2011: The Main Seed Order

Yesterday Eugene and I sat down in front of the computer with several seed catalogues and proceeded to do our main seed order for 2011. This year we ordered from Fedco, Johnny's and Baker Creek. We will likely order some more seeds from Seed Savers Exchange and Dixondale (they do nothing but onion and leek plants and we have heard great things about them and after 15 years of starting our own onions, scallions, leeks and shallots from seed we are thinking about trying seedlings and see what happens).

Here is what we have ordered so far. You won't see many lettuce or tomato seeds in these orders as we save most of what we grow from our own stock, same with yellow and red onions, popcorn, arugula and many other things. And, of course, we have left over seed that is still viable from last year and years before that. But this does give you a fairly good account as to what we plan to plant this year. for the complete list see our

FEDCO Seeds
Jade Bush Green Bean
Maxibel Bush Haricots Verts OG
Golden Gopher Muskmelon
Sunsweet Watermelon
Crimson Sweet Watermelon OG
Halona Muskmelon
Peace Watermelon
Dark Star Watermelon
Super Zagross Middle Eastern Slicing Cucumber
Telegraph Improved European Cucumber
Cocozelle Zucchini
Carnival Acorn Winter Squash
Zeppelin Delicata Winter Squash OG
Sunshine Winter Squash
Yellowstone Carrot
Arat Root Parsley
Gilfeather Turnip
King Sieg Leek OG
Ailsa Craig Onion
Space Spinach
Olympia Spinach
Tyee Spinach OG
Giant Winter Spinach
Flashy Green Butter Oak Lettuce OG
Bright Lights Chard
Champion Collards
Red Russian Kale OG
Winterbor Kale
Diamond Eggplant
Purple Beauty Sweet Pepper
Revolution Sweet Pepper
Valencia Sweet Pepper


Johnny's Selected Seeds
Flavorburst Peppers  Sweet Bell
Lipstick (OG) Peppers
Merlin  Beets
Green Magic Broccoli
TendersweetCabbage
Purple Haze Carrots
Atomic Red- Carrots
White Satin Carrots
Bolero Carrots
Nadia Eggplant
Javelin  Parsnips   
D'Avignon-Radish Long French 
Easter Egg- Radish
Discovery  Daikon   
Emu Spinach
Costata Romanesco Zucchini
Waltham Butternut
Tatsoi
Kyona Mizuna


Baker Creek Seeds

Charentais Melon
Red-Seeded Asparagus Bean
Valencia Winter Melon
Raspberry Lyanna Tomato
Striped Roman Tomato

Saved Heirloom Seed to the Rescue

Yesterday was the day to start 700+ eggplant and pepper seeds. we like these seedlings to be about 7 to 9 weeks old when we transplant them out and since we transplant such warm loving crops out at the end of May/early June, April 1st seemed like the perfect time to start them (plus our biodynamic calendar, The Stella Natura sez it was a fruit time which is a great time to start fruiting plants).

In order to start seed you need to know a couple of things. How much space has been allotted in the market garden and how many varieties will be planted. I knew that there was a total of 40 50'x 4' beds reserved for all the night shades (tomato, potato, peppers, eggplant) and out of that 2 beds were reserved for eggplant and 16 for peppers. The next step was to go get the seed packets and see what we had to plant.

The eggplant was easy-we had a total of 12 different packets of seed. 6 of the packets were 6+ years old and so assumed dead so I tossed those seeds out (by tossing out I mean putting the seeds in the compost and saving the packets for other uses such as seed saving). This left me with 6 varieties-Dancer, Nadia, Casper, Galine, Rosita and Oriental Express. Since Galine was bought to replace Nadia and Rosita to replace Dancer (probably because these varieties come from Peto Seed which is a part of Semenis which is Owned by Monsanto, but I would have to look this up to be sure) and both those seeds are 3+ years old, they were not planted.

The peppers were also easy because most of the seed we are using this year we bought this year. So it was a matter of going through the pepper seeds and picking out all the brand new clean, unopened seed packets and putting them aside. I chose 7 varieties, Valencia, an orange pepper we have done for years and years because it is a great pepper, Islander, a purple pepper, Revolution, the best red bell pepper out there as far as I am concerned, Lipstick, a red pimento pepper that is new to us this year, Flavor burst, a yellow Italian type reputed to have great flavor (this is also a new variety for us this year), Jalapeno and Cayenne because, while we do not sell a lot of hot peppers, these two are pretty essential to have around for personal use.

I also used this time to figure out what tomatoes will be planted this year but that is another blog post for another time...

After I figured out just what varieties I would plant I than figured out just how many seeds needed to be started to cover our asses. There is a bit of an art to this. You do not want to run short and find you don't have enough plants to fill beds and you do not want so many that after you are all done you have many flats of seedlings sitting around that Eugene refuses to kill for months on end, getting bigger and bigger. You may ask why we don't sell these plants? We don't because by the time we know what could be sold (the leftovers after transplanting) it is so late in the home garden planting season that it is hard to sell vegetable seedlings, so we make a very feeble attempt at doing so. And we are not at all set up to do seedlings for sale. We need a lot more seed starting space and a proper greenhouse that can be heated and that takes $$$.

When I figure out how many seeds to start I take into account the germination will not be 100%, more like 80% for new seed and for seed that is 3+ years old much lower rates of germination. And at least 20% will die for some reason before transplanting. Our first year here we have had 90% die off due to mice decapitating most of the pepper seedlings. So I like to start around 50% more seed than is needed as it is always better to have it and not need them than to need them and not have them. And because we do a lot of heirloom and specialty hybrids it is not as if we can trot off to the local TSC or Wal-Mart and pick up packets of the varieties we need (actually when K-mart had the Martha Stewart seed collection I found for several things like Chioggia beets and Costata Romanesque zucchini were in stock). For most things we have to order through the mail which takes extra time (as I will not pay $50+ for over night delivery for a mofo $10 packet of seed).

Okay, so with all this information I went out to the barn and made 700+ tiny soil blocks, took a break and than came back with Eugene in tow to get all these seeds started as well as finding/making tags so we know what's what. This is simple and yet amazingly important step-all pepper and eggplant seedlings look a like, never ever think you can tell one from the other. And when it comes time to prick the seedlings into 2" soil blocks there will be trouble. There will be even more trouble when it comes time to transplanting the mystery seedlings as one would have no idea what goes where. The problems get even larger when harvest time rolls around 90 days after planting the seeds.

So we started sowing seed and find we did not order enough seed for many of the peppers. This is in large part because both Fedco and Johnny's have gone nuts on using very confusing and changeable units of measurement for their seed sales. Some seeds are measured using English units (oz, pounds, etc..) some use metric (grams, Kilograms, etc..) and some are sold by the thousand. So this means you have to have the ability to convert from measurement to another and it seems we are not great this ability (nor are many market growers, judging by the bitch fest about this topic on the market farming email list in Jan and Feb). Also Eugene's eyes are weakening and the boy is too vain to wear glasses (I am talking cheaters, not prescription) so he missed a couple of crucial decimal points and thus instead of ordering 400 Revolution pepper seeds (4 grams) he ordered 40 (.4 grams) - but we got lucky and Fedco sent 65, about 1/3 the amount we need.

This pisses me off because 2 years ago he did exactly the same thing (but that was the year of the terrible pepper season for western Ohio so it really did not matter in the end, we would have lost them no matter what). The good news is I can still order this variety through Fedco because after years of resistance they have on-line ordering and now will take seed orders until September, instead of shutting down the orders in early spring and I see they have Revolution seed in stock. So I have just ordered a whole gram of seed (Woo Hoo!!!).


Any Hoo, we found, in the end, we were short on a lot of pepper seed variety (due to the confusion of changeable metrics) and thus ended up with not enough potential plants to fill the space allotted. So I looked to see what we had in saved seeds from years past and found Chinese Giant in red and yellow. So I planted enough of those to fill up all the small blocks. these are older seed so they may not germinate well, if at all. And these are not my first choice as the fruit tends to come on late and the peppers tend to not ripen without getting hit with something, so low yields of usable fruit, generally. Still we did have these heirlooms on hand and they did save the day.

But now that additional Revolution seed has been ordered and should arrive in less than a week we should be all right for red bell peppers and probably won't need many of the Chinese Giant.

Seed Buying

One of the big events in winter for us farmers is the seed order. Since we garden on acres this is a far larger undertaking than when we did home gardens. Ordering has happens much earlier for us growing commercially than for home gardeners. In fact we get our commercial catalogs about 3 weeks earlier than the home gardener catalogs (we know this because several of the companies we use have both). So in mid December we get our first catalogs-Johnny's and Fedco Followed by Seed Savers Exchange. A those are the 3 main companies we use for our seed supply.

There are a whole lot of companies we will not use due to the fact they source most of their seeds from companies owned by Monsanto (Peto and Semenis seeds). Jung's is one of them. Okay, another big reason we will never ever buy from Jung's Seeds ever again is they have sent us a lot of horrible plants and seeds. The rhubarb we got from there all died within 12 months, 95% died within 3 months. Than there were the trees they sent us last year that should have come in March or early April but cam in mid June and all but 1 were dead. We also do not like the policy of no refunds, store credit only. And they have bought up a lot of smaller companies (that people think are still independents) such as Totally Tomato
Vermont Bean Seed Co., Burpee, Cook's Garden, Earl May Seeds, Gardens Alive (not really a seed place they are more into fertilizers, pest control, etc.. and used to be a really good place to buy organic inputs), Lindenberg Seeds, Mountain Valley Seeds, Park Seeds, T&T Seeds, Tomato Grower's Supply, Willhite Seed Co., Nichol's, Rupp, Osborne, Snow, Stokes, R.H. Shumway, The Vermont Bean Seed Co., Seeds For The World, Seymour's Selected Seeds, HPS, Roots and Rhizomes, McClure and Zimmerman Quality Bulb Brokers, Spring Hill Nurseries, Breck's Bulbs,
Audubon Workshop, Flowers of the Month Club, Wayside Gardens, Park Bulb's and Park's Countryside Garde.

I also have quit buying seed from Baker Creek because they have send too many wrong or poorly bred seed. This is a shame because I really like Baker Creek. they are independently owned, they do not sell any GMO seed nor source with companies that do. All things that are important to me. but the seed quality for the most part sucks and in my market garden I have to have good to great seed quality and the seed should match up with what it says on the packet. I would say with Baker Creek, 3 out of 5 times there have been mistakes on their part.

Now savvier readers will note I order from Johnny's Selected Seeds and that Johnny's does indeed source some seeds from Semenis/Peto Seeds (though I hear rumors saying they have stopped or will stop buying from these corporations). The reason I make this exception for Johnny's is because I have been a happy customer for over 15 years, the seeds are top flight. There are very few mistakes made and when they happen they always make good, often within hours. they are an employee owned independent seed house with inhouse seed breeding program that is second to none. They are an official AAS trial site because of their location and great breeding program and they have one of the best seed catalogs in the world. And they have signed the Safe Seed Pledge (This link has a list of all the seed houses that have signed this pledge in 2009).

Around Christmas time we get the first catalogs (Johnny's first than Fedco a week later and finally SSE) and we start looking through them and also looking at the list of seed needs I complied last year as we used up the seeds (this is something that I had not done before 2009-or if I did I lost the list before seed ordering time. This saved a lot of time and made the order far more accurate than in the past). this year Eugene did the order and I was the one who got to put the orders on the order blanks, check to make sure we got everything (we never do and this year has been no exception. IIRC we still need a few tomato types) and than the order is calculated, checks are written and than everything is put into the correct envelopes, stamped and sent out.

This year Johnny's got $193, Fedco $207 and SSE $17.50. I know we still have to order strawberry plants which will be another $75 or so. And there will likely be other orders for seeds due to various reasons. And believe it or not this is a relatively small seed order for us. Many years we spend over $600 on seed alone (and several thousand on other inputs and equipment).

After the orders are dropped into the mail box at the Post Office we go home and sit around and await the incoming orders.

As per usual, Johnny's was the first to send us our order. About a 10 days ago the UPS guy delivered a box full of seeds and we were happy. We took the box inside and went through the seeds and found 3 kinds on back order. But within 3 days those seeds had also arrived at the post office. After the Johnny's order came the Seed Saver's order of heirloom tomatoes arrived. And yesterday we picked up the Fedco order at the post office. Or at least the majority, as many things are on back order and one thing was out of stock Even'star American Rapa which seems to be something for spring mixes so not a big deal that there is none. Besides I contacted Fedco and asked if they could send Hamburg Parsley instead of a refund and they said certainly (because they are flexible like that). one thing i am very happy about is the fact our onion seed arrived yesterday. You see CR Lawn, Fedco's founder always includes a newsletter with the order and he wrote that 6 varieties of onions have been on back order but during his writing 3 types arrived at their wearhouse and thus Fedco was able to fill some of their onion orders, including ours. This is important because onions (and leeks and shallots) really need to be started by Feb 1st for best results. It really sucks to see the term "Back Order" next to the seeds you need early as possible (and it is even worse when there is a note stating those seeds will not be available for 2 to 3 months and you already know there are none to be had anywhere because you already checked out 15 different companies for the variety-this happened to about 10 years ago mainly because we were not ordering our seed early enough, so we got smart and got into the habit of ordering early in the year).

Now that we have our seeds let the planting begin! And it will today with onions, leeks and shallots (and maybe kale and lettuces too).

Seed Ordering Time

January is seed ordering time here at Boulder belt. The seed order used to be a huge event for us that caused a great deal of stress (what if we forget something? What if we get it WRONG!!??!?). we would get the seed catalogs in the mail (most arriving by Jan 1st because we are commercial growers and commercial growers get their catalogs before the home gardening crowd). We would study the catalogs for days dreaming of spring and planting and warm mornings and fresh food being harvested daily and other unwintry thoughts. We would put big black stars by the seeds we wanted to buy and would fill out order forms and check them twice than send in the orders.

And every time we would discover we had missed something important and would freak out.

These days we do not find the seed order is such a big deal because we have started in the past two years putting 2 to 4 seed orders every year pretty much in every season. So if something is forgotten we no longer freak out. Instead we just order whatever it is we need and grumble about S&H charges that could have been avoided if we only had order whatever with the rest of the seeds.

So far this year we have put in our orders to Johnny's selected seeds and Fedco and have only forgotten one item-5 pounds of sugar snap peas, one of our best selling crops. I have not decided if I want to put in another order to Johnny's or Fedco or go with one of the Heirloom companies-Baker Creek or Seed Savers Exchange. Both have sugar snap seed, I believe. But we have not order sugar snaps from either of those companies before so don't know the quality. We usually get our peas from Fedco or Johnny's and do know what to expect form them.

Something that has come up in the various forums I use about seed buying-The fact that Monsanto bought Semenis seeds and now controls something like 85% of the global seed stocks. We at Boulder belt do research where the seeds we buy come from and we avoid buying Monsanto owned seeds. This has meant dropping several hybrids that have always done very well for us and finding substitutes. This has not been an easy task for a couple of crops. I have yet to find a replacement I really like for the Fat n Sassy green to red bell pepper. It has been fun trying out different peppers both hybrid and heirloom. I have found many heirloom varieties I like a lot but none have come close to replacing this red bell (but I have found some wonderful yellow, purple, brown, red cheese and other peppers that now have a place in the market garden)

We used grow a wonderful pure white sweet onion called Superstar that we dropped because of the Monsanto connection and have yet to find anything close. So now we grow heirloom sweet onions that are not as pretty but have no ties to Monsanto and have excellent taste, though rarely are as mild as the Superstar.

I am hoping today we finish up the seed ordering for this month. We still have to order some tomato seed. There are two heirlooms I want to grow-Paul Robeson, a black beefsteak mater named for the performer/activist, Paul Robeson and also Green Zebra because Miami University is interested and we have not grown a green full sized mater in years. We grew GZ about 6 or 7 years ago and it was prolific, pretty but not the best tasting mater that we grow. We also have to order eggplant and of course the sugar snap peas. I think we will also order several flower varieties. We have been wanting to grow sunflowers for years and I think this is the year to do so. Sunflowers can brighten up any day and it looks like we are going to go through a lot of very dark days and will need sunflowers to rescue us all. And we need yarrow and there will likely be many other seeds we will decide we cannot live without.