It's garden time! Another BIG list of seed and garden catalogs

 It's time for a garden!

A beautiful flowery garden fence.

It is that time again. time for planning your garden, and actually working on it too.

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

A reminder for gardeners

A reminder for gardeners (and for myself!)

If you are going to plant a garden this year, now is the time to start some seeds. You can start them indoors and have lights for them or put them by a window. You will be able to transplant them to a cold frame later on.

I usually put this off and don't have my own (cheap) seedlings to use, and wind up getting plants later in the season and spending money I don't need to. Then I also regret not having any tiny flowers to plant either.

So this year I'm going to do it!

Hopefully. Are you planning a garden this year? Comment below and tell me your plans. Sometimes just writing about it can help make it happen.

What are you going to plant? I hope to plant tomatoes, peppers, loads of different flowers and herbs, some catnip, and maybe potatoes. We'll see. 

Betsyanne

My Personal Page and blog
The Nontrads site and blog
My Squidoo pages
Join me on Twitter as @betsyanne or @nontrads

Motivation... and Energy for the Garden Spot

My To-Do List(s) mention getting seeds going for the garden this week (actually a few weeks ago, but that's OK too).

I found some plastic seed sprouters out in the Little House in the back yard, so now I am ready.

Some choices for this yeaer:
1. Sweet Snap Peas
2. Sunflowers (many kinds)
3. Baby Watermelon
4. He-Shi-Ko onions (must look these up)
5. Tomatoes

I tried some striped tomatoes last year and the flavor was great. I will order some of those seeds for either next year, or (maybe) this year.

There were some very reasonable striped tomato plants at the Farmer's Market last year, too.

It would also be fun to try to make a fence out of willow strips and other branches this year. I know I will want to try to grow some more flowers. If the apple tree can keep its blooms this year, I will be happy because then we will have apples. The early freeze completely took all the blossoms last year.

I think I have some more containers outside, so I'll need to get those to the house, too.