Seed Libraries and More from Heirloom Gardener

Our friend and PAR Davies capitaine, Dianne (Dianne's Journey) turned me on to a great niche magazine called Heirloom Gardener.  She loaned me two issues and I loved them.  So when I was buying reading material for a recent road trip and I saw the Fall 2012 issue, I had to get it.  It provided several hours of fantasy time for me!

All of the articles were interesting:

• Antique Apples:  don't you wish that MAMG could have a teaching orchard?
• Nanticoke Maycocks: what?  It's the story of the revival of an almost extinct family of Native American summer squashes
• The Great Moschata:  did you know that what's in that can of Libby's Pumpkin Pie Filling is not really pumpkin?
• Homemade Organic Pest Control:  note to Dianne, there's a recipe that's supposed to repel cabbage worms
• The Mystique of Heirloom Dalias:  with gorgeous photos

I could go on and on.  But I want to talk about one more article that really piqued my interest.  It's all about the seed library movement.  Never heard of it, never thought about it, but it makes so much sense.  The idea is to build a collection of heirloom seeds, then let people "check them out."  Some groups sell the seeds, others give them away with the proviso that the borrower has to return the seeds, with interest, after their harvest.  

Wouldn't this make a great project for MAMG?  A great collaboration with Grow Memphis and other local community garden groups?  There's a Seed Saver's Toolkit and lots of information at seedlibraries.org.  

Leave a comment if you're interested and we'll talk.

Letter from Dianne 9/14/12

Thank you for the seeds, Suzanne. I was especially interested in the Corno di Toro Rosso pepper. I looked it up and what a great pepper to stuff. I will definitely plant some in my garden next year, and really everything will be tried in my garden. I've just got to figure out where to put the squash!!

I had planned on trying another pepper, Shishito. I still need to order the seeds, but don't want to think about seed ordering right now. I saw a recipe (I think in the paper) for these. They are supposed to be addictive, and the most popular way to fix them is a quick hot stir fry with some sea salt. You can use sesame seed oil or olive oil, and most pictures show them slightly blackened or singed. I like the idea of different varieties of peppers. And I just found this recipe that looks great using the Shishito. Maybe I can get my husband to like eggplant. I have one eggplant this year and have been getting a lot of them. The recipe below really tickled me because I even have the blossoms. There are some garlic chives that come up along the side of the house every year and bloom like crazy. The blossoms look just like the ones in the recipe.

Sweet Spicy Eggplant & Shishito

Note:  Suzanne also gave me seeds for Aunt Ada's Italian Pole Beans and for Long of Naples Squash!

Saving and Sharing Seeds

It's that time of year.  Maybe you're gathering seeds from your own plants or maybe you've already begun ordering seeds?  But you want to share with others (and encourage others to share with you!) 

Dianne recently shared some seeds from her garden with me and gave them to me in cute little envelopes that she said she bought at Michael's some years ago.  Where are those little envelopes now?  Boo hoo.

Not to fear, the trusty Internet is here!  I found a couple of YouTube videos showing how to make envelopes, one with orgami paper:




And one with PostIt Notes!



There are myriad (I love that word) pdf templates available - just use the search term "origami seed packets" in your search engine.

Did you make it to the Germantown Festival?  If not, you were one of about ten people who didn't!  What gorgeous weather we had!  Lots of folks dropped by our booth to learn about the Master Gardener program and all the things we do.  We were so sorry to have to tell everyone that the 2013 class has already filled up!  We advised them to mark their calendars for July 2013 and check our website for the 2014 applications. 

You shoulda been there!

One darling young girl spent about half an hour with us.  She was only seventeen, but was an avid gardener.  We have a Junior Master Gardener program, but she's too old.  The regular Master Gardener program is geared toward older folks (you wouldn't believe how many people said, "I'm looking forward to doing this when I retire...")  Wouldn't it be great to have a program geared toward the 18-30 crowd?

Spring Fling Spotlight: Starting Seeds - Cheaper by the Dozen

When Master Gardener Tom Mashour was a Cub Master in California, his pack raised money by going door to door selling cardboard egg cartons pre-seeded with 12 varieties of tomatoes.  They sold 200 in about 2 hours at a buck apiece.  That was 40 years ago!

Jan Trent (MG08) on Starting Seeds

Starting Plants from Seed                           

Since 2008, the CVG flower team (known now as Plants4Habitat team) has started over 1000 seedlings.  The first year, Joan Hermann, Julie Ligon and I had no idea what we were doing…the seeds germinated anyway!  After 3 years, several Dixon Garden Seminars and troubleshooting internet searches here are a few things we have learned.