continues!) or flowers.

I received the seed package on Friday afternoon, and today I sorted through and chose a couple of packets to keep:

Malabar Edible Climbing Spinach
Nasturtiums
Tithonia Mexican Torch Sunflower
Broccoli Romanesco

The source for all of these is unknown, but I can start them all either directly in the ground or outside when the weather warms up.

What I put in (pile on the left) and what I took out (pile on the right).

I think I put some pretty nice packets (all brand new) back into the envelope for the next person:

From Thompson & Morgan:

Morning Glory “Carnevale di Venezia”
Tomato “Vilma”
Pepper “Chili Pyramid”
Pepper “Mohawk F1 Hybrid”

From McKenzie: (You can follow McKenzie on Twitter now.)

Strawberry “Patio Temptation”

From Burpee:

Money Garden Pepper “Home Run”
Money Garden Tomato “Steak Sandwich” (The name of that one makes my mouth water.)

From Richters:

Poppy Opium Blue Seeded

From Heritage Harvest Seed:

Early Blood Turnip Beet

And from Mr. Fothergill’s:

Lettuce “Romaine”

I hope whomever ends up with these has good success with them!

Previous years’ exchange posts:

• YGG Canadian Round Robin Seed Exchange 2009
• YGG Canadian Seed Exchange, 2007

I received this message today from USC Canada, and thought I’d pass it along. (It reminded me that it’s Seedy Saturday season!)

If you’ve had enough of salting and shoveling for the season, get ready to dream of spring and attend the 3rd Annual Seedy Saturday Garden Show in Pickering. The event takes place on Saturday, February 6 at East Shore Community Centre (910 Liverpool Road South, Pickering), and includes displays and seminars with more than 30 local vendors and garden associations and a seed swap.

USC will be there too! Kate Green, who manages our Nepal program and campaigns in Canada and internationally on food sovereignty, will be on hand with plenty of USC DVDs, seed maps, and our new Jottings newsletter. And she would love just to chat about the work of our farmer friends overseas. So while your gardens sleep under their blanket of snow, why not come out for a visit?

Seedy Saturday runs from 10am-3pm on February 6, and admission is just $3. Bring seeds to swap if you have any. There’s plenty of free parking. Find out more about the event from Mandy at 905-683-8401.

I received this message today about an event celebrating Seeds of Survival‘s 20th anniversary and thought I’d pass the message along!

August 17, 8:30pm – Hugh’s Room, 2261 Dundas St. W.

Canadian songsmith James Keelaghan, a steadfast supporter of USC Canada’s Seeds of Survival (SoS) program, is teaming up with fellow folk musicians for a historic concert to benefit farming communities in Africa and Asia.

Join James at Hugh’s Room on August 17th for an inspiring evening of soulful song and music. We’ll enjoy the artistry of stellar singer-songwriters including Peggy Seeger, Rob & Steve Richie (of Tanglefoot), Vance Gilbert, and Sheena Grobb. The musicians have generously agreed to donate all proceeds from the concert to benefit Seeds of Survival – USC Canada’s flagship food sovereignty program – and the mountain farmers of Ethiopia and Nepal.

From the African Highlands to the Himalayas, mountain farmers face challenging conditions. Though mountains are biodiversity hot spots and the source for as much as 80% of the world’s fresh water, it’s hard to grow food and make a living on steep mountain slopes. The SoS program continues a 20-year tradition of working with farmers to grow healthy food in harsh mountain landscapes, without damaging these fragile ecosystems.

The concert takes place August 17th at Hugh’s Room, 2261 Dundas St. W. Tickets cost $20 in advance ($22 at the door) and are available at Hugh’s Room in person, by phone (416-531-6604), or online at Hugh’s Room. For more information contact Sarah at or 613-234-6827 x230.

And visit USC Canada’s website now to hear Moving Forward, Looking Back, the song James composed for a documentary about Seeds of Survival work in Ethiopia.

Please forward this message to anyone you know who might enjoy this event.

We hope to see you there!

Earlier this month I received the package I look forward to each spring with great anticipation: The You Grow Girl Canadian Round Robin Seed Exchange package!

I noticed that this year the vegetable seeds by far outnumbered the flower seeds that were in the package.  Since I’ll be growing from seed only those vegetables I can sow directly in the ground or start outdoors, I grabbed from the package the following varieties:

• Romaine lettuce
• Tuscan Kale
• Detroit Dark Red Beets
• Cherokee Trail of Tears pole bean
• Salad Scallions “Delicious Duo” (purple and white salad onions)
• Radish “Rudolf”

The following three I’ll be able to start in pots outside in my little greenhouse:

• Cucumber “Muncher”
• Small Pie Pumpkin
• Golden Zucchini

I also picked out Large Seeded Tall Sunflowers.  I hope to get an annual cutting garden going at one end of the vegetable garden this summer.

Do you participate in any seed exchanges?

Related Article:  Attending a Gardeners’ Seed Swap: A Guide to Trading Annual and Perennial Flower and Vegetable Seeds, by Amy Urquhart

This lovely little candle holder was given to me by a little friend last December. I’ve been planning to write about it ever since. This candle is holder is a great weekend gardening project you can do with your kids.

You will need:

craft glue
an assortment of seeds, beans, dried corn, etc.
an old muffin tin (one you don’t plan to use again for baking
tealight

In a plastic bowl, combine the seeds and beans. Gradually add some craft glue and stir the mixture until the glue evenly coats all the pieces. Transfer mixture to a muffin tin and press lightly so that the mixture takes on the shape of the tin.

Take a tealight and press into the surface of the seedy blob until you’ve made an indentation the same size as the tealight. Allow to dry.  White craft glue usually dries clear.

Pop the candle holder out of the muffin tin. You’re done!

This little candle looks pretty in any room of your house, and makes the perfect gift for the gardeners in your life.

For the last several years I’ve experienced the fun that is growing vegetables indoors from seed. In Ontario (and most of Canada, really), this is one of the best ways to extend the growing season, since our last frost date here isn’t until May 24. Seedlings and young vegetable plants are widely available for purchasing in the spring, but the idea of having something green and growing and filled with hope for the coming season is so appealing that I usually grow plants indoors, starting right around this time of year, or earlier.

While the thought of having vegetable and annual plants in the house tucked away under their lights in the basement is certainly appealing, this past year has been so unbelievably busy and personally challenging that my heart is just not into it this time around. Graham and I both work two jobs right now, and we have a couple of home renovation projects on the go, as well, which means I just don’t think I can handle another area of the house that needs tending to, and this unfortunately means the basement seedling setup is going to go on hiatus for this year.

This doesn’t mean I won’t be growing from seed at all this year. I’m planning to concentrate my efforts on vegetables that can be sown directly into warm soil come spring. This includes radishes, greens, beans and squash. I’ll look for interesting heirloom varieties of tomatoes and eggplants, grown organically, for planting directly, benefiting from the work and care of other gardeners this spring.

Even though my growing process will be a little bit different this season, I expect my vegetable garden will be no less productive or beautiful this summer. I can’t wait to get planting.

Earlier this spring I took the plunge and joined an organization called Seeds of Diversity. Seeds of Diversity is Canada’s answer to the growing need for preservation of heritage varieties of annual and perennial flower and vegetable seeds. According to the Seeds of Diversity website,

Seeds of Diversity is a Canadian charitable organization dedicated to the conservation, documentation and use of public-domain non-hybrid plants of Canadian significance. Our 1400 members from coast to coast are gardeners, farmers, teachers, scientists, agricultural historians, researchers and seed vendors. Together we grow, propagate and distribute over 1900 varieties of vegetables, fruit, grains, flowers and herbs. We are a living gene bank.

Because it was a little bit late in the season when I joined, I had limited time in which to request any seeds of my fellow members. I was super-excited to learn that some members even accept Canadian Tire money in exchange for seeds. (For my American readers, Canadian Tire money is sort of like a shoppers reward points system for one of our major retail outlets. Instead of loading up a plastic card, Canadian Tire gives its customers paper money which they can then spend at any Canadian Tire store.) We always have Canadian Tire money hanging around the house in desk drawers, bedside tables, kitchen counters…it’s all over the place.

I decided that I didn’t want to put my membership to waste this year (most of the members place a deadline for seed requests up until May 1), so I requested Dragon’s Tongue beans from a fellow member, paying with $3.00 in Canadian Tire money. The payment for seeds covers the cost of the postage for the giver of the seeds, plus a little extra for their trouble.

My Dragon’s Tongue bean seeds arrived in the mail yesterday, with a lovely, but brief handwritten note from the member who had given me the seeds. When they’re all grown up and producing, the beans will look like this: