Way back in 2012, I wrote what became a fairly popular and referenced article on the Monsanto buyout of a seed company called Seminis. To briefly recap: Seminis was a provider of lots of garden seed to lots of different seedhouses. Then, overnight, they were a Monsanto subsidiary and seed companies like Johnny’s Selected Seeds…
Seed Catalogs
My Seed Order for 2018
I think we need to add a new term to the general lexicon. Stress-induced Seed Acquisition Syndrome. SSAS. We can pronounce it like sass. SSAS is closely related to other Homestead acquisition and purchasing disorders, such as: Chicken Math Delusion Syndrome (CMDS) – the belief that your 4 x 8 foot chicken coop can totally…
5 Things Friday 1/5/18: Seed Inventory, Salt Lamps, Portuguese Kale
Five Things Friday: where I assemble assorted favorites, oddities, announcements, discoveries, random thoughts, life tidbits and whatever else wasn’t quite long enough for a real post. This week: why you should inventory your seeds now, the nicest glow in the room comes from my salt lamp, seeds are total destruction if you don’t understand growth and more.
5 Things Friday: 1/8/16
A friend of mine recently reminded me that, back in October, I announced a new type of post – an end-of-the-week roundup of random stuff I’ve been thinking about. He gently pointed out that one post does not a series make. Fair point. This week: seed catalogs, minding your own business, Alan Watts, the pleasure of…
Seed Selection Made Very, Very Simple
Heather, a friend of mine and a fellow blogger over at Queen Bee Coupons, emailed me last week and said, I’m completely overwhelmed by the options in the seed catalogs. I just want you to tell me what to order. I want simple and I want a little bit of everything – a selection of…
How To Pick Your Vegetable Seeds Without Going Crazy
“Last year I just planted and prayed, stuff worked or didn’t. Now I have seed catalogs and am so overwhelmed I don’t know what to order. Should I be picking stuff based on the shortest growing rate and that’s all? This is crazy!” -Reader Question Feeling Seed Catalog Crazy? Right now, like most gardeners, you…
A Brief History of Monsanto and Seed Houses Who Got Screwed
The following is adapted from a note I published on Facebook in February 2012. Since I’m still getting questions about Territorial Seed and Monsanto, I’m publishing it here to make it more widely available. It’s seed catalog time! The dripping seed lust of gardeners at this time of year, flipping through pages filled with new…
Seed Organization For Gardeners With Too Many Seeds
On Monday I talked about seeds for beginners. Well, after a season or two of growing from seed you may become (like many of the commenters on Monday’s post) a Gardener With Too Many Seeds. You have become a G.W.T.M.S. when you have file boxes dedicated to your seeds and you debate with yourself every season…
New Year, New Blog, New Seed Catalogues
It’s the beginning of January and everything seems fallow and sleepy. The garden is shivering through it’s second cold snap of the winter. The first came just before Thanksgiving and brought us temperatures in the teens and lots of snow (lots for Seattle, mind you: some places got 5 inches). The second we are enjoying…