It's that time of year again! Well, actually it's a little later than that time of year for me, but that's for another reason entirely.
Yes, I am blathering. I'm rather good at that sometimes. Anyway, with seed starting season already in full swing and shortly to be upon us here in North Idaho, I thought I better get off of my flintlocks and get what few seeds I did need, ordered.
This year things are going to be a bit different on the homestead for me. Instead of trying to do all the things, grow the most massive market and/or subsistence garden, and try all sorts of commercial agriculture initiatives, I am going to do something completely out of character.
I am just going to grow what I want, solely for the purpose of enjoyment. Okay, and some of that will also be processed and preserved for subsistence reasons, but, you know a girl's got to eat, right?
So, for the first time ever, I will be taking a summer to just cultivate Kat-whims. To spend an entire summer crafting Danish and croissants three days a week at the theme park and tending to sunflowers and cilantro sounds smashing!
With those thoughts in mind, a ton of seeds in my seed bin that I had processed and saved, and that weird dopamine drip jitter fluttering about that I get whenever I look at seeds, I proceeded to throw into my Pinetree Seedsonline shopping cart just what I needed seed-wise.
Okay, okay, and a couple wants, I mean C'MON MAN!
The first thing that I needed was carrots. I have a few carrot seeds, but not enough for the amount that I need to store for the winter, so I got an assortment of carrots that I have grown over the years, Culinary Blend, Yaya, and Imperator. I enjoy all of those varieties for different reasons, but the Deep Purple are new to me, and because they are both purple inside and out, which is my favorite color, I might be a bit extra excited about those.
Beans and Corn were next on my list. I have some Jade and Provider bush beans already, but I am also rather fond of Blue Lake and threw a packet into the cart. The Sugar Buns corn does well in my hostile North Idaho micro-climate, it's so special here that I won't plant anything that takes over 75 days to mature, because you just don't know when the frost will strike or the soil will heat up round these parts.
The shell peas were selected solely because I want a pea, onion, and bacon salad sometime in June. Priorities...
Basil is something that I always grow a lot of, but much of my seed that I have left is getting on the old side, so I snagged a pack of the Italian Large Leaf, because it isn't a good summer without huffing basil that's growing around your place. The 1500 Year Old Cave beans are something I have never grown. Well, I might have once, but I can't remember and I don't feet like looking in my journal archive, but I just thought they would look nice spiraling up the far side of my hops trellis poles. Plus, BEANS!
The smell of dill is right up there in adored summer smells, and the Boro beets are a new to me variety this year. Plus, I have been craving roasted beets lately, so a couple months from now there will probably be a post on that activity.😉
Ah. My two splurges. Last year I grew the Pro-cut Plum sunflowers and I absolutely fell in love with them. They are pollenless hybrids though, so you have to procure the seed yearly if you wish to grow them. I did. Again, so I got myself a few to enjoy. Just like I got the Mammoth Sweet Peas, because I really, really enjoy those too.
And that's the end of the seed order unpackaging! Well, almost, I placed my first seed potato order from Grand Teton Organics a couple of days ago, but that adventure gets it's own post!
How do they grow sunflowers please?
Just by planting them and that’s all or what?
And what’s the name of the seed?
Sunflowers are super easy to grow in prepared soil you just push the seed into the ground down to your first knuckle or so (about 1.5 inches), cover, keep well-watered and they do the rest. Well, I fertilize and keep mine weeded until they can fend for themselves, but truly, they are super easy to grow!
The seeds named in my post are a specially bred cut flower variety of sunflowers, but there are many cultivars of sunflowers, if you are growing them for the first time I would just grow what is readily available to you😊
!PIZZA
Lot of the same varieties I grow. Hope your sweet peas smell heavenly!
Aww, thanks😊 Hope all your plants are beyond bountiful for you this year!
!PIZZA
$PIZZA slices delivered:
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@generikat(2/15) tipped @goldenoakfarm
What a fun assortment of seeds! How do you keep your carrots during the winter? I've tried a couple different methods, and they didn't work. I end up putting as many as I can in the fridge and using them up from there.