I’ll make this brief so we can get to the good stuff, which is Free Seeds.
Something happened a couple months ago when I started getting death threats for writing this blog. I had my own “put up or shut up” moment and realized that, in writing here, despite what I’d been telling myself about how this blog was just my hobby, I had accidentally created for myself an awesome job, and I had two choices: quit and lick my wounds because sometimes people are jerks, or respect this gig for what it really is.
After the douche-waffle thing, I took a few weeks off and really thought about what the hell I was doing here. In the end I decided that, if the Universe hands you the opportunity for your dream job, you take it and you work hard and you don’t complain. That snapped me out of a kinda anti-consumerist delusion I’d been operating under, this idea that I would be a complete fraud if I got compensated at all for the inordinate time, effort and expense it takes to make this blog happen.
So, anyway, long-story-short, now I have a sponsor. No – I have the best sponsor. When you are a little advertising shy like me, it helps when your first and only sponsor is a small, friendly, super-ethical seed house that believes in the exact same things you do.
Meet High Mowing Organic Seeds
High Mowing Organic Seeds is my new sponsor. They are a 100% organic, GMO-free, farm-based seed house. They are located in Vermont, and grow and trial many of their varieties in-house, but also have partner organic seed growers in Washington, Oregon, Idaho, California, Vermont, and New York.
I love them, and here’s why. High Mowing is doing something really important – they are aggressively developing more varieties of seeds that are successful for organic growers. That matters for two reasons.
The Selfish Reason – Organic Adaptation: You know how people talk about how heirlooms are awesome because they have become adapted to certain conditions over generations of seed-saving? Well, the organic thing is no different. Seeds grown from organically grown plants carry genetics that make them better adapted to successful organic culture in the garden or in the field.
Conventionally grown seeds come from plants that probably grew well with a lot of help from high doses of very strong chemical fertilizers, fungicides and herbicides. But you aren’t growing your veggies that way, so why buy seed that is adapted to that culture when organic seeds are more likely to thrive under the backyard organic conditions you’re providing?
The Big Picture Reason – Look, most people growing vegetable seeds are decent folk, but the regulations regarding what can be sprayed on seed crops is far more lenient than what exists for crops grown for human or animal feed consumption. Because of this, it’s pretty easy to spray stuff on your seed crops that you’d never be able to spray on your food crop. The Oregon Department of Agriculture, as an example, grants Special Local Need (SLN) pesticide registrations for crops grown for seed. These give the grower carte blanche to spray…um, basically whatever…as long as they include this message on the wholesale tag:
“This seed was produced using one or more products for which the United States Environmental Protection Agency has not established pesticide residue tolerances. This seed, in whole, as sprouts, or in any form, may not be used for human consumption or animal feed. Failure to comply with this condition may violate the requirements of the Federal Food and Drug Administration, the Oregon Department of Agriculture, and other regulatory agencies.”
That’s just not very comforting, is it?
Stuff like this makes me feel like insisting on organic growing methodologies from seed-to-sandwich isn’t nearly so paranoid as it might seem. And that’s where High Mowing comes in. 100% organic seed production means none of their products are part of the problem, and – in fact – by pushing more seed crop land into organic production, supporting their seeds is nudging acreage towards the solution.
Win Free High Mowing Organic Seeds
Okay, back to selfish…High Mowing is starting off their sponsorship here at NW Edible with a bang by giving away one of their 100% Organic Garden Starter Collections to one lucky reader.
The High Mowing Garden Starter Collection includes 10 seed packets of adaptable, easy-to-grow, organic vegetable varieties (I’ve grown most of these very successfully in the Pac NW) and – bonus!- it comes in a fab, reusable box.
This collection includes one packet each of:
- Provider Bush Bean
- Detroit Dark Red Beet
- Danvers 126 Carrot
- Marketmore 76 Cucumber
- High Mowing Mild Mix
- Gourmet Lettuce Mix
- Cascadia Snap Pea
- Cherry Belle Radish
- Sweet Basil
- Dark Orange Calendula
This collection is valued at $27.50. One lucky winner will get the whole collection for free.
To enter to win, leave a comment on this blog post telling me what vegetable you have the most trouble growing. (Mine is carrots, which is why I am excited to see if this rust fly resistant carrot lives up to the hype.) The winner will be notified by email.
Contest open until Thursday, January 9th at 8:00 PM PST. Contest open to US residents only due to shipping regulations.
Thank you to High Mowing for sponsoring this giveaway. I encourage you guys to go check out High Mowing and request a free catalog. See if you like what you see.
Good luck everyone!
Update: Contest now closed. Thank you to everyone who entered, and to High Mowing for sponsoring this giveaway. Congratulations to winner Joy D, who said, “I started gardening in a field claimed as a community plot for gardeners. Therefore the root veggies were/are the hardest. (I could find no one with a rototiller. When I was a kid my Dad was busy with his rototiller every day after he came home from his job until dark. Helping everyone he could to get a good start in their gardening.)”
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I have very little luck with cucumbers despite great luck with more challenging items.
Lettuce of all types. I don’t understand what I’m doing wrong – too rich, too dry, too hot, too sunny/shady?
Brussel Sprouts! Every year I try, every year the plants are completely destroyed by bugs.
I have trouble with the brassica family….broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower….the cabbage moths keep laying eggs and I end up with bunches of chewed up cattipillar infested stubs of plants.
Number one most troublesome to grow is Turnips! Either they don’t come up at all, or if they do-they never seem to mature, but only go to tops! They are closely followed by beets-with the same problems. For the first several years of trying, I thought it was because I had planted them too closely (those TINY seeds!), but this past growing season, I took a LOT of time spreading the seeds out and it did not seem to help much!
Carrots. Totally inept at producing an edible carrot. Time of year, location in the garden, variety, care and watering, mulching or lack of, nothing seems to help. All I ever get are short, skinny, stumpy carrot-like pencils that look terrible and taste worse. I’ve even replaced the soil in one of my beds to a 50/50 sand/compost mix and nothing. It’s actually become a joke among my gardening friends. They even hosted a “carrot funeral” one spring when I was planting. Not funny then, but pretty hilarious now.
Heck. It’s easier to list what grows for me. Cucumbers, snow peas, peppers and basil. Bumper crops, huge plants every year. Everything else is hit and miss. Can’t get a beet to grow to save my life!
Cucurbits. Without fail. I cannot grow them to save my life. We’re leaving NYS for NC, though, and while I’m sad to be leaving behind my new hugelkultur beds and my really lovely traditional raised beds, I’m hopeful that maybe a change of scenery will allow me to grow some gol-danged zucchini for once.
Tomatoes are our most inconsistence and heartbreaking crop. Every year something doesn’t do what we expect- to much, not enough, bug problems, fungus on and on as you know…But Every year it is with the on going tomato bust. I have always had a “green thumb”, but around here the tomatoes just don’t know I can grow them. I just keep trying and will continue until I get it right- but that year the animals will probably eat them all. LOL. So glad you made the choice to continue along your path. You have good information and great ideas, and a very entertainingly beautiful family. My world is a better place with you in it. Thank you. I am going right now to check out the seed company and request a catalog…..maybe get some seeds
Sweet peppers! Although I have a survivial of the fittest approach to gardening, so maybe they just aren’t evolved enough to make it at our house.
Broccoli and radicchio! I haven’t found a good way (yet) of keeping groundhogs from eating it before it’s ready to harvest.
hey folks, each year *something* is going to fail while something else will do great, in my experience. Last year just about everything was great or just good. I guess the only plant I don’t do is Brussels Sprouts. Have never been happy with the results, and easier to just buy at the store.
Beets. But that’s mostly because by the time I get over the “they’re just too pretty to pick!” stage, the chipmunks have chomped on them. So you can’t really blame the beets.
Summer squashes – the stem borers have found our garden. Argh.
Potatoes. Every year they look great for a month or so, then die suddenly… every year.
Erica,
Thank you for sharing this seed company with us. Please don’t feel bad that you are making some $$. I know that you have a lot of integrity and because of this I feel confident in purchasing from businesses you recommend. I would like to see you recommend more of them.
My tomatoes gave me some trouble last year. I’m in the suburbs of Portland, Oregon. It must have been me because I grew the plants from seed and the ones the neighbor got from me did wonders. It must have been the White Lightning dirt they used. It’s organic and I think I will get some this year.
I have the most trouble with root veggies. We have hard red clay, so I built raised boxes. Not sure if my soil is off balance or what. Super frustrating.
I have trouble growing cukes…I would use the seeds for my community garden starts…
cauliflower has always been a problem for us. Worms worms worms.
I agree. No apologies for self-sufficiency.
I’d have to chime in and say CARROTS are one of the hardest things for me to grow. But I always try because my kids love to pull them up and marvel at what they see!
Your website is great!
We’ve grown most of the seeds in the collection and while everything has done well, are most impressed by the Provider beans. Not only do that produce for a long period, they are equally suited to fresh eating and canning. (Best Dilly Beans Ever!)
What we’re unable to grow well is peppers. Our Wisconsin zone 4 has a very limited to growing season. That’s why we’re anxious to try High Mowing’s King Crimson peppers.
I can not grow broccoli. Or Brussel sprouts no matter how hard I try.
Cauliflower. ‘Tis Hopeless.
Squashes—summer or winter. They all fall prey to the evil squash bug!
Given that I have a PNW-getting-shadier-every-year backyard garden, *any* veggie that wants lots of sun and heat to grow I have difficulty with (haven’t even attempted peppers, eggplants, full-sized tomatoes, winter squashes, etc.. for several years now). I am able to grow almost every herb though – which I love. Except for dill. I cannot for the life of me get dill to grow.
I can’t grow squash or carrots, no matter what I do!
I never get any strawberries–something else always gets them first. Thanks for the contest and the referral to High Mowing!
I can grow anything in my year-round San Diego growing season, well anything except for Cauliflower. The saddest thing is that it my favorite vegetable, and I have tried to grow it for years with little success! This year I actually harvested one tiny little head, the first ever after dozens of tries year after year. I don’t know what my problem is. It definitely grows here. Heck the kids at my sons elementary school have grown giant watermelon-sized heads of cauliflower every year and yet the best I can do is one measly tennis-ball sized head and a dozen flowery bolts. I know this prize doesn’t have cauliflower seeds in it, but that’s a good thing because I am really good at growing everything, everything except cauliflower that is!
I have never had any success with carrots, and I can’t figure out what the problem is, so I’ve basically given up. I love High Mowing seeds. Congrats on having them for a sponsor.
Potatoes hate me a little… We’re not quite to feud level, but we’re not that far off either.
I have problems growing peppers. The carrots didn’t work out the year before last, but my second planting this summer grew, except that I planted them too late, so we had very tiny carrots. But they grew! And the two-year-old loved them.
Melons last summer – squirrels feasted on my sweet cantaloupe. Lettuce this winter – keep finding the new little tops nibbled off at ground-level – rabbits I think. Gotta beef up that electric fence, I guess.
Congratulations on the sponsorship – no guilt! And a good, “clean” sponsor to boot. Radishes – have a hard time getting them out of the ground before the maggots get to them. And cilantro…will try more frequent sowings as you suggest… Always enjoy your posts.
I wish I could grow cabbage and brussel sprouts!
I can’t grow corn – so frustrating! Seems like it should be so simple but it just falls over year after year. Just moved to a new house so I’m hoping for better luck at this location.
Tomatoes. It always begins well with so much promise… then comes the blight. For four years straight we have lost the battle.
I have the most trouble growing broccoli. After the heads appear, it gets covered in aphids (I think). The broccoli grows fast enough to keep up with them, but my family is kind of grossed out by the “little bugs” that might crawl off the dinner plate. To my knowledge none ever have, but I sympathize… I was like this about my mother’s tomatoes when they were infested with tomato worms.
This year I’m planning on keeping the broccoli under floating row cover for the whole season to see if that helps. Any other ideas?
THANK YOU for offering the giveaway, Erica. Nice to see you “going professional” too.
~Anne
After many years of gardening on a one acre plot I am about to begin in an urban home and its small garden. My need to develop an organic garden renews all the challenges of years ago. I look forward using Northwest Edible Life.
Ever since I moved to Virginia, I have failed annually at growing cucumbers. They were easy to grow in Ohio, but they do not like my present location, regardless of what I do to coax them to life.
Spinach! I adore a variety called Bordeaux, but by the time our pea patch opens, it’s already too late. The plants bolt without putting on more than a few leaves. And anything that rabbits like. The little bastard found a weakness in our fence and ate EVERY SINGLE MELON, and all the growing tips on the plants too, just to makes absolutely sure that I wasn’t going to get any. If it wasn’t for the cute 5 year old girl watching from the neighboring plot, I’d have tried to smash his cute little head in with a shovel when I caught him napping in my beans.
Tomatoes. (sigh) We try again every year, but the NW just doesn’t seem suited.
Winter squash–between mold and my daughter picking off all the flowers, we only got 1 small one last year!
Pumpkins! Or any vining plant for that matter. I grew up in Virginia where vines would grow without abandon if left untended. Now, I’m in California and I think the dry hard soil and little rain does them in. Also I don’t give them enough room in my raised beds.
Pumpkins and summer squashes. I think I need more bees. However, every time I’ve tried to grow these plants, all I get are male blossoms….
I am cursed for growing peas. Our house came with pea moths that invade every year. So sad.
Carrots for sure – just nothing in the dirt under the greenery! Total failure that was a shock, actually, to see so much, well, nothing under there! Good luck with the High Mowing sponsorship – may it be the first step to much future success and many rewarding endeavors! Thank you for sharing your knowledge and expertise in this wonderful blog! It’s like having a great best friend teaching you what they know, and having a blast while doing it! Thanks, from a brand new fan!
Lettuce.
I live in an apartment with no sun-facing windows. I have grow lights but that doesn’t seem to matter to my lettuce.
Everything! This will be the first year that we put out a garden, and I’m overwhelmed with all the information out there, lol.
Hmmmmm, My garden did well this year. My problem isn’t the growing, it’s the raccoons EATING my corn the night before it’s ready to be picked and eaten by me!! I guess I’ll have to grow enough for both of us. Lol
As for growing: my cauliflower didn’t do well at all! Not sure why…
The most?…how to choose! The veggies I have put into my “I can’t grow these” category have been: broccoli, cabbage, bell peppers and eggplant. I have always said eggplant was the hardest (I have minimal sun) but last year I actually got 2 (!) giant eggplants. First time ever. They were interplanted with zucchini…maybe that helped? So, I shall give the title of ‘most trouble growing’ to bell peppers. It’s probably that pesky lack of sun but I also always seem to get cross pollination and end up with all hot peppers!