It's time for a garden!
A beautiful flowery garden fence. |
What will you plant this year? Some tomatoes? Peppers? Tons of different vegetables? Here is the BIG list of catalogs and companies to order your plants from.
Personally, I will be ordering or planting (hopefully) some heritage seeds and saved flower seeds this year. I also will be pruning the apple tree and putting in at LEAST a couple of tomato plants.
I live in Kentucky, and most things have a long-ish growing season. A trend I like is towards natural seeds, seeds that are good for your own area of the country, and seeds you can collect from the garden and then re-use (heritage seeds.)
I have found some great listings in some fun magazines this year too, Natural Awakenings, Countryside, BackHome, Body & Soul (now Whole Living Magazine), and Mother Earth News.
Here is my updated list of fun sites to explore:
ORGANIC AND HEIRLOOM SEEDS
Grandma’s Gardens catalog and endangered species seeds
http://underwoodgardens.com/index1.php
Hudson Seeds, California
http://www.JLHudsonseeds.net
The International Seed Saving Institute
http://www.seedsave.org/
Seeds Trust for high altitude gardens
http://www.seedstrust.com/
Flowers from nursery sources
by the Brooklyn Botanical Garden
http://www.bbg.org/gar2/topics/plants/handbooks/flowers/9.html
Redwood City Seed Company
California
http://www.ecoseeds.com
Redwood City Seed (California) #2 site
This features pepper varieties
http://www.lovepeppers.com/catalog.welcome.html
Baker Creek Heirloom seeds
This company is famous and one of the very best!!
http://www.rareseeds.com/
Heirloom tomato seeds – These have letter codes indicating resistance
to different diseases – and includes Seed Swap 101, how to swap seeds.
http://www.vegetableseedwarehouse.com/heirtom/html
Fantastic Findings lists of seeds
http://www.fantasticfindings.com/results.aspx?cat=seeds
Heirloom Acres, Missouri
http://www.heirloomacresseeds.com/
Takes PayPal.
Whatcom rare seeds
http://seedrack.com/
Sources for organic and heirloom seeds by mail:
http://www.heirloomseeds.com/organic.html
Heirloom flower bulbs
http://www.oldhousegardens.com/
Heirloom seeds on Ebay
http://stores.ebay.com/Blue-Ribbon-Tomatoes_seeds_W0QQfsubZ2QQstorecachemissZblueribbontomatoesQ5fseedsQQtZkm
The Heirloom Sampler site – this site shows pictures of heirloom varieties and explains about each one. "The Heirloom Vegetable Gardener's Assistant".
http://www.halcyon.com/tmend/sampler.htm
Amishland Heirloom Seeds
http://www.amishlandseeds.com/index.htm
Thomas Jefferson’s seeds
from Monticello
http://monticellostore.stores.yahoo.net/plants---seeds-seeds.html
Bill Best’s article from Appalachian Heritage magazine
http://www.heirlooms.org/beans.html - this article features descriptions of heritage beans from Kentucky. You pick out the kinds you want and then send them a check.
http://www.heirlooms.org/catalog.html
Local Harvest Seeds
http://www.localharvest.org/store/seeds.jsp
also: herbs, honey products, soaps, more
Rutgers University tomatoes - these include the Ramapo tomato:
http://www.njfarmfresh.rutgers.edu/JerseyTomato.html
Grow Shitake mushrooms
http://www.mushroompeople.com/
REGIONAL SEED EXCHANGES
Saving, storing, and growing seeds
http://www.freetechsupport.com/csr/seeds.htm
Southern Exposure Seed Exchange
http://www.southernexposure.com/index.html
Seed exchanges for each state
http://www.blossomswap.com/exchanges
FARMERS PRODUCE SHARE CO-OPS
AND SUSTAINABLE AGRICULTURE SITES
Local Harvest – buy foods grown close to your location
http://www.localharvest.org/
The Farm Eco-Village Training Center
offers classes and apprenticeships
2008 Calendar
http://www.thefarm.org/general/calendar.html
INTERNSHIPS
Sustainable farming internships
http://www.attrainternships.ncat.org/
ORGANIC FOOD STORES
Goodness Greeness
http://www.goodnessgreeness.com/
INTERNATIONAL GROUPS
Equal Exchange
Massachusetts
A Fair Trade site – coffee a specialty
http://www.equalexchange.com
Global Exchange
includes Fair Trade items, too
http://www.globalexchange.org/
NATURAL MAKEUP, HEALING REMEDIES, MORE
Marsha Mason's company, River Herbs
http://restingintheriver.com/
Herbal Healer Company
http://www.herbalhealer.com
INTERESTING ONLINE STORES
Hoegger Supply Company
http://hoeggergoatsupply.com/xcart/home.php
Raven's Nest Herbals
http://www.ravensnestherbals.com
They have a downloadable catalog.
(A neat Chicken Coop for sale)
Horizon Structures
http://www.HorizonStructures.com/coop.asp
My Amish Goods
More Chicken Coops, more
http://www.myamishgoods.com
Cosmic Connections, 1701 Portland Avenue, Nashville, TN
615-463-7677
http://www.YourCosmicConnections.com
HOLISTIC and ALTERNATIVE/COMBO DOCTORS and CLINICS
See listings at http://www.NANashville.com
LOCAL – KENTUCKY
Kentucky only
Farmers Market Directory
http://www.kyagr.com/marketing/farmmarket/directory.htm
Agriculture links
http://www.kyagr.com/forms/aglinks.htm
HOW TO SAVE YOUR OWN SEEDS FROM YOUR GARDEN
From Natural Life Magazine
http://www.naturallifemagazine.com/9504/seeds.htm
I hope you enjoy these. Please add your favorites as a comment below here, or just leave your comment, a short one is A-OK. Thank you!
-Betsyanne at The Garden Spot
The photo of the beautiful flowery garden fence is by cwwycoff1 on Flickr.
Here are some of my pages and sites:
My Personal Page and blog
The Nontrads site and blog
My Squidoo pages
Join me on Twitter as @betsyanne or @nontrads